[Editor’s Note: This is Second in 3 part series based on a chapter ‘Communal agenda and Hindi press in a globalizing India’ by Dr Arvind Das in a forthcoming book Religion, Politics and Media: German and Indian Perspectives, Edited by: Detlef Briesen, Sigrid Baringhorst & Arvind Das, published by Palm Leaf Publications, New Delhi]
Read First Part here: Communal agenda and Hindi press in a globalizing India
Dr Arvind Das
In today’s world the media is the prime factor for the representation of ‘self’ and ‘other’. The question is how the Hindi press represents the ‘majority’and minority’community in India? Is the press biased towards the minority? And in times of communal conflict, does the Hindi press report the ‘truth’? India is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-lingual society. According to the 2001 census, of the total population of India 80.5 % are Hindus while Muslims account for 13.4 %, Christians 2.3 %, and Sikhs 1.9 %.The proportion of Buddhists, Jains and other religions are 0.8, 0.4 and 0.6 % respectively. (It should be noted that religion data of the 2011 census is yet to be released).
Communalism, like secularism, has a complex connotation and character in the Indian context. It is a modern phenomenon, which has roots in colonial history and the nationalist movement. In common parlance, it means hostility between different religious communities (Pandey 1990). Even though at the time of independence there was blood and gore all around due to partition of the country, after Independence India became a secular republic. However, religion, caste and linguistic identities still play a major role in defining Indian politics.
Photo used for Illustration purpose only.
Independent India has seen many minor communal conflicts and major riots and pogroms. In most instances, these conflicts and riots have political contexts. Paul R Brass writes: “In many parts of India where Hindu-Muslim riots are endemic, especially in the northern and western states, institutionalized systems of riot production have been created in the years since Independence, which are activated during periods of political mobilization or at the time of elections.” (2006: 65).
In pre-independence era Hindi press had a greater role in inciting hatred and setting communal agenda but there is not much research available to show what kind of role it played in times of communal clashes or riots. However, after independence, in the 1980s, ‘Hinduisation of the Hindi press’ had started vigorously, which went on to flare up in the 1990s with the rise of Hindutva forces on the political firmament. In the 1980s, during the ‘Khalistan movement’ of Punjab, the Sikh as a minority community were demonized in Hindi newspapers. During‘Operation Bluestar’in 1984 (when the Indian army entered Punjab to fight Sikh separatists), the language of Hindi press predominately became the language of the state and subsumed its ideology. On June 2, 1984, the Indian Army entered the holy site of the Sikhs, the Golden temple in Amritsar, to arrest their leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his followers. The editor of the Nav Bharat Times, a prominent Hindi daily, Rajendra Mathur wrote: “Murderers, mad and bank robbers can only oppose this action. In fact, Rajendra Mathur, hailed it as “a historic day”while its sister publication, the English daily ‘The Times of India’termed it as history’s ‘saddest day’!(For more see ‘Hindi Patrakaritaya Hindu Patrakarita?’ Anand Swaroop Varma, June 17-23, 1984, Shan-e-Sahara and Hans magazine, New Delhi, September 1987. )
Similarly, his contemporary, the editor of Jansatta, Prabhash Joshi, in his editorials was fulsome in praise of the Indira Gandhi government and the Indian army. Especially before and after Operation Bluestar, and in the run up to the Delhi massacre after assassination of Indira Gandhi by her two bodyguards, the role of Hindi print media took on a communal element. When Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was killed on October 31, 1984, a leading Hindi daily, DainikJagran, provocatively screamed“Two Sikh bodyguards killed Indira.”By underlining the religious identity of the bodyguards in this way, DainikJagranwasscapegoating the entire Sikh community, and flaring up communal tensions on the streets of Delhi that ultimately claimed the lives of hundreds of innocent people.
In the same period, Hindutva ideology propagated by the SanghParivar, by its political wing the BhartiyaJanta Party (BJP, formerly Jan Sangh), and by its allied Hindu organizations, the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), Bajrang Dal, and RashtriyaSwayamsevakSangh (RSS), were gaining a foothold in the Hindi heartland. Hindi newspapers helped them promote ‘Hindunationalism’, which led to communal frenzy during the campaign to build Ram temple in Ayodhya—that ultimately culminated in the demolition of the centuries old Babri mosque in December 1992.
It is now well-researched and archived that ‘part of the mass-circulated Hindi press-turned ‘Kar Sevak’(foot soldiers) in response to the crisis.’Charu and Mukul Sharma have documented in detail how various Hindi newspapers disseminated misinformation, stereotyped the Muslims and became the voice of the majority Hindu community during Ramjanmbhoomi-Babri Masjid movement (1990). They note: “The Ramjanambhoomi-Babri Masjid controversy and its coverage is the blackest of the black chapter in the history of print media (p 4)”. In October 1990, during Ayodhya movement, a leading Hindi daily, Aaj, in its banner headlines published: Suraksha balon ki goli se char mare, Ashok Singhal ke sar mein goli lagi, Baba Ramchandra Paramhans bhi ghayal, Ayodhya mein kar sewa shuroo, sena ka goli chalane se inkar (Four killed in the firing by security forces, bullet hits Ashok Singhal in the head, Baba RamchandraParamhans also wounded, karsewa begins in Ayodhya, the army refuses to open fire).”Similarly, another Hindi daily, Nav Bharat Times wrote: “Lakhon kar sewakon ne suraksha balon ki lathi aur goli ki parwah kiye bagair vivadit Babari Masjid ko lagbhag dhwast kar diya (Lakhs of karsewaks defied the lathis and bullets of security forces and nearly demolished the disputed Babari Masjid).”
This kind of provocative ‘reporting’fanned communal tension in several cities of UP and Bihar. Here it would be interesting to note that the state controlled news channel Doordarshan in 1987-88 serialized the Hindu religious epic ‘Ramayan’,which chronicled the life of Hindu lord Ram.It further enhanced an already surcharged atmosphere, and has helped Hindutava forces mobilize majority community on the communal lines. The Press Council of India conducted an investigation of the role Hindi press during the 1990 communal crisis. Its resolution states:
“There is little doubt that some influential sections of the Hindi press in UP and Bihar were guilty of gross responsibility and impropriety, offending the canons of journalistic ethics in promoting mass hysteria on the basis of rumours and speculation, through exaggeration and distortion, all of this proclaimed under screaming, banner headlines. They were guilty, in a few instances, of doctoring pictures (such as drawing prison bars on the photograph of an arrested Mahant), fabricating casualty figures (for example, adding ‘1’before “15”to make “115”deaths), and incitement of violence and spreading disaffection among members of the armed forces and police, engendering communal hatred” (Ludden: 109).
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Dr Arvind Das is a Delhi based Journalist and Media Researcher and is also the author of a well researched book ‘Hindi mein Samachar’ (News in Hindi). He can be reached at [email protected]