Alternate Media Times – Volume 3 Issue 12
December 1999
Creating Symbols, Trends, Ideology
Beware! The New Millennium is Arriving!
On 14th July 1999, The Statesman, a leading English daily newspaper, carried a full page advertisement of the Advanced Technology Lab. The advertisement carried the caption: ‘Born To Rule’. The photograph showed three toddlers, 2-3 years old, wearing the crowns of three rulers: Alexander the great, Julius Ceasar and Adolf Hitler. Hitler was sitting in the middle flanked by the other two rulers. All the children had postures and expressions befitting a ruler. However, Hitler, in the centre, as the most prominent wearing a hat marked with swastika, his right fist raised in a Nazi salute staring straight at the reader. To the reader it is quite obvious that among the three rulers, Hitler is the winner.
The German News paper Berliner Zetung published a report quoting a historian that during the period of 1937 to 1945 – the period of Hitler’s reign – the Deutsch Bank and Dressner Bank had earned huge profit. In that period both these balks earned 290 million Reichmarks, which is equivalent to 10 Billion dollars today.
On 23rd November 1999 the International Herald Tribune carried a news that a Taiwanase company is using a cartoon of a smiling Adolf Hitler to sell German made electric space heaters. The large subway advertisement shows Hitler in a khaki uniform and black boots, his right arm raised high in the Nazi salute of World War ll. Above him a slogan says, ”Declare war on the cold front!”
TIME magazine recently conducted a world wide essay competition on ”Person of the Century” Thomas Jacob, a 17 rear-old boy of class 12 from Lucknow won the second prize for his essay on Hitler. There was a thunderous applause when the TIME magazine’s senior writer Anthony Spaeth announced that Jacob’s essay had been selected from over 75,000 entries from all over the world. It was Jacob’s choice of Hitler that made him the winner of the prestigious contest, said Anthony Spaeth. The TIME received thousands of entries on Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Einstein, but Jacob stood alone with Hitler, the TIME declared.
A 12 year-old domestic help was rescued by Delhi police after he was beaten and tortured repeatedly for a month by the lady of the house and her two daughters. The boy was suspected of stealing a jewellery box of the lady. When the boy was rescued he was barely able to open his swollen eyes and was just about able to speak. This incident appeared in each and every news papers of Delhi on 6 December 1999. This is the third such incident in the capita1 in a month. On 22nd November 1999, a teenage domestic help, Suraj Kumar Das, was accused of theft, beaten up, chased and then thrown off the second floor of a Greater Kailash house. On 3rd December 1999, a teenage maidservant Neetu Roy , accused of stealing Rs 2000 from employer’s house, was found dead.
A school boy was arrested and charged with trying to kill his classmates at an Oklahoma middle school, in USA on 6th December. This shooting spree was the third highly publicized one at a US school this year. On 20th April, fifteen people died in Lyttelton, Colorado when two students went on a rampage at their high school.
The Times, London published a news that German cinemas are withdrawing a Hollywood film in which pupils take revenge on a teacher who gives them poor grades, after a wave of class room violence against teachers. ‘Killing Mrs Tingle’ has been re- titled ‘Save Mrs Tingle’ by German distributors. But that could not assure the cinema managers who fear they may be blamed for copycat killings in schoolyard and hence withdrew the film.
Ban on PTV lifted
The ban on Pakistan TV (PTV) imposed during the Kargil war was finally lifted. The Information and Broadcasting Minister, Mr. Arun Jaitley made this announcement on 23 October The ban, clamped soon after the outbreak of the Kargil conflict on the ground that it was telecasting vicious anti-lndian propaganda, had become a subject of controversy, with a number of senior media professionals describing it as censorship and an attack on the people’s right to information. They felt that an effective way to counter Pakistan’s propaganda was to strengthen Doordarshan, and blocking PTV might be counter productive. But the Government went ahead and clamped the ban. however, though late, the Government’s decision to lift the ban is a welcome step.
Film on Savarkar
R. Ragini
After nine years, eight directors and ten scriptwriters, an ambitious film on 1930s Hindu nationalist Veer Savarkar is ready for release. The film ‘Swatantarveer Savarkar’ has been made under the aegis of the Savarkar Darshan Pratishthan, an establishment propagating Savarkar’s philosophy. It has been scripted and directed by Ved Rahi and highlights Savarkar as a political leader, revolutionary, poet and Hindu nationalist.
The Pratishthan’s President Sudhir Phadke’s fastidious eye for detail is said to be responsible for the delay in the film’s completion. Successive directors and script-writers failed to please Phadke who reportedly discarded bigwigs in the Indian world of cinema like the late Basu Bhattacharya and Hrishikesh Mukherjee, among others, and also rejected the works of mated Hindi and Marathi script-writers charging that ”none of the script-writers have understood Savarkan” Director Ved Rahi also had left the film project three times before being recalled by Phadke.
Shailendra Gaur, a young stage actor from Delhi, plays Savarkar in all the stages of his life from his youth to his old age. Gandhi is played by Surendra Rajan, a painter and photographer. Both Gaur and Rajan resemble the protagonists even in real life.
Of all the discussions Gandhi had with Savarkar, the film only shows their 10-minute meeting when Savarkar was confined in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra in 1927. The discussion centred on caste issues where Gandhi was shown upholding casteism while Savarkar is portrayed as strongly opposed to it, and therefore superior to the Gandhi.
The honorary joint production executive of the film, Prabhakar Mone, announced to the media recently that, ”the film has collected Rs. 25 million from numerous individuals in Indian while $200,000 have been raised by the India Heritage Foundation based in London and New York.” The Government of Maharashtra eportedly contributed Rs. 5 million. Phadke had also toured many countries to appeal to Indians settled abroad to donate generously for the film.
Courtesy: India Abroad News Service
Theatre workers arrested in Andhra
Yet another attempt was made by landlords to disrupt the work of the Ethnic Arts Centre (EAC) which is engaged in a conscientisation programme through theatre with tribal people of Andhra Pradesh. Even when their first play was in the making, there was an attempt of murder on Purna Chandra Rao, who heads EAC, and a colleague. Yet they completed the play and staged 32 shows in the tribal areas of Khammam.
Now their second play, dealing with tribal land alienation, was also disturbed, this time by the police who are playing in the hands of the of land grabbers’ lobby. At midnight on 27 September, when the theatre team was engaged in a production workshop at a tribal village Tapasvarigudem in West Godavari district, two of the theatre activists Balakrishna (65) and Ramana (30) were whisked away by the police and were charged with false cases.
Some time back a group of tribade belonging to the Koya community of West Godavari district had revolted and captured 12,000 acres of their own land back from the illegal occupation of non-tribals. Though this was done on the basis of a court verdict, the land- lords were reluctant to give away the land. In this case, a local NGO Shakthi was working with the tribals.
On the request of the bridals and the local NGO, the EAC had gone to the area to make a play on the land struggle of the bridals. The intention of the play was to campaign in all the tribal pockets of the two Godavari districts, and to talk to people on the rights over the tribal land. But when the play was being prepared, the police attacked the team and arrested Balakrishna and Ramana on false charges. Since then work on the play has been suspended, though EAC is certain that they will continue despite all obstacles. Purna Chandra Rao feels this action by the police is a complete violation of the democratic rights and freedom of expression of both theatre workers as well as tribal people.
Film selection under way for the IFFI 2000
The process of selecting films for the Indian Panorama of the International Film Festival of india 2000 has begun with government setting up two separate Jury Jtnr feature and non-feature films.
The 12 member Jury for selecting feature films will be headed by noted author U. R. Ananthamurthy, while documentary film maker Siddharth Kak has been appointed chair of the five-memberpanel for non-feature films.
Other members of the Jury for feature films are Shyama Prasadz Ketan Mehta, P. Sambhasiva Rao, Shiladitya Sen, Bijoy Ketan Mishra, Gautam Kaul, Sudesh Siyal, Khayaam, Malaya Bhattacharjee, Sushma Shiromanee, Jaymala and Archana. The panel for non-feature films also include Deepak Roy, Altaf Mazid, Vinod Ganatra and Nikat.
(PTI)
Pramod Mahajan on Ram Mandir
Sukla Sen
Today (30.09.99), the Indian TV news programme Aaj Tak aired on the government-owned channel DD-2, at around local time 22:10 hrs., showed a video clipping of an election speech, presumably delivered today itself in a public meeting in the Faizabad parliamentary constituency in UP of which the Ayodhya town – where the Babri Masjid was demolished nearly seven years back – is a part, by a top-rung leader of the ruling BJP, Pramod Mahajan, who apart from being the incumbent Information & Broadcasting Minister of the central government is also known to be a close confidante and trouble-shooter of A.B. Vajpayee, the Indian Prime Minister and the topmost BJP leader.
The clipping is interesting and significant because it has shown Mahajan enunciating in some details the BJP stand on the highly controversial and crucial issue of Ram Mandir. Mahajan, in his speech, claimed that, ”for the BJP, the Ram Mandir was never a mere election issue. It was never raised (contrary to popular perception) just for vote gathering purpose. This is an issue of (lndian) national identity (and nothing less)”. Mahajan further claimed that ”the structure of the Ram Mandir (i.e. the temple dedicated to Lord Ram, presumably at his birth place) came under attack at the advent of a foreigner (i.e. Babur, the first Mughal emperor of Delhi, who was of central Asian origin) and now the structure of our ‘rashtra-mandir’ (i.e. the temple of the nation-state) will be endangered if another foreigner (i.e. ltalian-born Sonia Gandhi) becomes the ruler of the country.” But what is most significant is what followed thereafter. With shocking candidness Mahajan declared ”what the BJP would do regarding the Ram Mandir issue will come to light only when the ”appropriate” time comes. There are issues which are not to be talked about but only acted upon.” In order to further reassure his audience he reminded them that ”the last time when the disputed structure was demolished (despite the categorical assurances given by the BJP to the contrary at various forums including the National Integration Council and the Supreme Court) the opponents didn’t have a clue”. (So this time also it won’t be any different.)
Would anybody in the media care to ask Vajpayee for his comments?
Community Radio Comes to India
According to an announcement in the media on 6 July 1999, the Indian Government has decided to privatest the FM sector in as many as 40 cities and open up 150 channels to private broadcasters. The announcement said that community radio stations for ”educational and public service programmes” would also be licensed. However, rules and regulations for Community Radio have yet to be spelt out.
For the last three years, the Bangalore-based VOICES, along with other interested organizations and individuals, has been advocating for the licensing of Community Radio in India. In 1998, we were allotted air time on the local AIR station in Chitradurga, a rural district in Karnataka. VOICES used this opportunity as a first step to introducing the concept of community radio in India. While the Chitradurga project proved to be valuable hands- on learning experience towards its larger objective of setting up an independently run community radio station, it was not free of problems. For instance, part of the region targeted for broadcast fell in a shadow area and people living there could not tune in to the programmes. This discouraged people from participating in the production and broadcast of programmes.
VOICES is now working on a project to set up a Community Radio station at Kolar with the participation of women’s credit and savings groups in the area. As a first step, it is plan- ning to set up a centre for training the women of these groups to produce and narrowcast programmes.
Among NGOs, VOICES has taken a leading role in advocating a legislation which will pave the way for independent community broadcasting in India. These efforts received a major boost in February 1995, when the Supreme Court made a landmark judgement on broadcasting. The highest court of india declared that the air-waves should be regarded as ”a public good.” Thus, they should not be subjected neither to a government monopoly, nor to exclusive use by commercial enterprises. The Supreme Court recommended that an independent, autonomous, public authority should be established to regulate the use of frequencies.
Meanwhile, UNESCO has offered to make available by September a ”Briefcase Radio Station” – a portable production and transmission kit. This will be used in Kolar to do experimental broadcasts of the programmes produced by the women of the village credit and savings groups. It will also be used at the National Law School of India to train students to produce and broadcast programmes on legal awareness, especially for women, and conduct legal clinics. This would be the first step towards a campus radio for the student community in this university area.
Several other NGOs and the Indira Gandhi Open University are getting ready to set up their own radio stations. However, the finalizing of licensing procedures is expected to take at least six months. Regular broadcasts can begin only after licenses are obtained. In the meanwhile, VOICES will continue to support other groups by offering them training in programme production and providing them with the technical assistance required to set up their own CR stations.
For details write to: VOICES
Post Box 4610, 59 Miller Road, Benson Ran, Bangalore 560046
e-mail: voices @ vsnl.com
Telefax: 5303403
Video on police brutality angers the government, Director underground
S. Sankaranarayanan
”Nathiyin Maranam” (Death of a River), a video that tells the story of police brutality on a peaceful procession of davits in Tamilnadu, made the local authorities insecure enough to embark upon a manhunt for the director R. R. Srinivasan and several of his associates.
”Nathiyin Maranam” is a documentation of an incident that took place on July 231.d, where tea estate workers of Manjolai took out a procession to the Tirunalveli Collectorate demanding the release of 700 arrested workers and for the payment of their wages that were withheld. They were mostly davits and were working like blended labour. The peaceful procession included women and children and were being led by leaders of Puthlya Tamilagam, Tamil Manila Congress, Tamilnadu Muslim Aikya Munnani, CPI and CPM. When the leaders were refused permission to enter into the Coelenterate, the commotion began. The police initially began to pelt stones to disperse the crowd, but soon it built up to brutal lathicharge, firing and forced drowning of the hapless workers that took 17 innocent lives. The victims included a woman and a two year old child.
The video documents this brutality. It uses still and video footage of the incident along with statements by the survivors and eye witnesses. The film is the only visual testimony which totally negates the official version which claims that the cause of death was due to wilful drowning by the people. Hence it triggered the wrath of the government.
The producers of the film were planning to organism a preview screening of the film on October 10th at the main auditorium of the Chennai Film Chamber. But at the last minute permission was refused and the screening had to be shifted to another city theatre. On the night of the screening the person who arranged the screening and the theatre manager were arrested and remanded to judicial custody on false charges. The same charges were brought against the director Srinivasan as well. As a result he was forced to go underground. After the strong protests from citizens in Chennai, Srinivasan managed to get anticipatory bail. The others were also released on bail.
According to Srinivasan, the director, ”1 am a film maker and a literary person. 1 do not owe any affiliation to any political party or group. ‘Nathiyin Maranam’ is my artistic reaction to what was a gross instance of state-sponsored violence.” Unable to fathom the vicious reaction of the authorities to suppress the film he feels, ”this film doesn’t say anything that has not already been said. It is a humanist statement against such caste-based actions and activities as was witnessed along the Tamirapaani.”
On 20th November, the film was screened once again at the Max Mueller Bhavan in New Delhi with a view to gain solidarity for the movement of the Manjolai workers against the inhuman labour conditions and the July incident. Though the organizers were hoping that Srinivas would be physically present for the screening, he could not make it as he is still underground.
The screening was extremely well attended. Many commented that in recent times Delhi never saw such a huge audience for a private screening of a documentary film. The audience included film makers, print and visual media journalists, human rights activists, academicians, students, Tamil and English writers, trade union activists and others.
The film vividly shows how the police brutally attacked the percussionists from all sides and chased them away to the riverside where they had no escape route. Viewers were shocked at the women’s narration of how they were abused by the police and even those who swam across the river were caught and stripped in the nearby police station. A photographer with a Tamil weekly accounted how he was attacked by the police when he came forward to rescue a dying person.
The film evoked tremendous response from the viewers that was evident from the rich discussion that followed the screening. Some among the audience have voluntarily came forward to screen the film in other areas.
MIFF’ 2000 in February
The 6th biennial of the Mumbai International Film Festival for Documentary, Shorts and Animation Films (MIFF) will take place from 3rd to 9th February 2000 . The festival is organised by the Films Division, l&B Ministry, Government of india in collaboration with the IDPA, NFDC and the Federation of Film Society of India.
MIFF is perhaps one of the most significant festivals for documentaries as it provides film makers the world over a platform to meet and exchange ideas. For the organizers the documentary film is the right vehicle for spreading democracy, education and social change.
MIFF is one of the earliest to include video in the festival. But so long the video competition was limited to Indian productions. In a significant development this year, MIFF has thrown open the video competition section for International entries as well.
The week long festival will be a treat for both film lovers as well as film makers from all over the world.
Website on Indian legal system launched
Orbit Infocom Private Ltd., a Chennai based software company, has launched a website on the Internet, dealing with the indian legal system.
The www.indianlegal2000.com site is an exhaustive, comprehensive and consumer friendly data base covering supreme court, high court, consumer court judgments, income tax ecisions, order, notifications circulars under customs and excise law and 3300 central arts.
The database available in this website will also cover laws during the period of British rule that have historical relevance.
Media and Kargil: Information Blitz with Dummy Missiles
By Geeta Seshu
Kargil caught the Indian media unawares, as it supposedly did the government and the army. Covering the war from the battle-lines was easier said than done, for the army clamped down on direct coverage barely a few days after the air strikes were launched on May 8. As a result, the media did the next best thing: it manufactured stories. Stories, euphemism in journalistic parlance for reports/features/ analysis, were written up on every aspect of the conflict, often going far beyond government briefings and reports of the army handouts to bring us second and third-hand accounts of various actions in the battle. The media blitz included reports covering a plethora of possible angles of the conflict. We had human interest profiles of families of martyrs and the plight of villagers in border areas, poignant reports of letters from home and STD calls home and little spot stories on tailors stitching shrouds for the dead soldiers. the food we feed our soldiers, corporate responses to Kargil and views of celebrities on the conflict. Obviously, Kargil was major news and every’ newspaper and television channel wasted little time to get onto the story of the day. But what was the subtext of all this verbiage? And importantly, what was left unsaid?
We looked at three leading national English dailies: The Times of India (TOI), the indian Express (IE) and the Asian Age (AA) between May 9 and July 31. Our analysis covered news-reports, features, editorials and editorial page articles.
For over two and a half months,war-games occupied television viewers and readers of newspapers and magazines. The hindutva right spoke openly about ”finishing off Pakistan, the enemys” and of ”a strong and mighty India.” The VHP proclaimed in a meeting at Hardwar that 1999 was the year to wipe Pakistan off the globe, (A A, June 27). At the height of the crisis, the RSS organ Panchjanya exhorted Vajpayee to rise and fulfil the role destiny has chalked out for him, rhetorically asking, ”after all, why have we made the bomb?”
No doubt, the newspapers covered by this study, while publicizing these statements and others by Advani (‘Pakistan is a rogue state’), Kushabhau Thakre (‘Kargil conflict is nothing short of war’, lE, June 16), did condemn these statements, but these were mere formalities. The TOl, in an edit (June 23), cautioned against the nuclear option, not because such a course of action was disastrous but merely to counse1 the government to adhere to a ‘no first strike’ commitment.
Behind the War Verbiage
What did we get to read/see about the actual action? Initially, very little. The World Cup cricket was on, and while journalists covered the army briefing on Kargil, much more space and air time was given for cricket coverage. Sponsored supplements filled newspapers while television news gave more importance to battles on the cricket ground.
Cricket and Kargil did meet when India played Pakistan: newspaper headlines were apprehensive of the ‘battle’ ahead, emphasizing security arrangements. Indian Express (June 8th) had a curtain-raiser entitled ”lndia, Pakistan to ‘fight’ it out today.” The report itself outlined the high excitement over the match stating, that it was a sad fact but true that, for many of the spectators and journalistic the Indo- Pak cricket match ‘seems the next best thing to a war’. Naturally, when India did beat Pakistan, headlines gloated. The Asian Age (June 9) distastefully proclaimed, ‘Reborn india kill Pak’.
Till this day, the press is divided about the nature of the army action in Kargil. Even the semantics of the army action is confused. Was it a war, a battle or a conflict? (a skirmish it was not, not with 410 bodies returning home). Were ‘they’ infiltrators, mujahideen intruders, Pak-backed intruders, the enemy? In the absence of any clear idea, it was safer for the press to use all of the above, in the same copy, at different times, throughout its coverage. Some newspapers were in no doubt that a war was on. The Asian Age, for example, gave us headlines like, ‘The 4th India-pakistan war has started’ (AA,June 24) or ‘Nawaz tries bomb blackmail’ (AA, June 25) and finally, when a truce of sorts was called and Pakistani troops began to pull out, the same newspaper said, ‘Pakistan quits India’ (July 12).
The Indian Express was not far behind. ‘From war to Wimbledon, its India’s day all the way’, the paper said on July 5, celebrating the army’s recapture of Tiger Hills and the Bhupati-Paes tennis victory at Wimbledon. Reporting on the action, said to be a turning point of the conflict, the reporter said, ”They had reached the top, battling each inch of their way to the top”. And later, ”The night sky over the steep mountain remained an awesome orange throughout and the pungent smell of gunpowder filled the air.”
All this, despite the fact that journalists were unable to get to the actual scene of battle except in the last stages of the conflict. According to reports from Rahul Bedi (AA, July 23) and Gaurav C Sawant (lE, June 19), ‘Hacks have a battle on their hands’, reporters were not allowed to go beyond National Highway IA till July 5 (‘Army can’t stem media invasion’, AA, July 13). In the light of these revelations, what does one make of the report from the Indian Express on the recapture of ‘Tiger Hills? Especially when the same report informs that there was no contact with the soldiers and there was ‘complete radio silence’.
In the main, however, reportage was colourful and descriptive. Consider another report: ”The flares lit up the night sky darkening the mood at tile Drass HQ. The infantry soldiers &N ere advancing slowly and cautiously” Or this one: ”The kakis were a mean, hawk-eyed lot who slept during the day and kept vigil at night.” This priceless quote was not even attributed to anyone, either army officers/jawans, local residents of Kargil, or even intelligence personnel. When the reporter could not have got within seeing distance of the ‘pakis’, how could this piece of fiction rear its head in a serious newspaper report?
A story headlined, ‘Pakis play dirty, booby trap body of army officer’, about the handing over of the body of major R S Adhikari and three japans (June 28, 1999), said that the Indian japans ”jumped at the offer since the thought of their beloved colleagues’ baddies lying in the open was just too agonising”. Again, there was simply no qualifications to such ‘emotional’ reportage and the statements were blithely reported, unattributed to any source.
The other newspapers were marginally better or worse. The Times of India, reporting the reactions of japans to the cricket world cup, quoted ajawan as saying, ”we need to settle this issue once and for all” and ”Tell Sachin to take some rest as we blow the daylights out of Pakistan. They’d better know that this is not cricket, they just cannot win.”
The editor of Indian Express, Shekhar Gupta, in an edit-page article entitled, ‘Let the media witness the mess’ (July 14, 1999), made an impassioned plea that journalists be allowed to cover the conflict from the battle- lines. Gupta argued that reporters at the front were young and enthusiastic but definitely too fond of their own lives to willfully allow a ’40 kg sonofabitch on our heads’. If one inferred from Gupta’s article that journalists were indeed young and inexperienced, what were the newspapers subeditors and editors doing? These and other instances clearly bring out the manner in which basic editorial checks and balances simply did not function, or were they allowed to sing a different tune?
For newspapers, all the action did not emanate from the front. The conflict opened up several other fronts. The battle-cry found its echo in remote villages, thanks to the army’s new policy of dispatching home the bodies, not only of officers (as in the past) but also of japans. Speaking of the change in policy (‘Bodies replace urns as Army changes policy’, IE, July 16), the news- papers marked this departure from the norm as a sign of the army’s ‘new openness’ and readiness to facilitate the involvement of the entire population in the ‘war-effort’.
The valour of death on the battlefield, the ‘celebration’ of the ‘martyrdom’ of the officer or soldier, the readiness of others (either from the family or those who attended the funeral) to ‘give up’ one more youth for the country and to wan..this was the common theme running through these reports. The tragedy and futility of war, the sheer wastage of a life or even the loss to a family of an important member, perhaps a sole breadwinning member, these sentiments were rarely reflected in news-reports.
A glaring example of a reporter’s participation in this exercise: The Asian Age (July 4) reporting on the funeral of Lt Vijayant Thapa (headlined ‘Son of India’) described how military police directed the public to the funeral site a police van with a loudspeaker beckoned everyone to pay homage to the soldier who had died. The report ended with the words: ”and all that we Indians can do is to thank God for those brave soldiers who sacrifice their todays for the sake of our tomorrows.”
But not all reports were celebrators. A report from the Indian Express (July 13) condemned the politicization of death: ‘Politics of patriotism shadows martyr’s last rites’ is said in a headline, adding that the next of kin were pushed aside as politicians turned the funeral into an opportunity to hog the limelight. If RSS functionaries dominated this funeral, the Congress was not far behind, taking over the funeral of Lt Saurabh Kalia in Palampur, (IE, June 13).
Calling for Consensus
Newspapers also vied with one another to obtain reactions from the upper strata of society. The Indian Express carried a daily feature titled, ‘Calling for consensus’, ostensibly to support the ‘war’ effort. The column featured celebrities from the more glamorous walks of life. The TOl (July 5) carried a full-page feature, ‘Everybody loves a hero – Mumbaiites on how they view the Indian soldier’, peppered with the views of the smart set.
The newspapers also carried reports of the 1965/71 war veterans and highlight some instances of war widows still waiting for compensation (notably, The Times of india (Ju1y 11) which devoted a full page to the issue) but these were few and far between, remained at the ‘human interest’ level and failed to trace the administrative negligence and corruption because of which compensation was swallowed up.
Every newspaper had its pet project for Kargil. The TOl fund was entitled ‘Zara yaad karo qurbani’ while the IE tied up with Iridium to provide phones for soldiers at the front. The IE even co-sponsored a Programmed Presumably a fund-raiser, ‘Aye watan tere liye’ in Delhi on July 17, utilizing for publicity, a photograph captioned ‘tears of pride’, showing the wife of an officer saluting the coffin of her husband.
All the other shows in the ‘Kargil-utsav’, from entertainment programmes, designer shows, corporate schemes for proceeds of sales of various products, opinion polls and other ‘Kargil specials’ received more than their fair share of publicity. The designers’ show, according to the Asian Age ( August 12) ‘woke up too late, but when they did, they did it in style’!
The same newspaper (July 28) carried a report of a computer game ‘I love lndia’ wherein the user can cross the LOC and destroy Lahore. The tone of the’ report is laudatory and is meant, the reporter states blandly, ”for all those who want to vent their anger at Pakistani intruders.” There were a few articles in the edit pages of all three newspapers expressing distress at this trend (Nivedita Menon, ‘Plastic patriotism in times of war’, TO1; Mushirul Hasan’s ‘Don’t teach me patriotism’ IE July 17, or Bachi Karkaria’s ‘Patriotism in a fashionable war’, TOl, July 18) but these were virtually drowned in the sea of stories which publicized the corporate slicking of Kargil.
‘What did the newspapers neglect or de-emphasise?
Communalization of the conflict:
The newspapers analysed refrained from any overt or covert communalisation of the Kargil conflict. Muslim soldiers who died in the action were specially mentioned, perhaps to reinforce that india was fighting an Islamic state with believers of islam, though this was not spelt out. When severe Muslim organizations came out in support of the Kargil action holding up placards proclaiming, ‘We love India, &$ t’ hate Pakistan’, the press regretted the fact that Muslims had to exhibit their patriotism in this manner. However, there was one glaring omission: the coverage of riots in Ahmedabad and the involvement of the Hindu right in fomenting trouble. Riots were sparked off when protestors burnt effigies of Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and then continued their protested raising anti-Muslim slogans. Preparations seemed underfoot much earlier as a report in the Indian Express (June 18) clearly indicated: ‘BJP workers hone talent in effigy-making’. The BJP’S Yuva Morcha president claimed that he had a master’s degree in effigy making! Yet, alarm bells failed to ring.
The media and US mediation:
Reportage on the US intervention gave no insights about the US new support for India. Instead, there was gratitude and childish glee at winning big brother’s support. IE gloated: ‘Sharif on his knees as US says what Delhi wants’ (Ju1y 6). Bilateralism was now a dirty word. In a signed article, the Indian Express editor Shekhar Gupta (June 30), actually chastised the government for parroting the ‘no third party intervention’ line of the past asking whether chanting this ‘mantra’ was smart?
Torture of six Indian soldiers:
Front-paged reports in all newspapers mentioned the government and army’s version of the mutilation of the soldiers. The incident marked a turning point in the conflict. Reporters either did not care, or practised self-censor- ship in the ‘national interest’, to ask basic questions: the motivation of Pakistan to return mutilated bodies, whether a1l or only one body was mutilated (as later reports) or the possibility of natural decomposition.
Financial costs of war and conflict:
Newspapers scarcely touched upon any estimates about the losses of war and the Kargil action. The Asian Age was an exception in that it carried a solitary report quoting a study from Assocham on the short and long-term impact of the Kargil action, estimating the daily cost of the war at Rs 30 crore.
Again, newspapers were silent about who benefits from the conflict. Which arms manufacturers, apart from Bofors, would obtain extra orders thanks to Kargil? Or, more disturbing, the chorus to push up defence expenditure in the wake of the defence forces’ ill preparedness to deal with Kargil.
Despite the reams of matter in the newspapers and anytime devoted to Kargil, are we better informed? Are we in a position of trust vis-à-vis our government and media on the actual state of affairs on the border? Are we confident that the enormous sums of money spent on defence are being utilized correctly, leave alone justified? Or are we ready to accept the rising chorus of the hawks that the defence expenditure is inadequate’ and needs to be upped, in the light of increasing aggression from our neighbour? Ten days after George Fernandes proclaimed that the last of the ‘intruders had been driven out and the Kargil action was effectively at an end’, why did 70 soldiers lose their lives?
The media failed to or chose not to seriously analyse who would be the ultimate losers in the Kargil confrontation. An overwhelming number of persons on both sides who died in battle were poor japans. Increased military expenditure will also further be disproportionately borne on both sides by the poor in the form of indirect taxation. Little or no effort was made to bring out the fact that the common people in both countries had no stake in the war and that Kargil was simply reinforcing the fundamentalist forces on both sides of the border.
The elite’s consensus on the issue was also not carefully analysed and this should be understood in the context of the monopoly ownership of the media in the country, i.e. the owners of the media are themselves part of the ruling elite.
—
This is an abridged version of a detailed study on media coverage of Kargil conducted by the Centre for Monitoring the Media (CMM). The CMM ls an independent, non-profit organization comprising of media persons who analyse how various events are reflected in newspapers, magazines and television laying bare the structure and subjective biases of the media.
- Courtesy: South Asia Citizens Web
Seoul lifts ban on North Korean broadcast
South Korea’s government began allowing its people to watch newly available North Korean satellite TV programmes. The Korean Central Television station, which broadcasts from North Korean’s capital, Pyongyang, and began its first satellite broadcast on October 10. South Korea’s ministry of National Unification said people with dishes were free to watch the programming and draw their own conclusion.
Previously, South Korean television stations could broadcast only those North Korean programmes provided by the South Korean intelligence agency. Central Television programs routinely praise the North Korean leader, Kim Jong II, and his late father and founder of the nation, Kim II Sung, who died in 1994.South Korea fears of North Korean propaganda have subsided in recent years since North Korea’s economy collapsed, resulting in widespread hunger and forcing it to appeal for outside aid.
South Korea still jams radio broadcast from Pyongyang. But millions of South Koreans can visit pro North Korean Web sites on the Internet, despite government warning. North Korea began its Internet forays in the early 1990s.
South Korea’s government allows its people to visit pro North Korean Web sites but bars them from sending a-mail messages or beaming Web site numbers without government permission.
- Courtesy The Associated Press
Police assault photojournalists in Dhaka
Several photojournalists were brutally assaulted recently by the police in Bangladesh.
On October 22, the authorities dispatched riot police to subdue a demonstration held by Islamic activists in Dhaka. The police turned their batons km two newspaper photographers who were documenting their treatment of the protesters. Babul Talukder, a photographer for Dainik Dinkal, and Mintu, who) works for Dainik Mukthakantha, were both badly beaten.
When other photographers on the scene gathered to complain to senior officers about the police brutality, dozens of riot police attacked the group and pummelled them with their batons. Among the photographers iniured by the police in this second assault were Joy of Banglabazar Patrika; Abdur Razzak of Dainik Sangram; Enamul Huq Kabir of Dainik Muktakantha; Subir of Dainik Arthaneeti; Swapan Sarker of Dainik Banglar Bani; Matiur Rahman Tuku and Mamun Talukder of Ajker Kagoj; Bulbul Ahmed of The Independent; Salimullah Salim of The New Nation; and Faruque Ahmed of the United News of Bangladesh agency (UNB).
Several journalists associations and human rights organizations severely condemned this action of the Dhaka police and demanded that the government orders an inquiry into the incident, and ensures that the officers found guilty of assaulting the journalists are held accountable for their actions.
Some interesting statistics from China
After the May 1998 anti-chinese riots in indonesia during which Chinese Women Were grotto rapids a Beijing newspaper story with the subtitle ”Women’s virginity belt in tight supply” provided a detailed description of a safety belt designed to protect women’s purity.
—-
According to Chinese statistics, men are more interested in news than women. Women are more interested in entertainment.
Net for Kidnapping
Colombian rebels are using the Internet to access financial information on people when deciding whom to kidnap.
M. R. Escobar, appointed by government to look into the computer aided kidnapping, said several former hostages had stated that the rebel had released them when they checked their finances over the Internet. The guerrilla computer hackers also abstained from kidnapping a lawyer and businessman when they accessed their bank and found that they ware bankrupt.
According to the authorities 2278 Colombians and foreigners have been taken into captive by both right wing and left wing guerrilla groups, as well as by common criminals.
Revolt over theatre of horror
A French theatre group has outraged religious and community leaders by offering children as young as 13 tickets for a show in which ox hearts and oozing blood are thrown into the audience. In the past La Compagnie du Carnage, appearing here as the Cabaret of Horrors, used sheep’s eyes, because they bounce well according to promoters.
The group is touring Hampshire with the backing of the Art Council. The cast is said to assess success by the number of people in the audience who faint during their performance. Their present production includes three plays- one titled The Masque of the Red Death- based on violent crimes in Paris.
David Clifford, Mayor of Rushmoor in Hampshire, said, ”If I could stop the grant to stop these kinds of production, I would. I hope nobody would be happy sending their children to see this”
James Barry, who chaired the Art Council commissioning panel, which approved funding, said, ”it is not any thing satanic or demonic and has no more horror that you would expect in a horror film.”
- Courtesy: The Times
Film fuels classroom attacks
German cinemas are withdrawing a Hollywood film in which pupils take revenge on a teacher who gives poor grades, after a wave of classroom violence against teachers. ”Killing Mrs Tingle” has been retitled ”Save Mrs Tingle” by German distributors, but even this precaution has not reassured nervous cinema managers, who fear that they could be blamed for copycat killings in the schoolyard.
In the USA, the title of the film, which stars Helen Mirren as a tough schoolmistress, was changed to ”Teaching Mrs Tingle” after the high school massacre in Littleton, Colorado, which caused widespread condemnation of violence on the screen. The film was a flop in America and there was no evidence of copycat incidents.
However, the latest incident in Germany, in a Bavarian grammar school, certainly resembles a film script: three 14 year-olds upset over poor marks obtained a gun and were negotiating to buy hand grenades with the aim of killing their headmistress and two classroom teachers.
Police arrested the adolescents and the ringleader, Michael, told them that his ambition was to be a mass murderer.
The threats are being taken seriously because in November a masked 15 year-old pupil stabbed his teacher 22 times in front of the class in a school in Meissen. The 44 year-old teacher bled to death.
A fortnight later, in another school in Saxony, a young teacher was pushed against a wall and threatened. The boys, all 15, later put a knife on her desk and told her that she would face a similar fate to the teacher in Meissen.
Other teachers have been threatened when they tried to interfere with bullying or drug purchasing. In May, in Brandenburg, a boy shot a fellow pupil with an air-gun and pointed the weapon at his teacher.
The connection with the film ”Killing Mrs Tingle” may be entirely coincidental as some of the attacks were carried out before the film was on general release but the plot seems to be close to the background of sole of the German incidents: a strict teacher gives a poor grade to a student, who decide to take revenge.
They make no secret of their anger and classmates assume that something is brewing but say nothing.
The boy who carried out the Meissen murder told his class several times that he intended to kill the teacher. No action was taken. The Bavarian incident had similar predictable elements. Prosecutor Gunther Albert said: ”It is not a case of three dysfunctional families, but rather of 30 or 40.” He was referring to the number of children who must have known of the conspiracy but who did not pass on the information.
Frequently the police find evidence of neo-Nazi interest in the homes of adolescent assailants, although this expresses itself usually in the painting of swastikas or possession of music cassettes of far right oriented rock band rather than overt political activity.
Sociologists have begun to analyse the changing dynamic in the German classroom. Educational standards are becoming stricter and the pressure to keep up is splitting classes into achievers and non-achievers.
Teachers too can be violent and 300 disciplinary cases for physical abuse were opened in Berlin alone last school year.
- Courtesy: The Times, London
Women’s news censored in Iran
”In the coming third millennium, our ancient Iran will begin a new glorious period by efforts of its worthy children…”: Farah Dibah, former empress of Iran.
A pretty innocuous new year’s message, one would think. But these few words by the widow of the former Shah, which were printed by Zan, Iran’s first newspaper aimed at a female audience, has caused more than a stir.
Zan was banned in April by the iranian revolutionary court after carrying this message and for printing cartoilns which ridiculed Iranian laws about women. The newspaper’s owner, Faezeh Hashemi, daughter of ex-president, Hashemi Rafsanjani, is to be put on trial.
Since the election in 1997 of moderate President Mohammad Khatami, who is committed to personal freedom and to the creation of a civil society, Iran’s press has enjoyed increasing freedom and the country has witnessed the birth of hundreds of new publications.
Zan (Woman), which began publishing in August 1998, aims to promote the role of women in political culture and society. It is a moderate newspaper and Faezeh Hashemi, leading women’s rights activist and member of parliament, is a known supporter of President Khatami’s recordist policies.
However, the newspaper has already been the subject of a 2 week ban earlier this year, after a story appeared which linked the country’s Head of Police to assaults on two cabinet ministers.
Hashemi stood trial and was absolved of the offence of publishing untruths, but was found guilty of insulting the Head of Police.
Now Iran’s revolutionary court has put a permanent ban on the paper. This blatant violation of the right to free information under the international Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which (ran is a signatory is a clear indication that conservative hard-liners still have a firm grip on power.
This hasn’t deterred women from fighting for freedom of expression. Journalists with the newspaper have stated that they intend to continue publishing in defiance of the ban. All power Sisters!
The cartoon, which so infuriated the iranian authorities, depicted a man telling a thug to kill his woman companion rather than him because her diya (blood money) paid to her family ‘if she died, would be less. Under lslamic law, the family of a dead man receives twice the money from the killer than the family of a dead woman.
- Courtesy: WAN/IFEX/BBC Online Network
Film South Asia’1999
Film South Asia’99 (FSA’99), the second edition of the festival of South Asian documentaries, was held in Kathmandu between September 30 and October 3. Started in 1997, the FSA has become one of the most prestigious events in South Asia and a meeting point for various films and film makers. The organizers had an upheaval task of choosing 52 films from 149 entries. This, at one level shows the importance of the event, while on the other it also indicates the growing interest and popularity of the documentary films in South Asia. The festival was organised by Himal Association and Himal South Asia magazine.
This year there were 45 films in the competitive section and 7 in the non-competitive section. Only films made in and after 1997 were eligible for competition. More than 40 filmmakers from all over South Asia were present during the festival, including 4 of the 7 awardees.
The awards were decided upon by a South Asian jury headed by Goutam Ghose, the internationally acclaimed film maker from Calcutta. The other members of the jury
were Lahore-based television and theatre personality Salam Shahid and Neloufer de Mel, academic and social commentator from Colombo as the other members,
The first prize jointly went to ‘No One Believes the Professor’ directed by Farjad Nabi (Pakistan), and ‘Thin Air’ directed by Asim Ahluwalia (lndia). ‘No One Believes the Professor’ was appreciated by the Jury, ”for finding a metaphor in the person of the Professor that was both eccentrically imagined and real; for showing the life of a deeply individualistic man refusing the connectivity of his changing society; for a dramatic and poignant treatment of the realm unreal and surreal in a style.” The Jury felt that ‘Thin Air’ also deserved to jointly receive the first prize for depicting ”a changing world, from a generation that has an uncompromising faith in their art to a present day commodification of entertainment and pleasure, the pride of the artists in their respective positions; for its treatment of the subject which was subtle, often providing the viewer with a ‘truth’ unknown to the subjects themselves.”
The second prize went, again jointly, to ‘Pure Chutney’ directed by Sanjeev Chatterjee, now based in Miami, USA, and ‘Three Women and a Camera’ directed by Sabeena Gadihoke (lndia). The Third prize went to ‘Buddha Weeps in Jadugoda’ directed by Shriprakash (India). The Grand Jury Prize was awarded to ‘The Forgotten Army’ directed by Kabir Khan (lndia) and the Special Mention of the Jury as made for ‘Do Flowers Fly’ directed by Prosenjit Ganguly (lndia).
In terms of representation, the organizers explained that they did not take nation states to define South Asia, rather they chose populated regions of the sub-continent to make it more representative. Following this yardstick the selection panel chose the films.
In a statement released to the press after the festival the organizers stated, ”We have been encouraged by the audience participation also, which was better than in Film South Asia ’97.” 15 films from the festival will be shown around the world as part of the ‘Travelling Film South Asia’.
Best of FSA’99
No One Believes the Professor
By Farjad Nabi (Pakistan)
25 min, English, 1999
No One Believes the Professor Introduces Orpheus Augustus Marcks, aka Professor Sahib: a poet, actor, philosopher, athlete be hopeful Oscar, Olympics and Nobel Prize winner who walks the line between genius and divine madness, drawing both jeers and admiration from his audience. The Professor is a man who lives in two worlds, bringing reassurance to those who surround him. A fantastic voyage with a man whose self belief shocks even the most stubborn optimist the film is a celebration of hope.
Thin Air
By Asim Ahluwalia (India)
42 min, English, 1999
By turns darkly comic and unsettling Thin Air chronicles the lives of three magicians against the backdrop of contemporary Bombay: middle-aged magician Shailendra is a prosaic, small-time entertainer whose entire world hinges on the mistaken belief that his audience loves him; 12 year old child wonder Kruti Parekh is ‘the world’s youngest magician and India’s first test-tube baby’ !” ‘and long-forgotten legend Niranjan Mathur is a fading conjurer, who, having lost his popularity, is gradually beginning to lapse into dementia. Weaving portraits of the three magicians, the film introduces a disquieting ‘ link between the characters and traces , with humor and compassion, the urgent desperation of ordinary individuals to make an imprint on the world. Thin Air ultimately offers a refreshingly complex vision of urban life through three illusionists who have little option but to confront reality.
Pure Chutney
By Sanjeev Chatterjee (USA)
42 min, English, 1998
Pure Chutney is an exploration of the delicious – and even difficult – mix of Trinidadian-lndian culture. The film takes up as its theme the undeniable hybridity of post colonial societies, and celebrates In some measure the events and accidents of history that constitute the Indian diaspora. This video portrays interactions with various Trinidadian-lndians, and takes as Its point of departure their reflections on what someone In the film calls ”our preoccupation with India.” This video essay
appears at a critical time: in India, when right wing appeals to religious purity are signalling a period of grave crisis for assorted minorities and women’, and in the West, where the growing presence of a dlasporic Indian population i an for example? the US, Canada and the UK calls for a . sophisticated and complex engagement with the question of Indian identities and difference.
Three Women and a Camera
By Subeena Gadihoke (India)
56 min, English, 1998
This film is about Homai Vyarawalla, lndia’s first professional woman photographer, whose career spanned nearly three decades from the 1 930s, and two contemporary photographers Sheba Chhachhi and Dayanita Singh, who started work in the 1980s. Vyarawalla’s work underscores the optimism and euphoria of the birth of a nation while Chhachhi anti Singh attempt to grapple with the various complexities and undelivered romises of the post independence era. The film debates the major shifts in their concerns regarding representation, subject-camera relationships and the limits and possibilities of still photography in India today.
Buddha weeps an Jadugoda
By Shriprakash (India)
55 min, Hindi/English, 1999
Jadugoda is a tribal area in Bihar. It first came into prominence when uranium deposits were discovered in the area. Jadugoda is India’s only underground uranium mine. The government agency mining the uranium makes no attempt to protect the lives and the people and the environment of the area. The unsafe mining of uranium has resulted in excessive radiation @ which has led to genetic mutations and and slow deaths. The film is an attempt to record the tragedy that has played havoc with the lives of the people of Jadugoda.
The Forgotten Army
By Kabir Khan (India)
105 min, English, 1997
More than half a century after World War II, The Forgotten Army launches an expedition to retrace the historic march of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army (INA) and the series of events which took place between 1942 and 1945. The film escorts a number of the Army’s veterans back to Singapore and Burma as they reconstruct the various stages of the march through their memories. These travelling interviews are set against archival footage of the events and locations the veterans resurrect – sites of long demolished barracks, dilapidated headquarters and battle fields.
Do Flowers Fly?
By Prosenjit Ganguly (lndia)
5 min, English, Animation, 1998
An animation film made as a student project at the National Institute of Design, india. It examines a philosophy of education that churns out parrots versus a policy of education where children grow in tune with nature.
Young guards of the moving image
by Marilou Guieb
Whether we need a censorship or not has been a persistent debate in most of the third world countries for the last few years. We also encounter this debate time to time in India. Recently Shekhar Kapoor’s film ‘Elizabeth’ has once again brought forward the whole debate of control, regulation etc. Clearly this is an important issue that each country of the third world is dealing differently, and is something that could not be resolved in the Western way.
BAGUIO CITY – The cool citizens of Baguio city in northern Philippines celebrated international Women’s Day by setting ”hot” pictures on fire. With ‘Bagnio Women Against Pornography’ as the theme, they began the day by making a bonfire of pornographic materials.
As if on cue, the city mayor singed an administrative order creating an Anti-pornography Task Force unitt’ for Responsible, Educational and Decent Material.
The campaign was spurred by the rise in cases of sexual abuse and proliferation of smut materials reported in the city. City Councilor Lourdes Tabandaz head of the committee on Child and Family Relation, recalled an incident in which a 10 -year- o1d boy tried to sexually penetrated his 8-year- old friend while they were playing. He had seen the act done on a video show.
A few years ago, Tabanda recounted, city officials were sued by some Baguio residents to force them to confiscate smut material which were being s old publicly. They tried to excuse their inaction by claiming that there is no definition of just what pornography is, Tabanda explained. She hopes to plug that loophole with a city ordinance authority by her, namely the Indecent Publication Material or De vise Regularity Act.
But what of the moves? Suggestive film titles are meant to lure curious adolescents to movie houses. At no time has the principle of freedom of expression resulted in so many dilemmas as in today’s hi- tech age. How does one keep the delicate balance be-
tween film experience and growing right? It is a question that Armida Siguion, chair of the Movie and Television Review and classification Board (MTRCB), and Celine Madamba, Commissioner of the National Youth Commission (NYC) must resolve every day.
Siguion-Reyan feels that it’s best to give a film maker the full freedom to tell a story. Censorship deprives the public of their right to experience the film in its fullness.
A 1997 study revealed that 99 percent of young Filipinos turn to media for leisure information activities. Another November 1997 survey showed that about 12.6 million persons aged 15 to 30 watch television daily. Over half of them are regular movie-goers. Instead of exercising censorship, Siguion-lteyna prefers the strict classification of films for public viewing so that young people may be legitimately protected. But the Board has only eight agents to monitor the implementation
of film and television guidelines throughout the country, with its 1200 theaters and 800 cable TV producers aside from 13 free TV stations in Manila alone.
In October 1998, Siguion-Reyna and Madamba created the Bantay TeleCinema Youth Network, which mobilizes youth leaders to monitor and report violations to the MTRCB earlier, monitoring had been the task of Local Regulatory Council, which turned out to be controlled by theater owners and cable TV operators. Naturally, hardly any violations were reported.
Theatres are now required to display the film’s exhibition permit prominently at the ticket b00th. Failure to do so resulted in the temporary closure of four cinema houses in Manila – owned by two big producers – signaling that the MTRCB means business. Patrons may be required to present identification cards to be admitted to certain movies. Classification such as PG-13 (Parental Guidance for children of 13 or below) are meant to make the parents responsible for the viewing habits of their offspring.
The shift is evident: producers now voluntarily tone down some scenes when they want to reach broader audience, Siguion-Reyna noted. She explained that the details of censorship guidelines, such as allow ing one breast but not two to be exposed, may actually give producers more ways to make movies that will bring them big profits.
Doing away with censorship also allows movies to be shown that may not be for general appreciation, but are useful for some groups. Marasigan cited ‘Realm of the Senses’, which shows direct sexual penetration.
“Yet Psychology students or experimental film-maker may learn from it.” Siguion-Reyna herself has produced movies with sexually explicit scenes, which she defends on the ground that they are integral to the theme. This refrain was taken up by many other film makers too. But Siguion-Reyna reassures that, despite allowing the exercise of board artistic freedom in movie making, the Board has stamped an ‘X’ rating on some films that show gratuitous sex and/or violence, meaning that they are not for public exhibition.
Cable television, because it is relatively new in the Philippines, presents a gray area. Nevertheless, al1 tele vision shows are governed by the rules of the MTRCB. While local operators could take advantage of the remoteness of their area, reported violations of the Board’s guidelines could get them into trouble.
In times the free tickets the youngsters get as members of the Bantay Tete-cinema should help them to develop the ability to understand the language of cinema and the relation between media and society, responsibility and freedom.
- Source: Woman’s Feature Service
24 March 1999
Women and the News
A popular American magazine, TV Guide’s October 9 – 15, 1999 cover story, titled ”How Women Took Over The News” paints a pretty ‘then-vs- now picture of gender equity in the newsroom, in which ”women are on every beats in every aspect of news, as fixtures in jobs traditionally held by men.”
Way back when, TV Guide reminisces women were ”second class citizens in TV news” subjected to age and gender discrimination, and Diane Sawyer ”got into journalism… the old-fashioned way” – by wearing ” pointy bras” and lots of hair spray. Not so anymore, TV Guide asserts, now that Sawyer shares the news media spotlight with Katie Courie, Christine Amanpour, Claire Shipman and other visible female journalists who are ”setting the news agenda for America.” TV Guide attributes their success to a journalistic ”revolution” that reached ”critical mass in the last decade.” As proof-positive of this female victory, TV Guide tells us that ABC nearly doubled its number of women correspondents frond 1991 to 1998.
What the story doesn’t give readers are the raw numbers – which disapprove this gleaming image of journalistic gender parity. According to a 16- year’ longitudinal study by Joe Foote of the College of Mass Communication and Media Arts at Southern Illinois Univrersity at Carbondale, ABC employed only 14 women correspondents (19 percent of the total) in 1991. By 1998, that number rose to 26 female correspondents (still making up only 39 percent of ABC’S news roster).
As for the news landscape as a whole, female reporters made up only one-third of the correspondent corps and covered only 28 percent of stories in 1998. Sure, female journalists fare better now then they did in the days of legally sanctioned gender discrimination- but they are still outnumbered two-to-one by their male counterparts.
And when it comes to newswomen behind the camera, a 1998 Radio Television News Directors Association/Ball State University survey found that only 20 percent of local television news directors were women. Worse still is the issue of news ownership-a 1998 Broadcasting and Cable survey found no women heading the Top 25 media or television groups, broadcast networks or major cable programming companies. So much for women ”setting the news agenda for America” by taking over ”every aspect of news.”
TV Guide also says that the influx of powerful women in journalism has generated a ”journalism of empathy” changing the ”face and focus of the stories we care about the most.” What does this mean? Sawyer explains; ”The definition of hard news is changing, and what was soft news is now hard news – for instance, a story about day care and its effect on women’s productivity can be a lead story on the news with Peter Jennings. it’s what women in the newsroom and women at home care about more than what’s happening in Sri Lanka.” TV Guide further clarifies what they consider the ”undeniable” influence of women over the news agenda: ”more emphasis on such story topics as child care, education, health and the moral aspect of politics.”
That domestic programs like childcare were ever considered ”soft news” is as misguided as Sawyer’s notion that women do not care about international politics, such as what might go on in Sri Lanka. Packaging education and health stories as ”women’s issues” while framing world politics as ”universal” stories is simply bad journalism. The fact is, when media report the news as if women mattered, issues such as childcare, domestic violence, health care and poverty and are all considered ”hard news.” And when media report the news as if women think, women are understood to be equally invested in coverage of foreign affairs, economics, science and technology.
TV Guide’s upbeat conclusion is that, no longer held back by institutional sexisms female journalists have come ”a long way, baby” But when the female audience is so shallowly per- ceived – and women in the news corps still trail their male counterparts in large numbers – there’s clearly still a long way to go. The more women (and people of colour) succeed in the newsroom, the greater their perspectives can be felt in the ways the news is written and reported – which is why we need more stories about the necessity of increased access to every aspect of journalism, not cheery rah-rah-rah pieces indicating that the battle for journalistic parity has already been won.
Oberhaussen Short film festival
For the 46th time, the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen is looking for innovative films and videos for its four competitions: International, German, children’s Short Films German Music Videos. The oldest short film festival in the world is unique in combining classic festival sections – the competitions – with a wide range of non-competitive special programmes.
All films and video formats (except Hi 8 and Beta SP NTSC) are eligible. There are no limitations as to genres, but films and videos should have been produced no earlier than 1 .1.1998 and not exceed a length of 35 minutes. The films will compete for prizes @ worth 75,000 DEM in all. All submitted entries will automatically take part in the Oberhausen Film Market which registered more than 200 confirmed purchases in 1999.
Deadline for submission: January 15th 2000
For details contact..
ww.kurzfilmtage.de or info @kurzfilmtage.de
Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen
Grillostr. 34
D-46045 Oberhausen, fax. +49-208-825.5413
webslte: http://wwwkurzfilmtage.de
Doubletake Documentary Film Festival
Seeking recent creative documentary work to screen in its General Submissions category. Held April 6-9 in Durham, NC. Over 40 programs make up the General.
Submissions, curated Thematic, International, and CareerAward segments. Competition films are eligible for the Jury Award and the Audience Award. Submissions are accepted for 16mm, 35mm, Digibeta and Beta formats. Documentaries must have been completed after January 1, 1998 and be no more than 180 minutes in length.
Deadline: December 28th,
Late deadline: January 7th
For more info check:
http://cds.aas.duke.edu/filmfestival
Who needs distribution?
Some questions, problems and concerns
Distribution continues to handicap wide dissemination of documentaries that have been made on issues that are important to 70% Indians. There is no organised channel or network that can ensure that films reach the audiences that they have been produced for. This state is in sharp contrast to the commercial sector where distribution is a serious activity and often, distribution rights are sold as soon as productions are announced. Production and distribution in this sector is done only in the film format and distribution involves big capital. Distributors have a say in the production and in some case distributors also produce.
The emergence of film makers who use the audio-visual medium for making socially relevant documentaries is not a very recent phenomenon. By mid-seventies few film makers were seriously involved in making issue based documentaries. The spread and availability of video gave a fillip to this movement and by early- eighties many young people had joined in.
Interestingly, distribution continues to be a problem even though nearly all such films are made on video, or at least distributed on video, which is a relatively cheaper and easier medium to use than film. Simultaneously even organizations and institutions that havt’ facilities for distribution and are committed to the cause of social change have miserable records of distribution. It is not unusual for them to have distributed only a couple of thousand cassettes in their entire history of existence.
Naturally the question that emerges is why has a distribution network not evolved? Especially when distribution is a common problem of all film makers?
Practically speaking….
Distribution in India is a practical problem. Resources are limited and to begin with, it is difficult to locate production cost for such films. To locate resources for distribution becomes an added problem. In addition, by and large, donors support productions but are reluctant to become involved with distribution.
There is no channel for dissemination of information on such films. Our experience in thta grassroots shows that most mass organizations and NGOs lack information on films that can be of relevance to thens. They know of some but not all. There is no way to get systematic information.
In India there are nearly 20 official languages and over 5000 dialects. To distribute a film to all the areas would require those many language versions. Productions budgets normally allow only one language and some film makers stretch it to at least 2 languages, i.e. English and the local language. Very often films that can be useful remain unused because of the language barrier.
Why distribute at all?
The Indian ground reality is one of a series of contradictions and conflicts. On the one hand the middle class base has steadily expanded and a larger number of people, today, are able to enjoy a life style that is commensurate with that in any developed country. On the other hand, the majority is dealing with basic problems like access to clean drinking water, health care and education as well as with issues like identity, collectivism, governance and means of intervening in civil society. The marginalised people are raising some very fundamental questions in india today. These questions deal with issues of access and control of natural resources with access to land, and the right to life.
In this scenario, few film makers are using their skills of audio-visual production to make films that is of relevance to common Indians.
Such films need distribution because that is the only way to create new spaces. Distribution means dissemination, a crucial route to meaningful dialogue and debate. The spaces thus created helps to facilitate the evolution of a common agenda, locate ways of sharing and discussing common concern, create platforms for common action and evolve a common perspective of development and growth.
Hence, distribution is a political activity.
Who needs distribution?
People who require distribution are, naturally, film makers. But this realm is narrower than it appears.
A film maker who is a producer first will continue to produce even if their films are not being distributed. All they need is sponsorship, from a TV channel or from a donor. Such film makers want their films distributed but believe that it is some ”other’s” work. That ”other” can be NGOs, mass movements or trade unions. Interestingly today, many such film maker/producers are concerned with social issues and concentrate their energies only on making issue based films. All the same, perhaps because their concern is limited to issues and they are not concerned with process, their individual A film maker who is a producer first will continue to produce even if their films are not being distributed. AlI they need is sponsorship, from a TV channel or from a donor. Such film makers want their films distributed but believe that it is ”other’s” work concern does not take the shape of social commitment. Hence, they do not recognise distribution as a priority.
On the other side, a person who aims at social change through a medium s/he is familiar with, will necessarily have to become involved in the act of distribution. This is because their beastly for creation is not only to satisfy their individual creative impulse, but to use their creativity for social charge. They make a film for sharing concerns and experience, for expand- ing the scope, area and content of debate for solidarity, for dissemination of information, for broadening perspectlve by providing a different angle or insight. Hence distribution for them is as important as production.
As of now what we have are individual film makers with their individual concerns. Most issue based film makers come from the middle classes. They may get involved in distribution, or they may not. Distribution is not an imperative because neither their survival depends on it, nor does their work. Their involvement in the issues they film can be similarly restricted.
A distribution network has not evolved in india primarily because film makers who are making issue based films are yet to develop a political and ideological consensus. Till such time that a common concern develops, a distribution channel will not evolve.
In the current situation when the country’s economic policy is being determined by western investors, the intolerance towards efforts at creating democratic space is becoming more pronounced. Little space that was created by democratic movements is in the process of being obliterated forever. Film makers have to define their role. Their role has to expand from being media professionals to media activists. They have to find ways of being involved in processes of social transformations and not remain limited to issues Aconscious move has to be made towards arriving at a consensus. That is the only way a comprehensive, national distribution channel that caters to the diverse needs of different film makers will develop in india. Till such time distribution will continue to be an activity of individual film makers, organizations or institutions.
”No new round, instead Turnaround” – A warning to WTO
In December first week, the third Ministerial meeting of the WTO was held in Seattle to discuss the new issues to be included in the next round of trade talks. Seattle this year witnessed violent protests by various organizations. Many of them demanded that the oId agreement should be reviewed first before formulating anything new. The following appeal was circulated by concerned organizations worldwide.
In November 1999, the governments of the world will meet in Seattle for the World Trade Organisation’s Third Ministerial Conference. We, the undersigned members of international civil society, oppose any effort to expand the powers of the World Trade Organization (WTO) through a new comprehensive round of trade liberalization. Instead, governments should review and rectify the deficiencies of the system and the WTO regime itself.
The Uruguay Round Agreements and the establishment of the WTO were proclaimed as a means of enhancing the creation of global wealth prosperity and promoting the well being of all people in a1l member states. In reality, however, in the past five years the WTO leas contributed to the concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich few; increasing poverty for the majority of the world’s population; and unsustainable patterns of production and consumption.
The Uruguay Round Agreements have functioned principally to prise open markets for the benefit of transnational corporations at the expense of national economies; workers, farmers and other people; and the environment. In addition, the WTO system, rules and procedures are undemocratic, untransparent and non-accountable and have operated to marginality the majority of the world’s people.
All this has taken place in the context of increasing global economic instability, the collapse of national economies, increasing inequity both between and within nations and in- creasing environmental and social degradation, as a result of the acceleration of the process of globalization.
The governments which dominate the WTO and the transnational corporations which have benefited from the WTO system have refused to recognise and address these problems. Instead, they are pushing for further liberalization through the introduction of new issues for adoption in the WTO.
We oppose any further liberalization negotiations, especially those which will bring new areas under the WTO regime, such as investment, competition policy and government procurement. We commit our- selves to campaign to reject any such proposals. We also oppose the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement.
We call for a moratorium on any new issues or further negotiations that expand the scope and power of the WTO.
During this moratorium there should be a comprehensive and in – depth review and assessment of the existing agreements. Effective steps should then be taken to change the agreements. Such a review should address the WTO’s impact on marginalised communities, development, democracy, environment, health, human rights, labour rights and the rights of women and children. The review must be conducted with civil society’s full participation.
The failure of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) demonstrates broad public opposition to the deregulation of the global economy, the increasing dominance of transnational corporations and escalating resource use and environmental degradation.
A review of the system will provide an opportunity for society to change course and develop an alternative, humane and sustainable international system of trade and investment relations.
(This statement has been signed by over 1000 civil society organizations from more than 75 countries.)
Communication and Debt
At first glance there does not seem to be anything in common between debt and communication. Place Third World Debt, Structural Adjustment Policies, the Balance of Payment along with the global triumvirate of economic policy makers consisting of the IMF, the World Bank (WB) and the WTO and that makes a basketful of sense. But communication? A weasel word if ever there was one. Does it refer to the sharing of meaning? ideology? Structure? Process? Product? lnput and output? The basis of Culture? And if al1 of this is communication, how does it relate to the concrete reality of debt? Actually, it is about all this and more.
The issue quite specifically is about investment in capital intensive projects, such as in telecommunications, and the impact of this on the debt burden of countries in the South. Telecom and IT investments have gradually become a core part of investments in development. As high –return investments, they have attracted an array of financial investors ranging from multilateral institutions such as the WB and the IMF, to private banks, investment firms and government lending institutions such as EXIM (Export-lmport) banks.
There is also an indirect relationship between debt and communication. T’he establishment of free trade zones such as the Maquiladora Program in Mexico, technology parks, and the like are a11 related to exports production and promotion, to the creation of foreign currency earnings, a portion of which will, in turn ,be expended in the servicing of the country’s external debt.
While external debt is a concrete reality it really is the outcome of multiple factors, both external and internal. The fact that the external debt of developing nations grew 1846% be- tween 1970-1989 from US$ 68.4 billion to US$ 1,283 billion and that debt service payments increased by 1400% to US $ 160 billion by the end of the Eighties vs as the result of the rise in oil prices in the early Seventies, the fall in commodity prices, low rates of domestic savings, global recession, higher interest rates, and capital flight, among many other factors. An added burden was created by the trend away from low interest, confessional lending by agencies like the IMF to variable interest loans from commercial banks. It was also the outcome of particular policies related to economic liberalization and structural adjustment imposed on borrowers by the IMF, The WB and other lending institutions. Multinational investors have frequently used their political and economic muscle to take advantage of IMF/WB prescriptions. For instance, Cable and Wireless, the telecommunication giant and monopoly holder in the Caribbean, has incorporated guaranteed rates of return on further investments in their license agreements not less than 17.500 in the case of Jamaica and 15% in the case of Trinidad & Tobago.
Communicating Debt: The Battle Over Meanings
It is clear from the Jubilee 2000 movement that one of its aims is to infuse the strictly technical meaning of debt with a moral purpose aligned to the greater good. In other words, a battle is taking place to redefine the meaning of debt ‘in perpetuity’, the repayment of principal and compounded interests, to debt as a version of slavery, the moral obligation to cancel debt and the forgiveness of debt as a faith response resulting in freedom from bondage.
Essential to the success of Jubilee 2000 will be the extent to which this revised meaning of debt and its symbolic content 1) is communicated to the world, and understood by it , until it becomes the accepted, current meaning 2) is embraced by the media and amplified by it and 3) resonates in the public domain long after the cessation of Jubilee 2000 as a specific time bound campaign. In a real sense the campaign to make this flew meaning of debt recognizable and legitimate is the crunch, the linchpin to its success. Correspondingly, the campaign will also be successful to the extent to which it will encourage international lending institutions and basks to take a fresh look at their image, communicated in the o1d adage ‘A banker is a man who lends you an umbrella when the weather is fair to take it away from you when it rains’.
And so one may say that the need to create awareness of the debt crisis, to communicate this awareness through the media, and to invest in a media campaign, are a1l integral to a strategy of communications that raises global awareness of issues related to external debt.
Communication and Debt: The Seamier Side
There is, however, another fundamental sense in which debt is an issue communication. Debt is factored into the structures of communication that bestride the world and debt servicing revenues may at least partially be drawn from export earnings of media and service industries located in the South. In other word, it country X has a vibrant software industry accounts for 50 per cent of that country’s export income, then it can safely be assumed that a percentage from these earning will contribute to the yearly debt-servicing expenses incurred by that country.
The increasingly primary role played by the service industries in export earning of countries such as Brazil, india and China is an indication of global trends in export earnings, away from earning from the sale of primary products and traditional goods, to new merchandise characterized by information-based products and services. Growth -obsessed official statistics and market publications rarely recognise the fact that a portion of export earnings earned from these sun-rise industries are not re-invested as they ought to be but are siphoned off to service the country’s external debt. They can also be accused of consistently feigning ignorance of what is a core issue – that access to education, shelter, food, water and communication is an aspect of public, human rights, and not a privilege conditioned by the vagaries of debt or by the politics of philanthropy.
Telecommunications is of course a premium area for global investments today’ and a prime candidate for loans. In today’s investments environment it is far more likely that a loan for telecommunications will be approved rather than one aimed at raising the standard of living of subsistence farmers. The WB has long been involved in telefilms financing. Take for example its support towards three telecom development projects in Kenya, the third (1987-92) of which was worth US$ 90 million. The funds that were pumped in were not by any stretch of the imaginations give-aways. The loans had strings attached more precisely, that Kenya Post and Telecommunications Corporation be split in two, that they the new institutions be run on commercial lines.
Such conditions are a part of the normative framework of WB/IMF largesse. It is explicitly stated in the US$ 400 million World Bank Project No: BDPA9557, a telecommunications project in Bangladesh whose objectives include the ‘establishing of an enabling environment for promoting private sector participation and competition in the sector, including the regulatory framework’. The WB has projected a US$ 60 billion investment in telecommunications in the South for the 1995-99 period. Altruism is not a policy option and does not figure in bank-lending philosophies. In the case of the telecom financing by the Export- lmport Bank of Japan which made credit commitments of US$ 1,649 million for overseas telecom investments in the 1986-91 period, loans were ‘provided to the countries which Japan deem(ed) politically and economically essential’ and was linked ‘to such purposes as ‘the promotion of ‘direct investment from Japan’.
While the WB and IMF are among the pioneers in the business of telecom investments, their role today is increasingly oriented towards creating a free trade and investments environment in line with the WTO and the Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAl), smoothening the way for the entry of private investors in core areas such as telecoms and lT.In fact most IMF/WB lending in telefilms and IT are jointly funded by private sector balks and equity foundations.
The presence of the private sector in telecom financing is most evident on the Net. A cursory browse of the Yahoo search engine revealed 85 mostly US- based web-sites of Telecommunications Financiers, including VenGlobal Capital, RFC Capital Corporation, DynaFund Ventures, Zacson Corporation among many others. The downsizes of private financing of telecom ventures are high interest rates and stringent penalties for defaulters. Many finance firms have become specialists in market- based debt conversion programmers. An array of debt-reduction schemes are available, each more ruthless that the other in squeezing the last ounce of flesh out of any country that has defaulted on payments. Debt equity swaps, debt fatbacks, debt securitisation, debt for export, debt for nature, debt for development, debt for arms- the list is endless. The most celebrated of the debt- equity swaps- basically a means by which the country’s external debt is traded for equity in a local firm, involved the fortunes of the Argentinean phone company ENTEL.
In the words of the social economist Susan George: ‘In late 1990, Citicorp made the biggest single debt-equity deal in history, buying 60 per cent of ENTEL’S southern division in partnership with Telefonica de Espana for $114 million in cash and $2.7 billion in debt. Manufacturer Hanover got the northern half of the’ same phone company in partnership with Atlantic Bell and on roughly the same terms: $100 million in cash and $2.7 billion in debt. Other beneficiaries of this sale included France Cable et Radio, Compania Naviara Perez, Techint and the bankers J P Morgan.
Debt-equity schemes have led to the alarming disappearance of local assets at fireside prices. In the case of the sale of ENTEL, it has been noted that Argentina received ‘ the lowest price per main line of companies privatized in developing countries’ at the moment of sale. It would seem that these schemes, which are approved by the WB and the IMF, merely make a country’s debt situation worse.
When restrictions to investments are lifted (with the help of initiatives such as the Organization for Economic Development [OECD] led Multilateral Agreement on investment), ownership rules relaxed and returns guaranteed, the assets of any and every poor nation can easily become a potential target for rapacious investors. Mandeville Partners, a US based venture capital, merchant banking and investment roup involved in telecom, technology and media financing is one such company that has gained from a liberal investments environment.
Their web-page informs the world that in December 1996, they began acquiring ‘cable companies in Argentina through a joint venture with Hicks, Muse, Tate and Furst’ and that by September 1997 they had’ acquired 64 different company to Citicorp Equity investments’ for a cool profit in excess of $100 million, ‘are turn of more than 120%.’ At this rate will there be any thing left to cry for in Argentina? Or for that matter in any nation burdened by debt?
The Jubilee 2000 campaign has brought to the world’s attention the injustice of world debt. All indications point to the fact that global debt has accentuated the globalization of poverty and the sufferings of the poor. And that investments in communication are contributory factors to the debt burden. As an organization committed to the right to communication, WACC, through its five year programme, is involved in raising awareness of the economics of global communication and of how this affects the lives of ordinary people. In June 2000, WACC is planning a workshop that will explore some of the issues related to communication and the globalization of poverty. The work that we do is admittedly a drop in the ocean. Nevertheless, such initiatives feed into the movement toward a just communications order. We are aware that areas such as the relationship between debt and communication is under – researched and urgently in need of study. Any takes?
To find out more about these issues contact:
Jubilee 2000,
3 Rivengton Street, London EC2A 3DT, UK
Fax: +44 171 401 3999,
email: mail@jubilee 2000uk. org.
web :www. jubilee 2000uk. org
Courtesy: WACC Action
An Interview with Mahasweta Devi
A world renowned author, an untiring activist working with tribal people, a firebrand journalist with a cause, Mahasweta Devi doesn’t need an introduction. As we approach the new millennium we felt her views on media and society will help to inspire and guide us. Film maker Ananya Chatterjee recently spoke to an ailing Mahasweta Devi, recuperating from a stroke, in Calcutta.
What is your opinion of mainstream reporting?
Before the emergency there was very little of investigative reporting. After the lifting of the emergency, the trend of investigative reporting became a predominant feature in the mainstream media. Of course, this is as I see it. It is my personal observation. But once long ago I spoke at a seminar in Delhi, and my observation was when did atrocities take place? The Harijan women have been violated historically, police have killed systematically even before the naxalite movement, but they were never highlighted before. But it is good that today with the trend of investigative reporting, certain subjects are being delved into: regarding women, child abuse, indiscriminate killings. But the versions also vary in these papers. These papers are owned by people who have their own interests. Even then these issues get some justice.
So you feel that reporting in mainstream media has improved?
Yes, as I observed. But my main grievance is that while media has to take up issues like child labour certain realities are yet to be understood. The reporting is confined mainly to children In the organised sector. But most of the working children are in the unorganized sector of society. One thing must be accepted by the media: Indian children have no childhood. A child aged eight is an adult. Because he or she has to earn. As long as those parents remain under perpetual poverty line, their children would be forced to work. And it would be impossible to prevent child labour.
Almost the same is true with sex-workers. Now there is this movement that sex-workers have the right to be in their profession if they want to do it. But in the last thirty years I have seen women, specially in the districts, move into this profession through poverty. When the silk industry collapsed in Murshidabad, there was a report in one of the district newspapers on how there workers were forced to take up this profession. A married woman spoke boldly, ”yes, my husband knows, my mother-in-law knows, every body in the family knows. Only my children are in the dark. They have been told that I work as an ayah in a city nursing home. I leave the village in the morning, go to the red-light area where I do my work, and come back in the evening. I earn much more this way, and it is needed for the family” So as long as there is poverty, women will be forced into this trade. It is no use giving them some protection here and there.
Minor girls and boys are sold every day from across the border of the state and the country in lakhs and sold into the brothels and other places. And now that india has entered the global picture, all the powerful countries have taken lease of india, sex tourism is being very much encouraged as has already happened in some other Asian developing countries. In sex tourism there is a very high demand for girls who have not yet attained puberty and are virgins. Something has to be done about this.
I have been crying hoarse for years, for all distressed women there should be big mid-way homes in every state, if possible under every ghana where women in distress, may be a child, maybe a woman thrown out by the family or a woman who has dared to file a report against her husband at the police station may find shelter. It need not necessarily be a wholly state run thing. It could be partly operated by an NGO. Women may be medically treated there if necessary, they may pursue a profession out of that place. They would have a chance to interact with their families from there. There would be counselling facilities and if they want to go back, they can go back to their families on their own terms. If they cannot, they must be encouraged to take up independent professions. If anyone wants to marry, she will marry, and things like that. But first a safe shelter home for women, for children in distress, is very much needed. These aspects should be highlighted by the media everywhere.
So would you say media has a tendency to sensationalize issues rather than offering constructive guidance the way you are suggesting?
The media today has to take this responsibility, whether they accept it or not. These are everyday happenings. And my approach is entirely constructive. I do not like to go to seminars and workshops and discuss things. I believe in trying to solve the problems. I say trying to. One can only try. The solution is not in everyone’s hands. But the society must be made cognizant of the ground realities so that they understand they too have a social conscience to answer to. Media’s greatest duty is to make people aware that they have a social conscience and a social responsibility. They too have a commitment towards society and everyone must try any which way they can.
My personal work field is a self – chosen one. It remains timbals, and now renotified timbals for whom I am fighting for so many years. I am happy to say that Gujarat and Maharashtra is active in this, and the all India renotified tribes rights action group has been formed. We have been to lots of places, held lots of press meetings and the problem has been highlighted. But it is time that big media houses took it up. Only when they take it up will the problem be taken seriously.
Why do you think that the mainstream media is not taking up these issues in a big way?
I am from Bengal and I am well known here. In Bengali I have written more than a hundred articles on the persecution of these denotified tribes.In Bengal we have only three such tribes. Lodhas of Midnapore, Kheria Shabars of Purulia and Dhikaros of Birbhum. I have written so much but have never received any written response from the readers. Not that don’t get support and sympathy from others. But the readers must be made to see that they have a role to play. When an atrocity death is reported they too have the duty of supporting the victim in print by writing a letter to the editor and things like that.
How did you start BUDHAN?
I have been concerned with the renotified tribes for a long time. In 1998 the Denotified Tribe Rights Action Group (DNTRAG) was formed in Baroda. Just before that Budhan Shabar of Pashchim Banga Kheria Shabar Kalyan Samity (PBKSKS) died under very mysterious circumstances. First he was brutally tortured in the Thane and then he was handed over to jail authorities almost dead. And the next Day the jail authorities circulated a story that Budhan had committed suicide by hanging himself. So the PBKSKS filed a public interest litigation case with Calcutta High Court. Thls was the first time. Previously I had always pleaded with the authorities, fought with them, with the police, ministrv, district authorities to get redress for the renotified tribes like the Shabars and Lodhas. This is the first time I filed a court case. It is also true that in the eighties PlLs were not so milch in vogue. I thought if 1 have to fight, renotified bridals are the ones to fight for. So thereafter in Baroda the arthur was formed and now DNTRAG is working excellently.
I found that the social welfare department of each state the names of the denotified and nomadic tribes. And I learnt that these lists are supplied by the Government of india so that they call be given the benefits of social welfare. In Maharashtra we found that the social welfare department gave 1 .5 lakhs to the next of kin of deceased in case of a death by police atrocity. I also discovered it is not very difficult to make the widow’s pension available to the bridals or denotified tribes in Gujarat and Maharashtra. They also give land and have residential schools for them known as Ashramshalas.
In West Bengal we have nothing. This is the first time ever that we won the case of Budhan Shabar. Then according to the High Court order the state government had to pay Rs 1 lakh as compensation to Budhan Shabar’s widow. But even before that we found it important to bring out a bulletin of the DNTRAG and thus it was named BUDHAN because Budhan’s name triggered this movement. It is an all india movement and not a very big one because very few people are interested in tribade and no one is concerned about denotified tribes.
It is a matter of great shame that they are strewn all over India in large numbers, and yet they have no voting rights, they are not part of the census. And you yourself went to Singapore and brought out that fantastic document which proved that the British used these tribes as slaveworkers to build Singapore. They used to be taken from settlements and made to work as slaveworkers by the British. And there are detailed reports somewhere. These are unexplored fields. The media should cooperate with the DNTRAG office and investigate and publish and make people aware about them.
In West Bengal it has boiled down to the fact that whenever there is any kind of atrocity on the bridals or the denotified tribes, Mahasweta Devi is perhaps the only person who has taken the thekedari of fighting for them. This cannot go on. This is a national calamity and shame and this is the worst curse of the century. This, amongst other things, has been going on and on.
Why in Rajasthan a baraat comes to a village after 150 years? Because girl children are killed. Now in the civilized world they do the embryo test and kill the female foetus. They are also as bad as uneducated, superstitious people. Because in india land reform was never done. There were some reforms in Kerala and West Bengal, but in the rest of india a feudal land system exists even today. And a feudal land system can only nurture a feudal value system. Which is anti-women, anti so-called lower caste, anti-tribe and a1l the vicious things connected with feudalism. Certain things should have been done from the very first day after independence. People should realise that the British did not come to India to make it into a wealthy and developed country. India was one of their most paying and profitable colonies. So from the beginning there should have been compulsory primary education for everyone. There should have been thorough and radical land distribution. 33% land should have been reserved as forest land. And the natural water resources should have been allowed to exist. Roads should have been built. Village or such industries should have been encouraged where the consumers would be the neighbouring people. Health facilities should have reached everyone. Women should have been given legal and real status which they so strongly deserve. But nothing has been done. What should have been done fifty years ago is continuing till now. That is why India’s condition is so poor and miserable. It is all right for one per cent today. But what about the rest?
Do you feel this feudal value system is also reflected in the mainstream media in some way?
Media is intelligent. Why should they air such views? Perhaps some of them do, I do not read a1l newspapers. But papers like The Hindu and indian Express do bring out good articles. But it is not enough. There should be pro-people investigative approach, so that the nation’s cancer can be detected and exposed. So that some palliative measures can be worked out.
BUDHAN had to be started because you said you needed a mouthpiece for DNTRAG…
We needed a bulletin for the denotified and nomadic tribes. And what BUDHAN has done over one year is fantastic work. For the first time ever the real life experiences of the tribes, and reports by experts, workers (like me) who work with them are being brought out. They are being used as appeals to the National Human Rights Commission. Of course NHRC has responded excellently each time we have approached them with a problem. But BUDHAN also needs a fund and a separate set of workers who will bring it out regularly. Also it should come out in regional languages like Bengali, Hindi etc. It is still a dream.
What about Bortika?
Bortika was started by my father. He died in ’79 December. It was originally started as a little magazine for the aspirant poets and story writers from the districts. When he died he referred to me and said ”She should not allow it to die.” But when I took it up I was very close to the bridals and several movements. I said, yes I will publish it from Calcutta. But 1 will change the orientation. From that time Bortika because a mouthpiece for the down-trodden. They wrote their own stories. Very few middle class people wrote anything. And there was a time when there were 800 to 1000 rural subscribers alone for Bortika. But it is a super-human task. Now 1 am publishing it from 1980 onwards, and not in such great numbers. It is not so popular with Bengali readers. But Bortika has brought out such valuable numbers. Separate numbers on separate tribes. There have been three numbers on renotified tribes: Kherias, Lodhas and the Dhikaros. And on peasant movements like the Tebhaga movement, on the brickfield workers, on retrenched workers, on witch hunt etc. So Bortika has done very useful work.
Why do you think it is not popular with the average Bengali reader?
There are very few people who will collect and read Bortika for the same reason that they are silent over denotified or tribal issues. They don’t feel comfortable with such issues. Nor do they want to know. Bortika is published in Bengali. I do not think Bengali readt’rs want to know a lot. They don’t like uncomfortable thoughts.
Why has it become like that?
It is for the public to answer that. But even if I have to stop Bortika, but in that journal there is great documentation of so many grassplot level things. I think some day some people will understand the value of it when they need to get back to it as reference material. One interesting thing, Chuni Kota I , the first Lodha graduate girl who committed suicide wrote her own life story and it was published in Bortika in 1982. She wrote some poems also. As long as she was alive, she helped Bortika with documents, facts and figures. And after Chuni’s death, material from Bortika was widely used. This year, I will not name the person, but a Bengali writer in his fifties has written a novel this puja where he has lifted the facts from Chuni’s autobiography in Bortika and on the writings on Budhan, mixed the facts and created his story. So they are finding it useful. But it would be better if they did not use Bortika for this kind of material alone, but also thought about the real people behind the stories.
The conscience of the nation is at an abysmal low. I collect old clothes for the Shabars. When the people come to me with such things, they are so full of self praise; ”I am giving these clothes. The other day I gave this help to so and so. Somebody was ill, I bought a cough medicine.” People want a lot of praise for whatever they do. And they are so smug, brimming with smile and happiness. They are themselves in very rich clothes and in comfortable positions, but what they are doing they think is great. I can’t stand such people.
You were mentioning about the conscience of the nation. Do you think alternative magazines like Bortika can serve that purpose?
Bortika on its own can serve very little. All the newspapers should have a page on social conscience. Let them make investigative stories starting from Delhi alone, How people live, and under what conditions. Why is crime increasing. Why people don’t get clean drinking water. On police brutalities, social brutalities (which is worse.) At one point of time I saw specially in Bengal, and also in Bombay and some other places, the actors and actresses who earned good money, they used to contribute towards something. When Chittaranjan Cancer hospital was built, in those days (British times) Kanan Devi gave Rs 1 lakh and Bharati Devi and Amar Mullick between them gave Rs 25,000/- each. I am so fond of watching cricket and I always drop into my neighbour’s house who has a colour tv whenever there is an interesting cricket match. But I often wonder why don’t they (the cricketers) who are earning so much do something for their own state? Like providing drinking water, build hospitals, make available education and health facilities, vocational training for boys and girls so that they can earn something and become self employed, since it is not possible for everyone to get a job. Everyone should do as much as one can for the country. Because education may have been introduced by the British at some point of time, but it was Calcutta centric. But education, nationwide was a secular contribution, it did not come from the government alone. Similarly, health services, roads, happened by secular contribution. Why have we forgotten those days? Today there are people who earn so much. One person owning so many cars, so much wealth, how long shall they keep it? When they die how many houses will they carry with them? So everyone should grow a social conscience and play a role in society. Your country is not what is flashed on the tv or shown in the newspapers.
One thing I find very objection able. On tv we see fantastic houses, filled with luxury items, but the woman has to wash everything and cook everything. There is only one ad where the man washes the clothes. But a neighbouring woman butts in and says ”Kapda dhona koi mard ka kaam nahin hai”. Its all wrong, the way ads are made. There was a horrible Bengali ad I saw yesterday. The woman says ”when I was married I was so disturbed because it was a stranger’s household, till I saw the Hawkins pressure cooker. Then I knew I have come home. ” Now after so many years, she has grown up children, and she says, ”everything is like my home. ” She is cooking in Hawkins, she is washing dishes, washing clothes and things like that. And she has served-food to every one the mother in law comes and gives her the keys to the household. So the woman’s ultimate thing is to have the key so that she can have control over everything.
What values are being propagated through these things? What types of youngsters are they showing? All well-fed, clad, and a ten year old girl or boy is being fed by the mother. What kind of households are these? A small percentage of such households may exist. But the reality is not that.
Some films from the FSA’99
Don’t Pass by Me
(Nepal/canada), 40 min. English, 1999
‘Don’t Pass by Me’ is a story about an odd intersection of lives in the tourist town of Pokhara, Nepal. Locals and tourists have been crossing paths there since the 60′s, but don’t often move out of the clonal serving tourists context. Three young film makers from Canada figured there was more to each side.
The cast: Sarah is someone you’d get along with. She s always been an observer… she had to be. There’s Surya, the bitter Nepalese restaurant owner who is such of being seen by tourists as a second class citizen in his own country. And Jon, a good looking raver from Los Angeles who wears a headband with two bouncing star antennae. Then there’s a young driver, Rudra! Lost somewhere between boyhood and manhood trying to move up the taxi cab totem pole, Mix aIi these people together under the light of a full moon at a guest house called ‘Don’t Pass by Me” and you get some crazy scenes.
Film by: Sarah Kapoor, Kristi Vuorinen, Christina Lamey
Source: Christina Lamey,
Forerunner Filmworks Inc.
32, DaLey Road, New Victoria’ N.S., 8OA IRO, Canada,
e-mail: clamey@hotmail.com
Duhshomoy
(A Mother’s Lament)
Bangladesh, 26 min. Bangla/English, 1999
Filmed in Hi8,A Mother’s Lament” recounts the tragedy of Shima Choudhury, a young garment factory worker picked up by the police while travelling with her boyfriend. 16 year-old Shima was allegedly gang raped by four policemen later that night. She was then sent to prison for safe custody’ where she died under mysterious circumstances. Shima’s case has become a landmark issue in the Bangladeshi women’s struggle against institutional oppression and abuse of power. The case is now in appeal at the high court.
Rather than presenting the story as an investigative piece, the video attempts to explore the Issue from a personal perspective -the sense of disembowelment and hopelessness the family undergoes as it struggles to cope with the girl’s Incarceration leading to herdeath. Interviews with the family are joined with interviews of a cross- section of people, as they voice their concerns regarding the state of human rights in Bangladesh today.
Film by: Yasmine Kabir
Source: Yasmine Kabir
Dhansiri Apartments # E602, 35, Indira Road, Dhaka 1215 Bangladesh,
Fax: +88-2-888962,
e-mail:aykabir@dhaka.agni.com
Talking Peace
India, 52 min, English 1999
The film examines the history of hostile relation between India and Pakistan. It also examines the deliberate attempts by governments, political bodies and fundamentalist organizations to keep this hostility alive. It looks at different groups who are making attempts to improve the situations. Particularly, Pakistan India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy. This is a group that works in both countries towards a people-to-people dialogue. The film also looks at efforts by cultural and human right’s groups. The film makes an appeal for peace between the two countries.
Film By: Suhasini Mulay, Hiridaynath Garekhan
Source: Suhasini Mulay Productions
B 42 Friends Colony (West), New Delhi 1 10065,
Fax: +9 I J 1 6920802
email: vmulay@nde. vsnl.net.in
Mobile Theatre
Pakistan, 30 min, Urdu/Engllsh, 1999
Teh rik-e-Niswas , literally the Women’s Movement’ is a cultural action group for women’s rights in Pakistan. For the past 20 years it has been performing theatre for and with various underprivileged communities in and around Karachi. The team of actors travels to neighbourhoods to perform plays on women’s issues. The film is about the mobile theatre experience. Although produced by the NGO itself, the film does not read like a promotional campaign but rather as an advocacy for the effectiveness and value of mobile theatre as an educational method.
Film By: Khalid Ahhad
Source: Tehreek-e-Niswan,
Zamzama Com. Lane No 3
3-C.D.H.A., Karachl 75600 (3A), Pakistan,
Fax: + 92 21 5837119
email: tehrik@hotmail.com
Muktir Kotha
(Words of Freedom)
Bangladesh, 80 min. Bengali/English 1999
In early 1996, a group of young men and women began travelling to the far corners of Bangladesh to show Muktlr Gain, a documentary on the Bangladesh liberation Wa or along with other footage depicting the genocide committed by the Pakistan Army and their collaborators in 1971. This documentary footage rekindled the painful memories of ordinary people and prompted them to speak of the dreams they had for their country, their present frustrations and new expectations. The struggle dld not end in 1971.
Film By: Tareque Masud, Catherine Masud
Source: Audiovision,
126/3 Monipuri Para, Airport Road, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Fax.. +880 2 9119159,
email: ctmasud@citechco.net
Sundari: An Actor Prepares
India, 30 min, Hlndl/English, 1998
This film ls based on a play directed by Anuradha Kapur on the life of Jayashankar, a popularfemale impersonator of the Gujrati stage in early 20th century Bombay. Jayashankar first appeared on the stage in 1898 but is best known for his role as Sundari? Desdemona in Othello, In 1901. With the aid of his autobiography the play traces his journey as an actor from a boy to a man and simultaneously from a male to a female. The film reframes this process in the context of contemporary gender discourse and politics of acting.
Film By: Madhushree Dutta
Source: Majlis Manch
A 2/4 Golden Valley, Kalina – Kurla Road, Kalina, Mumbai 400098, India
Fax: +91 22 6148539,
email: admin@majlis.ilbom.ernet.in
A Stranger in My Native Land
Tibet, 34 min, English, 1998
This film Is an intensely personal account of a Tibetan film maker, born and brought up in exile who travels to Tibet for the first time. The film chronicles his first encounter with relatives in the border region of Amdo near the birth place of the present Dalai Lama? and then his mother’s village in central Tibet. Throughout the film maker is struck by an irony: being brought up in exile he was raised with a distinct awareness of his Tibetan heritage and Tibet is overshadowed by Chinese culture. Many of his relatives no longer even speak Tibetan. The film conveys his emotional response to confronting the reality of occupied Tibet.
Film By: Tenzing Sonam, Ritu Sarin
Source: White Crane Films
E 302 Som Vihar New Delhi 1 10022
Fax: +91 1892 23637
email: whitecranefilms @vsnl.com
Fishers Of Men
India, 117 min, English, 1997
For over a century, a substantial number of Adivasis of the ChotaNagpur plateau have been converting to Christianity in order to free themselves from bonded labour and feudal oppression. A combination of education and Christianity have helped the Adivasis to establish an alternate identity outside the caste system. While the demand for a tribal homeland called Jharkhand has been gaining momentum since Independence, Hindu fundamentalist organizations have held Christian missionaries
singularly responsible for encouraging the Jharkhand movement. In the absence of dialogue between Hindu revivalists and Christian bridals, this feature length documentary attempts to understand how the two communities will co-exist within a secular Indian fabric. Using extensive and well juxtaposed Interviews t he film raises a number of important issues regarding communalism in India.
Film By: Ranjan Kamath
source: RKO Films .P Ltd
704A Silver Oak, Hiranandani Gardens, Powai, Bombay 400076
Fax: +91 22 5700741
email: rko@vsnl.com
Forced
Nepal, 25 min, Tharu, Nepali/English, 1999
A video-log on the state of children of far-western Nepal highlighting the situation of Kammaiyas, traditional bonded labourer, all of whom come from Tharu community. Children are put into bondage at an a very tender age. They don’t go to school but work in the field or the landlord’s house with their parents. As they are not paid in
cash it keeps them bonded for and indebted for generations. As a proper (ceremonial) marriage remains beyond their means a system of ‘child drag marriage’ has evolved in the social system. Forcing the wishes of the parents boys are made to forcibly drag their brides away. The film deals with the issue of Kammaiyas and highlights an incident of child drag marriage.
Film By: Kiran K. Shrestha, Bimal Rawal
Source: Young Asia TV
Worldview Nepal
P. 0. Box 2912, Kathmandu, Nepal
Fax: +977 1 536857
email: yatv@wlinkcom.np