Violence, the Indian Media, and 'Non-Violent' Indian Society

The online Indian media— at least its English language component, which I follow closely— is quick to report stories about acts of violence on innocent and vulnerable individuals, human rights violations, and the failure of the relevant official bodies to address the matter or to deliver justice. It is commendable that media outlets are proactive in this regard. By taking seriously the objective of communicating such happenings to the public, they create some pressure on the state apparatus to address the matter with urgency and to hold the perpetrators of the violence accountable for their actions.

But typically the stories— which often have incomplete information and sketchy details to begin with— are forgotten in a day or two. A few days ago, the CNN-IBN website carried a story about the repellent behavior of some thugs in Delhi. The goons started misbehaving with schoolgirls from St. George's. They also severely beat up some schoolboys when the latter intervened to prevent the thugs from molesting their classmates. As a result of the attack, one of the students is in hospital in the Intensive Care Unit.

The victims' right to privacy should be respected, so one can understand why the article does not provide more information about them. But the article does not provide details about the assailants. Who were these thugs? Were they affiliated with any political party? What acts are they being booked under? Who will pay the medical bills for the boy's treatment? Has the National Human Rights Commission been contacted? What action is it taking in the matter?
It is extremely likely— although I hope that I am proved wrong— that there will be no sustained and systematic follow-up story on the matter, either by CNN-IBN or elsewhere beyond a few days. It is not clear how many other online publications have carried the story, although I am sure print editions of Delhi publications would have covered the event.

Notwithstanding its many excellent qualities, the Indian media lacks a dedicated component of human rights-oriented journalism. Coverage of violence appears (partly at least) to be motivated by the profit margin, and often veers on the sensationalist. Issues are also prioritized based on their populist appeal. The most obvious example is the mode in which the media cashes in on the Indian obsession with the minutiae of film actors' lives, which are chronicled, debated, and dissected in painstaking detail. The media may have a short attention span for most matters, but their interest in the shenanigans of film folk is relentless and abiding. If only they were to show the same tenacity in sticking to other stories, they would do Indian society a great service.

There are several related questions that can be raised about the attack on the St. George’s students and addressed in journalistic stories at some length. Why is there no outrage from Indian politicians about the incident? Could it be that the thugs who committed the violence are the same breed of yobs who offer their services to Indian political parties— the scumbags who assault couples in parks, vandalize movie theaters showing films that they do not like, destroy shops that sell Valentine's Day cards— for 'protecting' Indian culture and values?

Each political party or ideological faction has a very selective reaction to violence, injustice, and rights violations in India, maintaining a strategic silence on some issues, turning a blind eye to others, and raising Cain whenever an event can be milked for some benefit.

For all its grand talk of Indian values and morality, respecting Indian womanhood, and love of the motherland, the Hindu Right is conspicuously silent about violence against women. Not surprising since every anti-minority riot engineered by the Hindu Right has systematically targeted women of minority communities.

For the Indian Economic Right, nothing matters barring the India Shining story. Their steadfast faith in free trade and that wonderful abstraction-- 'market forces'— leads them to believe that social injustice and inequity, violence, and rights violations will wither away in India if the land and its people are primed for the unfettered flow of global capital. Case in point: the Live Mint website did not carry a story about the attack on the students of St. George's, Delhi. It does not appear to have much material on social justice or rights issues either. One might argue in the publication's defence that it is primarily a business paper. But the day’s edition happened to have a story on Sanjay Dutt -- his jail time was still considered newsworthy, even though it has absolutely nothing to do with business.

For the Indian Left, now screaming its head off about the India-US nuclear deal, an event is not worthy of attention unless it has the potential to translate into brownie points and political capital about secularism and religious minority rights. Anand Teltumbde offers a scathing indictment of the hypocrisy of Indian 'Progressives' in an article in the Economic and Political Weekly about the Khairlanji massacre, which sums it up accurately:

"There is indeed a large section of people who hold progressive ideas on many other social issues such as communalism, gender discrimination, general exploitation of the peasantry, and so on. However, when it comes to caste, they conveniently leave it for dalits to deal with. When Khairlanji protests broke out, they should have come forward to express their support to dalits. After all, it was apolitical and organised by people who in some way shared their progressivism. Why then were they not there? Why do the people who take up the cause of the communal oppression of Muslims so enthusiastically not moved on the issue of caste oppression? Why the people who are genuinely concerned to save Afzal Guru do not show any sensitivity to the pervasive injustice being done to dalits?...Even the communist parties, who claim to have changed their stance on caste issues, do not think that they ought to go beyond tokenism" (EPW, March 24, 2007, pp. 1024-5)

The media gives all these parties a free pass by not holding them accountable to their self-professed ideological objectives. (For all their rhetoric about the security of India, the parties seem least interested in protecting the security of Indians ). Too often, in media coverage, the blame is localized, reduced to the inefficiency or corruption of a few individuals. While particular police and state officials who are derelict in their duty certainly need to be exposed for the same, the obsessive media focus on a few individuals, usually at a low rank in the bureaucracy, effectively functions to let the bigger culprits off the hook. Alternately, the media approaches the issue in terms of broad historical and philosophical questions about the zeitgeist. Example: Is there too much violence in society today? Is consumerism to blame for violence? Are we living in the era of darkness and evil, Kalyug? Is lack of education the cause of such instances of violence?

These questions are valid and I do not mean to be dismissive of them. But the incidents of violence are also proof of multiple and deep-seated failures of postcolonial Indian society: a failure of law and order; a failure of opportunity for millions of Indians; and failures of policy. They are also evidence of the deep-seated rage and frustration that marks the lives of many Indians, theaters of the absurd rituals of redress (transfers, suspensions, protests of innocence, inquiries, restitutions, apathy), and mirrors of a rotting political system. A sociological approach as well a human rights approach to the stories can shed some light on how why such events happen. Such approaches can thus contribute to the process of accountability, at the same time preserving a detailed record of the aftermath of an incident.

The scandal about stories like the attack on the schoolchildren is that there isn't enough of an outrage about them. There were two other similar stories from late last week (Friday August 24) of the CNN-IBN website.

Story 1: An 11-year old student was beaten by seven-- that's right, seven--- teachers for not doing her homework.

Story 2: A 21-year old man from the stigmatized Pardhi community -- considered a 'Criminal Tribe' thanks to the enduring legacy of colonial era laws-- was arrested and beaten by the police in Pandharpur, Maharashtra on the charge of dacoity.

And today, Tuesday, August 28, the online papers are full of stories about the horrific incident of a mob beating Salim, an alleged chain thief, and dragging him around the city of Bhagalpur by tying him to a motorcycle. The motorcycle happened to belong to a policeman, who participated in the gruesome assault.

At least, these stories have been reported. But in all likelihood, there will be no more coverage of these events beyond a few days or at most a week, as with the St. George's schoolboy attack story. What will happen to Salim and to those who dragged him around Bhagalpur? What if Salim’s capacity to earn a living is impaired as a result of the assault? What will the National Human Rights Commission do in that case? Aside from the suspension of a few officers, will there be any initiatives taken by the Bihar police to ensure that similar events do not occur?

But the media will continue to obsess about Sanjay Dutt and Salman Khan, their arrests, possible or actual, the length of their jail sentences, the reaction of other film personalities, etc., etc. And, in the face of constant, ongoing, and shameful violence against the weakest and most vulnerable members of our society, we will continue to praise ourselves for our peaceful, tolerant, and non-violent nature. Perhaps our obsession with our growth rates, foreign investments, booming markets, and our aspirations to global superstardom are means of coping (read: avoiding) the deep-seated violence in our society that stares us every day in the face. If the media highlight this violence, it also helps us to avoid confronting its source. We can see or read about it, express outrage, and then switch a channel or wait for the next such story.

But the media will not tell us what will happen to the boy thrown into jail in Pandharpur or to Salim (if he survives) or his family, what the state has done to improve matters. Sixty years after Independence, surely a little more self-awareness from the Indian media is in order. Perhaps it should turn the glare on itself.