logo

Discussion

All houses are glass houses

”Fact is stranger than fiction,” goes an old saying. Whether facts create fiction or fiction transcends into life has been a matter for debate. But that the dividing line between fact and fiction is very thin was once again proved in Tamil Nadu in the early hours of 29 June, when its former Chief Ministers M. Karunanidhi was arrested by the Chennai police on corruption charges.

The police entered Karunanidhi’s house at 3 AM. They thrashed, pushed and misbehaved with him. When he protested, the police physically lifted him out of his house and almost threw him on the road. The photograph of a hassled and heckled Karunanidhi sitting on the road agonised everyone. Two cabinet ministers were also roughed up and arrested along with Karunanidhi. Though it was alleged that the police conducted the entire operation in utter secrecy, the Sun TV crew was present even at such an odd hour and covered the whole incident in minute detail. This footage was later telecast repeatedly on all television channels and created a sensation by its vivid depiction of a gross violation of human dignity and rule of the law. Everybody condemned it as an act of brutality and demanded quick rectification. As expected, and quite natural for Tamil Nadu, the video struggle began then.

Soon the police department released two video tapes compiling their version of the incident. It depicted that the police was absolutely innocent and everything was peaceful until Murosoli Maran, a union cabinet minister, appeared on the scene. However, tile police did not explain what prompted them to conduct the raid at midnight. However, the common man is rather confused about which version to believe, and are doing so according to their allegiance. Thus, the Tamil Nadu ordeal has finally demolished the notion that video footages represent the truth and has established that there is nothing called balanced reporting.

Surprisingly, both the tapes are fighting over the treatment meted out to Karunanidhi while hardly anyone is questioning the validity of night arrest. In tine process, the most vital question, that of police right against that of an individual, is being pushed to the background while political rivalry between the two political parties has come to the fore. What comes up as more serious concerns are, if Karunanidhi could be treated like this, how safe is the life of the common man? Is this phenomenon confined only to Tamil Nadu?

Though night arrests are apparently a regular feature in Tamil Nadu, police brutality is an all-lndia phenomenon. A few years ago, in Gujarat, a session judge was handcuffed and dragged to the police station at midnight. He was beaten, locked up and allegedly forced to swallow urine in the lockup. The judge’s crime was he dared to pronounce a sentence in a case against the SHO of the same police station. The Supreme Court later constituted an inquiry committee and submitted a report. But that was all.

Last year, two Delhi cops beat up a person to death in broad daylight. The man, who was carrying his four year old son back from school, was killed because he dared to protest when the police misbehaved with him. There are many such atrocities regularly reported in the newspapers, but many more are never reported. Custodial deaths are so alarming that the NHRC takes a special effort to collect reports from state governments regularly. It has also lambasted various state governments from time to time, for their utter negligence, brutality and insensitivity towards the needs of the common man. No doubt, the people who face the wrath of the police the most are the landless labour, davit, women and minorities but even people of other classes have to taste the wrath of the police if they dare to oppose. One expects that such institutional shortcomings and lapses would be discussed during such a crisis and some long-term plan would be drawn up to rectify it. But instead, most of the time it turns out to be a stick by which you can beat your  opponent and score over others. As a result, the decay and fragility of the institution are never addressed and in many cases, one or the other tries to shield the guilty and the institution.

Now that Karunanidhi has been released and an inquiry instituted to determine the police excesses, one phase of the current problem is over. Now the second phase is witnessing strife over the inquiry commission and its terms of reference. Obviously, the DMK is opposing it and the AIADMK supporting it. The incident is going to get prominence for some time, at least till Jayalalitha completes six months, by which she has to be elected as a member of the Assembly.

What is the reaction of the common people to this ordeal? They are by and large amused and excited over the high drama. At one level they are happy that influential people too had to face the rage of the police, which they encounter every day; while at another, they are indifferent to the drama. Now that the NDA government is debating on how to provide legal and administrative immunity to central ministers in the states, common people are more abused and alienated. When bulls fight, bushes may or may not be destroyed, but it is not discussed. But then, the central learning of the Tamil Nadu episode is that if mechanisms to protect the ordinary citizen are not built, then all houses are glass houses.

Media News

BSF assaults journalists

On 10 May, 17 reporters, newscameramen and photojournalists of national and international media organizations were injured in two successive attacks carried out by members of the Border Security Force at Magam, a township 24 km northwest of Srinagar in Budgam district of central Kashmir valley. The media persons had gone to Magam to cover the blast on the previous day that killed 11 persons, including 8 civilians and a BSF officer.

As the scribes were witnessing the funeral procession of 3 civilians, there was an altercation between the local people and a passing BSF convoy. Without provocation, the BSF men began punching and beating up journalists with rifle-butts and shouting at them. They smashed their video equipment and cameras and threw them in a stream. Among the injured were Shujaat Bukhari of The Hindu and Sheikh Mushtaq of Reuters. K Kumar, Hyderabad-based Mimeographed of Eenadu TV, was severely beaten and thrown into the rivulet. He sustained head injuries and received 17 stitches at a Srinagar hospital. To save their lives, the newspersons took shelter in the Magam police station.

According to the journalists, the BSF men belonging to 194 Battalion, were led by Deputy Commandant I G Munda, who was particularly rough. At least 13 cameras, including the digital camera of The Hindu photographer, Nissar Ahmad, and a Betacam of Zee TV were smashed by the rampaging BSF men, Bukhari said.

So unprovoked was the behaviour of the BSF that the Union Home Ministry expressed regret over the incident and ordered an inquiry.

”The exact sequence of events and the provocation which led to an altercation between the BSF and members of the media are not yet known and are being ascertained. Yet, there can be no two opinions that whatever happened was most unfortunate and should have been avoided. The Home Ministry expresses its deep regret over the episode and also conveys its sympathies to those who have received injuries or suffered loss of any kind, including dignity” the Ministry statement said.

There were strong protests from the journalist fraternity. In response to frantic telephone calls from senior Srinagar based journalists, minister of state for home Mushtaq Ahmed Lone, and police chief Ashok Kumar Suri immediately drove to Magam. They met the victims at the local police station and apologized for the wrongdoing, assuring stern action against the guilty officials. They also promised that such incidents would not recur.

The police has registered two FIRs against the BSF. Mr Lone was accompanied by inspector general of BSF GS Gill, who, an official spokesperson said, also expressed regret over the assaults. Chief minister Farooq Abdullah also expressed his dismay over the incidents and said that he would take up the matter with Union home minister L K Advani. Mr. Abdullah told some of the victims at his Gupkar Road bungalow that journalists doing their professional duty should not have been assaulted.

Outlook’s premises raided

The recent income tax raids on the R. Raheja group of companies – proprietors of the Outlook magazine and ransacking of the magazine’s Mumbai office came under severe criticism at a press conference organised by the Delhi Union of Journalists (DUI) in protest against “press bashing”. Speaking at the conference the Editor-in-Chief of outlook Vinod Mehta called it an “attack on the freedom of the press in the most medieval and barbaric way.”

Mr. Mehta charged that ever since Outlook published a cover story against the Government, they had received warnings, both veiled and clear, from the highest powers in the NDA Government.

“When warnings did not bear fruit, they cracked down on our proprietors,” Mr. Mehta said adding that he was shocked at the ‘crude manner’ in which the entire operation was carried out.

Mr. Mehta said he had written a protest letter to the Prime Minister saying such behaviour was least expected from the victims of the Emergency. “And in reply, the Prime Minister said he was not aware that this had happened,” Mr. Mehta disclosed, adding, this is either unbelievable or something terribly wrong is going on in this country.”

Lauding the solidarity of middle and junior level scribes in his fight, Mr.Mehta said the silence of “so-called eminences” of his profession and editors on this issue was deafening. It was unfortunate that barring a few Delhi newspapers, others had even failed to report their protest, he added.

Mr. Mehta lashed out at the Press Council for not speaking out on the issue, and said the style in which the present Government was functioning had brought back the Emergency days for journalists. Tarun Tejpal, the Tehelka chief who was also present at the conference, said “if you make the Government unhappy, they make you unhappy in return.” He added that in the Tehelka episode, on the one hand when the guilty Army officers were being nailed, the silence on the Government’s part in penalising politicians and others involved in the scam were deafening.

Others who spoke included the Press Institute of India director Ajit Bhattacharjee, the Press Club Of India president Prabhat Dabral, Editor of Hans magazine Rajendra Yadav, the Press Association of India president Dev Sagar Singh and the Editors Guild of India general secretary Alok Mehta.

The DUI later passed a resolution condemning the Government for ‘curbing the freedom of the press and unleashing a reign of terror on scribes’ and demanded an independent inquiry into the entire episode. The DUI will hand over a copy of the resolution to the President Mr. K.R.Narayanan and will also hold a protest march before the beginning of Parliament’s monsoon session.

Press Council reconstituted

Six editors and five members of Parliament are among the 28 members of the newly – constituted Press Council of India. The term of the outgoing Press Council had ended in March this year. The tenure of the Council’s chairman, Justice P B Sawant (Retd.) ends in August 2001.

In the reconstituted Press Council, the ”working journalists-editors” include Nikunj R. Patel, J. S. Dardi, Sheetla Singh, Rajeeva Kumar Arora, Alok Mehta (editors of Indian language newspapers) and Hari Jaisingh (editor of newspapers other than Indian language newspapers).

The ”working journalists-other than editors” include Suresh Akhouri, Vivek Saxena, Narayan Thyagarajan, Geetartha Pathak (Indian language newspapers) and Sabina Intermit, Raghu Rai and R. Venkataraman (other than Indian language newspapers).

Newspaper managements are represented by Vijay Darda and R. Lakshmipathy from the big newspapers category; Vijay Chopra and Pratap T.Shah from the medium newspapers category; and Sunil Dangand Sushil Jhalani from the small newspapers.

M. K. Razdan represents news agencies. In the category of persons having special knowledge or practical experience in education, science, law and literature and culture, Prof. Kapil Kumar has been nominated by the University Grants Commission. The Sahitya Akademi has nominated Dr. Raghuveer Chaudhari and Indrajit Mohanty has been nominated by the Bar Council of India.

There was, however, no indication when the new media council which the government has proposed will be set up. Opposition to the proposed media council is growing, and private broadcasters and TV companies have ridiculed the idea of having representatives of small newspapers judge their programmes.

Action against DD officials

Prasar Bharati has written to the I&B ministry to take action against two senator DD officials, among others, involved in ensuring that a Kolkata based programme producer got undue favours.

Almost a dozen officials involved in such deals, including K. Kuhnikrishnan and Dr. P.K. Seth, both Deputy Director General, face charges.

The letters were written after Satish Tewari, then Director in the I&B Ministry, investigated the charges and submitted a report to Prasar Bharati. Though nothing concrete has been proved, a senior Prasar Bharati official said they had ”exercised power without authority” and action should be taken.

Mr. Kuhnikrishnan was DDG (Commercial) at that time and Dr. Seth, DDG (Finance). Others involved are Rakesh Bahadur, and an IAS officer who was with DD and is now on ”study leave.” Several officers, present and former, of Kolkata DD have also been named.

DD revenue hit by non-payment

Doordarshan’s revenue figures for the year 2000-01 is Rs 637 chore and All India Radio’s about Rs 80 crore. But this figure, buoyed by sports revenues and money earned by DD Metro would have been higher if top programming houses had paid up their dues. Mr Kerry Packer’s Channel 9 heads the list with dues upto Rs 11 Crore. Other dues amount to over Rs 20 crores.

Budhan in Hindi

Budhan, a magazine on denotified tribes originally published in a tribal language, is now being brought out in Hindi under the guidance of its originators Mahasveta Devi, and G. N. Devy. The aim is to awaken the people of the capital to issues concerning bridals, especially those which are being tagged as ‘Criminal tribes’.

The magazine, being edited by Dr. Anil Pandey, has informative articles by Gunakar Mule, Dalip Singh Bhuria, A L Basham and others.

A report on the print media

A report of the Press Council of India, ”Future of print media”’ is ready and will be published shortly. The 163 page report has been prepared by a 21 member committee headed by the Council’s chairman, Justice P. B. Sawant. It also contains a two page dissenting note by two members that the report is based on sweeping observations and has omitted vital issues like contractual employment of journalists, their harassment by government agencies and the use of newspapers by their owners for personal gain.

The report has recommended the setting up of a third Press Commission to suggest how the Indian print media could discharge its duties in the global environment marked by technology changes, emergence of a unipolar world and globalization. It has also recommended cheaper newsprint for small papers, social auditing for the press, encouragement of community papers.

The Council has also called for a review of the advertisement policy of the government among other things, to promote and strengthen the print media.

Star Wars

Kolkata recently witnessed a war between Star TV and cable operators. The row was over an extra Rs. 30 per subscriber to receive Star channels, because of which the Kolkata viewers were deprived of all the entire package for quite a while. There was speculation that that since one cable company is owned by a media organization, the whole charade was designed explicitly to embarrass another. However, the Kolkatan channel surfers were most offended with this arbitrary black out by the cable opertors. They complained that they had not been consulted on their preferences and paying capacities by cable operators before having their package arbitrarily truncated. They strongly feel they have the right to decide what they want to see and how much they can afford to pay.

Lockout in press founded by Gandhi

The historic Navjivan Press, founded by Mahatma Gandhi, faces closure. The management of the 71- year- old Press has declared a lockout in response to an agitation by the 135 odd workers who are demanding Rs. 5,000 (4 per head as earthquake relief to repair their houses damaged in the earthquake. The workers allege that the management never gave the necessary notice before declaring the lockout and feel they have not resorted to any extreme measure to necessitate a lock-out.

The management, however, claims that several attempts were made for a compromise but the employees refused to cooperate and that there was enough notice given for the lock out. According to the management, the workers resorted to work-to-rule and reduced production from printing 20,000 to 15,000 copies a day.

The managing trustee, Jitendra Desai, who is also the vice-chancellor of the Gujarat Vidyapith, another institution founded by Gandhiji, said that the Navjivan Press was being run only for the sake of the employees so that they were not rendered jobless.

According to the management, they had already repaired the staff quarters and the press premises damaged in the earthquake. Besides, a wage revision of the employees is due by August. Hence no fresh demand placing additional burden on the press could be entertained at this stage.

Desai further added that there was no pressing reason to reopen the press in the near future.

Guidelines to media on reposing issues concerning child rights and child sexual abuse

The National Human Rights Comission (NHRC) has come up with a set of guidelines to ‘assist’ the media in reporting issues pertaining to sexual abuse of children.

According to a senior NHRC official, the guidelines – framed in April in collaboration with UNICEF and Prasar Bharati – are also aimed to ”equip and empower the media to play a nature active role in promoting and protecting children’s rights and develop a clear understanding of existing laws to combat child sexual abuse.”

Besides reporting the incident, the guillotines state, ”the media should also report the subsequent actions taken..and continue to report till action is taken to punish the abusers.”

“It is important that the issue of sexual abuse is presented as a serious violation of rights, not only as an   offence against children… Media should, through sensitive and meaningful projection and coverage of the issue, be instrumental in creating a sense of moral indignation and outrage over incidents of child sexual abuse,” state the guidelines.

There are, however, some definite ”don’ts” suggested by the NHRC while covering such ‘sensitive issues.’ The guideline states that a news report ”should not under any circumstances reveal/disclose the identity of a child who has been a victim of child abuse but should instead use ‘masking techniques, where ever the  victim is made to give a first person account of his/her experience.” Tile victim and his relatives must be assured of confidentiality, it added.

Some other ”don’ts” in the NHRC guidelines are that the news report should not be based on ”superficial interviews with persons supposedly witnesses to such incidents.” Media should desist from the temptation to sensationalism or exaggerate a particular incident of child abuse and ”should not unwittingly glorify the act of sexual abuse by giving undue prominence to the perpetrator.” Further, that media should not create a prurient interest in the sexuality of the child by image or innuendo.

Indian Film with all-women crew

Revathi, the much acclaimed actress from Tamil Nadu has recently directed a film titled Mitr, My Friend. What is striking about the film though is that it has an all-women technical crew.

”Priya, who had worked as assistant to Maniratnam and Suhasini, came to us with a story for a T.V serial. After reading it, my husband Suresh felt that it would make a good subject for a film. It was then that we decided to produce the film and I thought I could try my hand at direction. We got Prabha Koda to do the costumes. It was then that we realized that we could have an all women technical crew” says Revathi.

Apart from Priya, Prabha and Revathi herself, Fowzia Fathima, an assistant to P.C. Sriram, did the camera, Bhavatharini scored the music, Sudha Kongara wrote the dialogue, Thamarai penned the lyrics,  Vasundhara Das sang the songs and the award winning editor Beena edited the film.

The film is about Lakshmi a small town girl from Tamil Nadu, who gets married to Prithvi a North Indian, born and raised in America. Lakshmi’s life revolves round her husband and daughter Divya. Divya grows up and has her own life; the cultural differences between mother and daughter becoming more obvious as the years go by. Prithvi is too busy to understand her loneliness. Lakshmi decides to live for herself, explore life and find her own identity.

Shobhana plays Lakshmi, Prithvi is Nasir Abdullah, the popular model from Mumbai and Preeti Vissa, trained in classical dance in American plays the 18-year-old Divya. Others in the cast are Mathew Philip and Blake Ormsby.

About working with an all women crew Revathi says, ”Women are more organised and pay attention to details. In fact, they are too organised. We shot most of the film in San Francisco. As we reached there the weather suddenly changed and it started to rain. Everything had been so perfectly organised. But then we changed our plans and schedules and everything went on without any hassle.”

The Wah! Controversy

On May 28, the Delhi High Court finally dropped the contempt charges against Madhu Trehan, Editor-in-Chief and six other employees of the magazine –Wah India, accepting their apologies and directing the magazine to publish the apology in five national dailies within two weeks.

The controversy arose when Wah India, in its April 16-30, 2001 issue, carried an article that “assessed” and assigned marks to the 32 judges of the Delhi High Court on issues of personal integrity, quality of judgement, depth of basic knowledge, manners in court, receptiveness to arguments, punctuality, etc.. that was based on responses of some 50 senior lawyers to a questionnaire circulated by the magazine.

The article, that was reportedly sarcastic and satiric – and according to  Madhu Trehan “on the lines of similar articles published abroad” – had the lawyer community up in arms. The Bar Council of Delhi, along with a lawyer Dr. B. L. Wadhera, did not lose any time to file contempt proceedings against the magazine’s Editor-in-Chief, Editor, Publisher, Printer, Creative Director, Sub Editor and a correspondent, alleging that the article had defamed the 32 judges of the court.  Action was prompt. All copies of the issue was confiscated following court order.  The High Court, by its order of April 26, also placed a ban upon the press on the reporting of court proceedings of this case.

The petitioners referred to the article as “obnoxious”. They further added, “in the name of freedom of the Press and fair journalism, the limits of decency and respect for the judiciary have been over- stepped.”

“The language used in the article is sarcastic, contemptuous and  the sole object of the article was to attack the credibility of the institution and defame it,” said Chief Justice Arijit Pasayat.

At the first hearing of the case on May 2, Ms.Trehan had offered an “unconditional and unqualified” apology. The judges, however, were not ready to accept the apology saying that they would like to ascertain whether the apology is “genuine and adequate.”

Justice Anil Dev Singh said, “it appears to me that the apologies have been tendered to avoid punishment are not genuine. Besides, contempt of court committed by the respondents is of a grave nature and tends to be substantially interfere with the due course of justice.” The publication “clearly constitutes contempt of court,” Justice Singh said.

Mr Justice O P Dwivedi said, “apologies tendered were not made in good faith.” He further added, “mere parrot-like repetition of regrets in almost identically worded affidavits does not convince me that the respondents are really remorseful or repentant.”

Then, when the court sought the advice of Attorney General Soli Sorabjee, he advised that the apology be accepted. “The apology has been tendered at the threshold. I do not see any reason not to accept it, “Mr.Sorabjee told the court after it sought his advice. He however added that, “there should be a strong disapproval (of the article) and it is appropriate to nip the evil in the bud, “suggesting what the revised apology should be.

In the mean time on May 1, some senior journalists and editors including Ms. Shobhana Bhartiya,  Vice – Chairperson of the Hindustan Times, Mr. Kuldip Nayar, Rajya Sabha Member and former editor of the Indian Express, Mr. Vinod Mehta, Editor – in – Chief of Outlook, Mr. Dilip Padgaonkar, Executive Managing editor of the Times Of India., Mr. Shekhar Gupta, Editor – in – chief of the Indian Express, and Mr.Ashwini Chopra, Resident Editor of Punjab Kesri, had moved the Delhi High Court urging it to revoke its ban on reporting of court proceedings of the Wah! India case.

While making it clear that they did not wish to defend the publication of the write-up, the applicants stated that if the orders/directions issued by the court in regard to the ban on reportage were continued, it would tantamount to a blanket ban on the right to information and would thus offend the basic principles as enshrined in the Constitution.

Homi Sethna passes away

On June 19, Homi D.Sethna, eminent documentary filmmaker, one of the founders of the IDPA and a father figure in the documentary film movement in India, passed away.

Homi Sethna was born in 1921 and grew up in Mumbai. After a brief stint as an article clerk in a law firm and in theatre, he began to work as an apprentice in the Army Film Centre. He wanted to learn filmmaking and make underground films to overthrow the British from India. Ironically, soon he was commissioned by the same institution to make public relations and training films for the armed forces.

1n 1946, Homi left for England to learn more about the technique of filmmaking. In England he worked with several film personalities, including director Thorold Dickinson and Edward Carrick, the noted art director. He later joined the Crown Film Unit, which made documentaries for the Government with John Grierson at its helm.

On his return to India, Homi was made a member of the Jury for the first International Film Festival of 1952. He joined the Films Division, but soon left and became an independent documentary filmmaker, that he remained for the rest of his life.

In spite of working with eminent feature film directors, Homi remained focussed on documentaries and his contribution to the documentary film movement is outstanding. In 1957, Homi Sethna, along with other documentary filmmakers Paul Zils, Jagmohan, K.T.John, Vijaykar, Clem Baptista and others, founded the Indian Documentary Producer’s Association (IDPA). His involvement with IDPA continued for several years.

Some of his notable films include Creation in Metal, Vishwakarma the Creater, Kalamkari, A Homage to a Great sculptor, Weaves, Happiness unto Others and Voice of Zarathushtra. He also made a film on nuclear winter with Zul Vellani.

He was conferred the Dr. V.Shantaram Lifetime Achievement Award during the Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF)’ 2000.

Sama

Resource Group for Women and Health

As part of its advocacy work has brought out a set if 3 posters on Gender and Women’s status Contraceptive ‘Choices’ and New Reproductive Technologies targeting women.

The poster on Gender and Women’s Status reflects the subordinate status of women caught in an endless cycle of fulfilling multiple roles as child bearers, homemakers and wage earners,… yet largely remaining unlettered, overburdened, with no control over resources.

The poster on Contraceptive ‘choices’ is a satire on the existing state of affairs: in the backdrop of an oppressive social atmosphere, with improper housing, lack of food, education or employment, women are being given a ‘choice’ in contraception.

The poster on ‘ New Reproductive Technologies’ picture the fertility control lobby targeting women with invasive and hazardous contraceptives in the name of providing ‘choice’

Available in Hindi and English.
Price: Rs.15/- each (Postage extra)
Place your order with :
Sama  – Resource Group for Women & health
J-59, II nd Floor, Saket, New Delhi – 110017
Ph: 6968972, E-mail: samasaro@nda.vsnl.net.in

Other Papers

Death Live! And life too

Editorial, The Statesman, 22/05/01

Entertainment Network of Florida wants to go live with the execution of Timothy McVeigh, the man who drove a truck laden with explosives into the Alfred Murrah federal building in Oklahoma in 1995. They have detected a market for such things, which is interesting. Why should people want to see McVeigh executed? Is it because they are personally aggrieved, having lost their dear ones in Oklahoma or do they burn with an impersonal sense of outrage at an act directed against a federal government that many consider to have an overbearing influence on their lives?

Not really. They are just curious. It has novelty value. They want to see an execution because they have never seen one and because it is not routine entertainment fare. It is, in a queer way, yet another manifestation of the kind of savage individuality that McVeigh himself widowed in blowing up the building in question, the federal government being the principal enemy of his own individual choices and preferences. They belong to the same emotional community and that surely means that the expression of individuality is under some pressure in a highly corporations advanced capitalist economy.

The fact that it takes away the only thing a condemned man has – the dignity of human personality – is of no conesquence. An undignified death, death as a spectacle, as a show, stripped of whatever symbolic sense the individual might wish to bestow on it in the name of his intimate self, has an audience. Showing it live is a way of reducing that person to nothing even as he or she dies and gives the operator the comfortable feeling of triviality. That is entertainment Network.

The company also runs twin other websites, the one dedicated to watching college students and the other homosexuals, both on spy camera. The purpose here is the same: to show people how other people, of their own or a different kind, live, in order to breed either an artificial sense of belonging or alienation according to what individual biographies dictate. In either case, what hapless is the destruction of intimacy, of the private, or very simply put – the right to conceal that without which one cannot be a person.

Fifty five concealed cameras watch college students doing what they do. Entertainment Network sells life as a product.

This is routinely done to celebrities. But the advantage of watching ordinary people on spy camera is that they are defenseless. Stars have million dollar homes and elaborate security to protect their privacy. College students, who do not know they are being watched, are liable to do outrageous or silly things, without knowing that some of their spontaneous actions have commercial worth. This is certainly an outgrowth of what some sociologists have called tjeculture of the image, promoted massively by the audio-visual media which has bred an awareness among ordinary Americans that life is some kind of a show that has to be scripted and acted out for the audience that is society. This must œrtainly be because the industrial society places an extraordinary emphasis on the repression of instincts and the acquisition of social1 skills that have a class as well as a cultural connotation. It is a solely that is based on playacting.

THE PUBLIC SERVICE
BROADCASTING TRUST

A not for profit initiative in partnership with
PRASAR BHARATI

Invites proposals for its second round of commissioning from independent filmmakers for Public Service Documentary Films.
For details about submission procedures
visit www.psbt.org or write for our Info book to
PSBT, PO BOX 3264, Nizamuddin East, New Delhi 110013
With a cheque or demand draft drawn on a Delhi bank for Rs. 100/-

Global Media

Freedom of expression at risk

Journalists across the world are being targeted by governments for carrying out their legitimate investigative reporting work, according to Amnesty International.

On the occasion of the World Press Freedom Day (May 3), the organisation said, ”Journalists have been harassed, tortured, and even killed for reporting the news, and their work is often censored. Democracies and authoritarian regimes have neglected to protect the right to freedom of expression.”

Across the Asia Pacific region, Amnesty International has recorded numerous cases of human abuses against journalists in years.

In Myanmar, the media is strictly controlled by the military authorities, and the law imposes draconian restrictions on the right to freedom of expression. Journalists, writers and editors are among the more than 1800 political prisoners currently held in the country’s prisons.

Seventy-one year old journalist, U Win Tin is serving a 20-year-sentence in lnsein prison, Yangon. Initially arrested during the 1989 crack down by military authorities for urging the opposition party, the National League for Democracy to adopt a civil disobedience campaign, U Win Tin has been behind bars since then, and is in failing health.

In countries where there is armed conflict, journalists are often on the frontline, and at risk of being caught in crossfire, or targeted for their reporting, captured, tortured and “disappeared”.

During the years of armed conflict in Sri Lanka, journalists have been subjected not only to censorship from the Government, but to attacks from both the security forces, and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam(LTTE). Mylvaganam Nimalrajan, a correspondent for several newspapers and international agencies, was killed in his home in Jaffna last year, allegedly by the members of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party, allied to the security forces. Before he was killed, he had reported allegations of vote-rigging and threats during the October elections.

In the state of Jammu and Kashmir, India, journalist Surinder Oberoi was one of the first to reach the scene of a bomb attack near his office in Srinagar in January this year. When the Special Operations Group Police arrived, they accused him of being there early because “journalists are hand in glove with the militants.” The Superintendent of Police allegedly threatened to kill Oberoi, and along with three other policemen beat him with rifles. He has since been asked by the same policemen to withdraw his official complaint of ill-treatment.

The rise of internet and the opportunities this presents to journalists to disseminate information to a global audience is seen as a threat by repressive governments.

In China, Huang Qi launched a website in 1999. Postings on the site increasingly drew attention to alleged corruption and human rights violations. A year later Huang Qi was detained on charges of subversion.

At the opening hearing of his trial in February, Huang Qi fainted, and the proceedings were postponed. His wife claims he was beaten in detention, has lost a tooth, has a scar on his head and suffers from pain in his testicles. His wife is denied permission to see him. His lawyer too has difficulty visiting him.

On the World Press Freedom Day, Amnesty International called on governments across the Asia-pacific region to make a public commitment to uphold the right to freedom of expression, and guarantee protection for journalists.

”Journalism is a profession, not a criminal offence. Governments must face up to their responsibilities and protect the right to freedom of expression” said Amnesty International.

Death for an Editor

An international press rights group has condemned the death sentence declared by a Pakistani court on Mr. Rehmat Shah Afridi, Chief Executive and Editor in Chief of Frontier Post. It said that the cases framed against Mr. Afridi are because of his outright reporting and political stand.

Afridi was arrested from a Lahore hotel in April 1999 after he was accused of possessing 21 kg of hashish in his car. Officials later claimed that they also seized 751 kg of hashish from a truck owned by Afridi. Afridi remained in detention since then and was denied bail. He, along with two of his staff, were tried by the Narcotic Court and sentenced to death. He can appeal against the death sentence within a week. Two of his accomplices were given life imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 25,000 each.

In a letter to the President General Musharraf, Paris based Reporters San Frontiers (RSF) appealed to the military ruler to ensure a fair hearing of Mr. Afridi and grant him a pardon if the hashish sentence is upheld.

In a statement RSF said, ”after more than two years of preventive detention and an fair trail, this death sentence confirms that influential people would like to gag definitively this editor critical of some political and military circle.”

Afridi, who denied any link with the recovered hashish, and his family have accused the authorities of victimizing him for political reasons.

Egyptian TV to counter satellite channels

After years of dull and boring propaganda, endless soaps and outdated cabaret acts that were apparently designed to keep the minds of the masses off politics, the Egyptian state television has opened up considerably giving ample space to political debates, talk shows and programmes with social comment. The state television aims to counter the more popular Arabic satellite channels with programmes such as Breakthrough, In Depth and Without Censorship.

The Arabic satellite channels have been addressing important issues for some time now. Ever since its launch in 1996, Al-Jazeera, the Qatar- based private channel, has grown to be the most popular channel in the Arab world. Though their outspoken political programmes have made the governments angry, their popularity has openly grown with every passing year. Taking cue from this phenomenon, a number of other Arabic language satellite or cable channels such as Orbit, Middle East Broadcasting Corporation and Dubai Television have come up in the past decade.

People associated with the state television argue that the private channels are biased, as is evident from Al Jazeera’s criticism of the Egypt’s propeace stance towards Israel after Palestinians launched an uprising in September against Isreali occupation. The state television seeks to correct such “biases” through its new programmes. But independent observers feel that the opening up in reality gives the government a more sophisticated way to sell its policies at a time when popular anger is running high over Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. The state television talk shows analysing former Presidents Nasser and Anwar Sadat, tend to praise Sadat for making peace with Israel.

Kuwait court rejects plea for women’s rights

Kuwait’s highest court recently rejected a petition to grant full political rights to the emirate’s disenfranchised women, in the sixth such ruling in less than a year.

The case was brought before the constitutional court by two women activists, Ms Lowlowa al-Mulla and Ms.Hind al-Shalfan, who sued the interior ministry for refusing to enrol their names as voters in February 2000.

The Chief Justice Abdullah al-Issa, presiding over the five judge panel, read the ruling and dismissed the case in a one-minute session attended by women activists and their supporters. The constitutional court, whose verdicts are final, has in the past nine months rejected five similar cases, all on procedural grounds. The constitution stipulates equality between men and women, but the electoral law states that only men have the right to vote and run for public office.

37% of software is pirated

According to a report of a trade group of software makers, 37% of the programmes used by businesses are illegal copies. The report further states that software piracy grew in 2000 for the first time in more than half a decade.  Although the worldwide losses to software makers due to piracy dropped slightly to $11.75 billion, it was due to a growing market for software and lower prices, the group said.

The Business Software Alliance, an organisation of productivity software companies such as Adobe and Microsoft, have been conducting the study since 1994.

“North America and the Western Europe have a “fundamental piracy problem,” the report said.  Now the Asia – Pacific nations are increasingly making their presence felt in world-wide piracy. In these countries, more than half of all programmes in use last year were stolen.

The Alliance feels that the real damage being caused by piracy is devastating and can be felt from the thousands of jobs and billions of dollars lost.

If we were just 100 people….

A short excerpt from a thought- provoking message which was widely circulated for the International friendship week…

If we could shrink the earth’s population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like this:

There would be:

- 57 Asians

-          21 Europeans

-          14 people from the Western Hemisphere, both North and South

-          8 Africans

-          52 would be female

-          48 would be male

-          70 would be non-white

-          30 would be white

-          70 would be Non-Christian

-          30 would be Christian

-          89 would be heterosexual

-          11 would be homosexual

-          6 people would posess 59% of the entire world’s wealth

-          and all 6 would be from the United States

-          80 would live in substandard housing

-          70 would be unable to read

-          50 would suffer from malnutrition

-          1 would be near death

-          1 would have a college education

-          1 would own a computer

-          Most would know the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation.

-          25 would have food in the refrigerator, clothes on their back and a roof overhead.

-          8 would have money in the bank, in their wallet or change in a dish somewhere.

Source: ‘Action’ issue 233, March 2001

An open letter from an Iranian filmmaker

Jafar Panahi, an Iranian filmmaker whose film “The Circle” had won major accolades at last year’s Venice Festival, was travelling from Hong Kong to Montevideo. At the JFK airport in New York, Jafar had a two-hour transit. Even though there was no need for a transit visa, Jafar was confronted by US immigration officers and the police, who treated him as if he was an illegal immigrant and sent him back to Hong Kong, all because of his nationality and his refusal to  comply with their whimsical demands. The following is the text of an open letter-from Jafar Panahi addressed to his US colleagues who, ironically, awarded him the Freedom Expression prize.

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

As the winner of the Freedom of Expression Award for my films The Circle, I would like to take your kind attention to what happened to me in your country, an incident that takes place everyday in US. And 1et me hope to see your reaction to these inhuman incidents. I believe, I am entitled to be curious about the response of the Board who granted me such Award, a response proportionate to the behaviour I and many other people faced and will face.

You have considered my movie as a ”wonderful and daring” film and I wish your Board and the  US media would dare to condemn the savage arts of American Police/ Immigration Officers and may such condemnation would make the people aware of these acts. Otherwise, what would mean winning such Award for me? And what honor I would have to keep it? Then, I may return this Award to you as you may find another figure that is more in proportionate to freedom!

In the booklet you kindly sent me together with your Award, I read that a prestigious film personality like Orson Welles has already received this Award. Should I be happy that this great man is not among us now to hear how the American police behaves to the filmmakers or people who enter your country? As a filmmaker obsessed with social issues, my films deal with social problems and limits and naturally I cannot be indifferent to racist, violent, insulting and inhuman acts in any place in the world. However, I certainly do detach the acts of American police and politicians from the cultural institutions and figures as well as from the people of USA – as I was informed, the film critics and audiences in your country very well received my film. Nevertheless, I will inform the world media about my unpleasant experience in New York and I hope, your Board, who strives in freedom of expression, would react properly in this respect.

On April 15, I left Hong Kong Film Festival to the Montevideo and Buenos Aires Festivals through United Airlines’ flight 820. This 30-hours trip was via New York JFK airport and I had to stay there for two hours and change my flight to Montevideo. Further to my requests, the staff of all the said Festivals had already checked if a transit visa is required and they assured me there is no need for such visa and moreover, the airliner issued me the ticket visa NY. But, I myself did ask the United Airlines staff for the need for a transit visa at Hong Kong airport and I heard the same response.

As soon as I arrived at JFK airport, the American police took me to an office and they asked for finger-print and photography because of my nationality. I refused to do it and I showed them my invitations of the Festivals. They threatened to put me in the jail if I would not do the finger-printing. I asked for an interpreter and to call. They refused. Then, they chained me like the medieval prisoners and put me in a police patrol and took me to other part of the airport. There were many people, women and men from different countries. They passed me to new police men. They chained my feet and locked my chain to the others, all locked to a very dirty bench. For 10 hours, no questions and answers, I was forced to sit on that bench, pressed to the others. I could not move. I was suffering from an old illness, however, nobody noticed. Again, I requested them to let me call someone in New York, but they refused. They not only ignored my request but also the request of a boy from Sri Lanka who wanted to call his mom. Everybody was moved by the crying of the boy, people from Mexico, Peru, Eastern Europe, Pakistan, Bangladesh and… I was thinking that any country has its law but I could not just undergo those inhuman acts.

At last, I saw the next morning. Another police man came to me and said that they have to take my photograph. 1 said never. And I showed them my personal photos. They said no and that they have to take my photo (in the way the criminals are taken) and to do the finger-printing. I refused. An hour later, two other guys came to me and threatened me to do the finger-printing and photography by computer and again I refused and I asked for a phone. At last, they accepted and I could call Dr. Jamsheed Akrami, the Iranian film professor of Columbia University, and I explained to him the whole story. I requested him to convince them and as he knows me well, I am not a guy to do what they were looking for.

Two hours later, a police man came to me and took my personal photo.  They chained me again and took me to a plane, a plane that was going back to Hong Kong.

In the plane and from my window, I could see New York. I knew my film, The Circle, was released there for two days and I was told the film was very well received too. However the audiences would understand my film better if they could know that the director of the film was chained at the same time. They would accept my beliefs that the circles of human limits do exist in any part of this world but with different ratios.

I saw the Statue of Liberty in the watery and I unconsciously smiled. I tried to draw the curtain and there were scars of the chain on my hand. I could not stand the other travellers gazing at me and I just wanted to stand up and cry that I’m not a thief! I’m not a murderer! l’m not a drug dealer! I… I am just an Iranian, a filmmaker. But how I could tell this, in what language? In Chinese, Japanese or to the mother tongues of those people from Mexico, Peru. Russia, India,  Pakistan, Bangladesh… or in the language of that young boy from Sri Lanka? Really in what language?

I had not slept for 16 hours and I had to spend another 15 hours on my way back to Hong Kong.  It was just a torture among all these watching eyes. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. But I could not. I could just see the images of those sleepless women and men who were still chained.

- Jafar Panahi

Britain elections and the Media

In the recently concluded general elections, the Labour Party again emerged victorious. The overwhelming majority it received in the Parliament has marginalised and made other opposition parties like the Tory and Liberal Democrats insignificant. In fact, at the last leg of the election campaign, it was quite clear that Labour was heading for a victory. Sensing the swing, Tory, the main opposition party, had changed its campaigning strategy towards the end of the election, from the call to defeat Labour to not vote for it so excessively that it could turn to be authoritarian. Still, the election campaign was not free all together from controversy and tension. It is, in fact, quite surprising that the Labour Party had shown impatience and aggression the most, especially against the media.

As soon as the campaign had begun in the first week of May, the Labour Party banned two high-profile press representatives of BBC from being within the earshot of the Prime minister, Tony Blair. The row later spread and the Sky TV and ITN also were drawn into the controversy for their reporting of the election campaign. Labour had complained to the three channels alleging that its reporters were colluding with the protesters and for having instigated them at a campaign meeting of senior party leaders.

Though Labour won the election easily this time, they were quite uncertain in the beginning and also faced some of the most violent wrath of the voters that Britain ever witnessed. Senior leaders like Prime Minister, Tony Blair, the deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott and Home Secretary, Jack Straw faced the aggressive protest from the voters. In one of the most talked about incident, the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott punched a person when he was hit by an egg on his face. The Sky footage of Mr. Prescott punching the protestor has become the most watched TV event over that week and continued to be replayed as a comment on the campaign flavour. Labour blamed the TV channels for the violence. In a letter to the broadcasters, Ms.Margaret McDonagh wrote that TV personalities had crossed the line between ‘creating and reporting the news.” But the channels denied the charges and said this was a part of the effort to exercise control on them. Other political parties had also made similar accusations terming Labour’s act as intimidation.

However, the accusations and counter accusations have settled down for the time being. But what is the significance of Britain’s recent elections? The election should be seen in the context of great uncertainty and economic hardship that England is facing now. The voters have rejected   economic conservatism and Thatcherian economic views firmly. They are also critical of Labour’s economic policy. But in the absence of alternatives, they voted Labour to power. So it is doubtful that Labour will be able to contain the social tensions and meet the economic demands of the people. Therefore, in coming times, England might witness more road protests, sporadic and organised, against economic hardship. Economic hardship might increase racial violence too. This year’s May Day demonstrations and the recent racial violence are only a pointer.

Digital Divide

The bytesforall website lists some basic facts about computers and the internet:

• The United States has more computers than the rest of the world combined.
• South Asia, with 23% of the world’s people, has less than 1% of the world’s internet users.
• The typical internet user worldwide is male, under 35 years old, with a university education and high income, is urban based and English speaking – a member of a very elite minority.
• A computer costs the average Bangladeshi more than eight year’s income, compared with one months wage for the average American.
• English is used in almost 80% of websites. Yet fewer than one in 10 people worldwide speaks the language.

For more, visit: http://www.bytesforall.org

Feature

The Royal massacre in Nepal

Anand Swaroop Verma

Two significant events took place in Nepal recently. These events might usher in qualitative changes in the political scenario in the country. Both of the issues influenced one and the other and gave birth to a process which might sharpen the inner contradiction among Nepalese ruling class; polarization between democratic forces and help to speed up the formation of an all embracing Communist Party, which is armed with revolutionary ideology, through unity of various factions. We might mention that the first of such an event is the second Congress of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), which, while retaining its military line, adopted the line of a broad based political mobilization and gave top priority in its agenda to the installation of an ‘Interim Government’ through an all-section conference of all political parties, organizations and representatives of mass organizations in the country. The second of such event is the massacre of tile King Birendra Bir Bikram Shah and the members of his family – an event which shook the entire nation. The anger and hatred with which the people of Nepal reacted to the coronation of Gyanendra Bir Bikram confirms, possibly, the view that he might go down in history as the last King of Nepal.

Who killed the Royal family and why? It might take decades to unfold the mystery. It is just possible that this mystery is never revealed – which generally happens in political assassinations. Any way, the high power enquiry committee set up to go into these killings ‘has, after a week’s investigations, given its judgement that Birendra’s son Deependra was behind this massacre. But the committee could not find out the motive and objective behind the gruesome murders. That he committed such a massacre in the anger over his inability to persuade his parents to marry his fiancees is something which neither the people of Nepal accepted nor the people outside the Kingdom could digest it. Despite contradictions and irrelevancies, the onus of the report has been to prove that these killings were not part of a political conspiracy.

The US Foreign Office, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Nepalese Prime Minister G.P. Koirala – all the three – have asserted in one voice that there is no conspiracy in the killing. The entire debate got focussed over the query – who pulled the trigger?

Yet, if we take into account the events of the last few months it is obvious that it had become necessary, for those who had been terrified with the Maoist People’s War, to eliminate King Birendra and install in his place a king of their choice. These elements were persistently pressurising King Birendra to suppress and repress the Maoist movement.

The Koirala Government had already been demanding from King Birendra, ever since after the September Maoist armed action in Dolpa last year that the Army be used to deal and contain Maoists; but the King was not prepared for it. Then the Maoist again attacked, this April in Rukum and Dailekh in central Nepal, in which 70 policemen web killed and 23 were captured. A large quantity of arms were looted by the Maoists. Three Maoists were also killed in this action. The demand for the resignation of the Koirala Government gained intensity after it and Koirala increased pressure upon the King for the deployment of the Army against Maoists. But King Birendra was not prepared, even after the event, to deploy the Army. He argued that he did not deploy the Army in 1990, when thousands and thousands of people had gathered at Darbar Marg and raised slogans against the royalty and were moving towards the Palace to attack. King Birendra was an experienced and sensitive ruler and he believed that the Army should be used only in case of a foreign invasion and its use and deployment against the countrymen was both unreasonable and immoral. Despite all this, and after his failure in resisting different types of pressures, he ultimately allowed  that the Army be ‘deployed’ in certain areas. The Koirala government prepared for this an Integrated Securities and Development Package (ISDP), under which it was decided to send the Army in such areas which are backward and in which development work is being hampered because of the Marxists. The deployment of the Army began on May 26th. It was decided to send the armed forces, at the first instance, in Rolpa, Rukum, Kalikot, Jajarkot, Pyuthan and Salyan districts. These are the districts which are considered as strongholds of the Maoists. One thing is too clear from it that Koirala and all such people were not at all happy with the King who were demanding and pressing for the deployment of the Army. King Birendra was in their opinion a weak king. They were realising the need for a powerful king who could take a hard step, when needed.

The nationalist inclination of King Birendra was a cause of discomfort and anxiety to such elements and forces who are desirous of keeping South Asia under their hegemony. The manner and haste with which US Foreign office reacted to the massacre by saying, ”it does not appear there is a political conspiracy behind it” in itself, confirms the doubt that there is a definite political conspiracy behind the Nepal royal massacre. If we study the reports of the Foreign and defence departments and intelligence agencies of the United States, then it is evident that the Maoist movement had considerably disturbed tile United States. It has been emphasized, time and again, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union there is no danger for Europe from communism. It has been argued, in this backdrop, that the United State must now concentrate its strategy in Asia, as the crease there and their presence and influence would cause danger and difficulties for the US naval base in the Indian Ocean region. In fact, such an apprehension is a principal reason for the improvement and cordiality between US and Indian relations – especially in the defence sphere. The United States, after its devastating experiences in Vietnam, hesitates and worries in resorting to direct military invention- in such an eventuality it would definitely prefer to push India into proxy war.

It is too obvious that the ever increasing influence and popularity of the Maoists in Nepal extremely disturbed United States. It would have been difficult for it handle, in such a situation, an experienced and patriotic King Birendra. We must not forget or ignore that even after the introduction of the multi-party system, the popularity and reverence of King Birendra among the people of Nepal had neither decreased nor suffered a setback. Not only this, the manner in which King Birendra allowed democracy to overtake monarchy, significantly increased his stature. The graph of his image as a nationalist and an ardent supporter was raising everyday. It is no wonder that United States saw in him yet another Prince Sinhanouk of Cambodia, causing a nightmare of the shattering of American dream and ambition in the region. In such a situation it needed a weak monarchy which could ensure and carry forward US dreams and strategies. It needed a King who might not afford foreign intervention, rather extend an invitation for it.

This massacre was outcome of the convergence and integration of such Internal and external elements inimica1 to King Birendra. Though King Birendra had consented for the ‘deployment’ of the army, the new political line of the Maoists (lad already created difficulties for such elements who expected that they  would defeat the Maoists in the battleground. The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) had decided in its second Congress on February 25^th, 2001 that all – section conference of all political parties, organisations and representatives of mass organisations in the country be convened so as to establish solidarity among all leftist, progressive and patriotic elements and this conference should constitute an interim government. This interim government will enact a new people’s constitution. The second congress brought forth concrete methodology of ‘fusion of the strategy of general insurrection into the strategy of protracted people’s war in Nepal’. It gave the clarion call, ”Consolidate and expand base areas and local people’s power” and ”March forward to the direction of building central people’s government” It was also stated in the Congress that the past successful models of the proletarian revolution cannot be implemented in the changed world situation in toto. Obviously the objective of this conference will be on one hand, to march towards the integration of the communist movement. On the other hand, it aimed to bring together all democratic and patriotic elements into one fold.

The document of the Second Congress amply points out that Maoists are desirous to leave behind their military line and are aiming at large scale mobilisation of masses through political programmes, so as to create a favourable climate for the revolution. In this context, the meeting of various communist and democratic groups held in May was very significant.  It discussed the strategy of forming a broad democratic front.

This was a big challenge for those who thought of eliminating Maoists on the military front only. Even full scale military action could not have been possible during the lifetime of King Birendra. On the other hand, King Gyanendra has an image of a hard-liner and has not kept it a secret og his belief that Maoists can be eliminated militarily – provided sufficient resources are available. Koirala seems to think also on the same wavelength.

It can be easily realised that a section of the privileged and affluent ruling elite has already convinced itself to support King Gyanendra, ever since he was enthroned. It appears to hold the view that King Gyanendra could possibly save them from the Maoist threat. It is quite natural for the common masses in such situation, to be attracted towards the political programme which the Maoists have begun to pursue. Both the Government and the royalty would try hard to ensure that Maoists deviate on their political line and attach greater importance to their military line. Both Koirala and the palace are scared of the possibility that the people might rally around in support of the Maoists. Till yesterday it was an entirely different situation. Grinding parties and widespread mismanagament, the people had a confidence that King Birendra would save the country. Then a section of the people was looking towards the palace, while the other drawn towards Maoists. Now there is a radical change in the situation. The circumstances in which King Gyanendra was enthroned and the image he has (which found expression during his take-over in the slogans raised by the people, which were derogatory and inimical to him) have left little hope for the people from the royalty. Now only a handful of extremely wealthy indivisuals and feudal lords would remain loyal to the palace and the Government. The vast multitude of the people will now look forward to the Maoists as redeemers and liberators. It would, therefore, be no wonder if the government and palace jointly resort to stern measures. The arrest of Yuvraj Ghimire on June 6, is an indication towards such eventuality. In any case, the days to come offer the greatest challenge to the people of Nepal.

“I printed Bhattarai’s opinion only because journalistic ethics demanded it…” – Yuvraj Ghimire

Kantipur, a Nepali daily, had published an article on the massacre written by Maoist leader Baburam Bhattarai. Subsequently, its editor Yuvraj Ghimire was arrested with the charges of treason even though his editorial was critical of Bhattarai’s views. Both the Nepal government and a large section of the Indian media labelled him as ‘anti-Indian.’ Following are some excerpts of Yuvraj’s article”Blue Pencil, Red Ink and Shades of Truth,” carried by Outlook (July 2, 2001)

The Maoist leader (Baburam Bhattarai) claimed that the CIA and India’s RAW had a role in the palace massacre, stung as the two countries had been at King Birendra’s decision to move closer to China. He also portrayed Prime Minister G.P.Koirala as a mere puppet in the tragic episode….…. The Asian age editor M.J. Akbar, whom I consider my guru, criticised  the Nepal Government for arresting me but simultaneously thought that printing Bhattarai’s article was an example of ‘bad journalism and branded me ‘anti-Indian’.

Ironically, in printing Bhattarai’s article I had been guided by what I had learnt from MJ. With the Maoist movement emerging as one of the most significant political factors in Nepal, it would have been bad and biased journalism to have not published its views on the most serious crisis to have gripped modern Nepal. Like the Asian Age or the Telegraph during MJ’s days, I printed Bhattarai’s opinion only because journalistic ethics demanded it, and not because of anti-Indianism.

“ The Press in Nepal is not otherwise muzzled” – Kanak Mani Dixit

Following are excerpts of an interview with Kanak Mani Dixit, the editor of Himal, the South Asian magazine. The interview was conducted by Sevanti Ninan on behalf of the Hoot, a web magazine. Visit http://www.thehoot.org for the full version.

Why have the editors of Kantipur been arrested when the Government has not taken cognisance of numerous local news sheets that have been allegedly publishing scurrilous or dubious stories?

It is true, Nepal’s mainstream press has been providing ready space for the Mumbai leadership to place its opinion before the public. The editor of Kantipur and two of its co-publishers were taken in for printing an article by the Maoist ideologue Baburam Bhattarai. The government of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala claims that it has taken this action because of the extremely sensitive and unstable moment in national life during which it was printed. Bhattarai’s article, carried on the editorial page as an opinion, calls the recent Royal Palace murders the handiwork of Indian and American intelligence, calls the new King Gyanendra an Indian stooge, and asks the officers and jawans of the Royal Nepal Army to revolt.

Clearly, it was foolish for the government to jail the editor and publishers. Newspapers and their editors are best left to self-regulate, and the fact that the government had allowed pieces by Maoists to be printed earlier goes against its case. Meanwhile, editor Ghirmire himself had written an editorial severely criticising the piece by the Maoist leader in the paper the following day.

I would only like to add one note of caution to foreign friends who are concerned about press freedom in Nepal; this incident seems to be an aberration and the result of unusual times when judgements of those in power go awry. Certainly, the mainstream press doesn’t feel the heavy hand of government otherwise, and the press is not otherwise muzzled.

Broadly, how would you classify the local media in Nepal, and what role does each of these categories play?

Given Nepal’s non-colonised status, Nepali language papers are overwhelmingly important in Nepal, and not the English Press. The daily broadsheets have expanded reach dramatically in the last decade of press freedom., putting the party-affiliated weekly tabloids in a bit of a shade. Meanwhile, there is the very successful world of independent FM radio stations, now nearly a dozen countrywide. Television presently means only the state- owned Nepal television, but the attempts by the controversial businessman Jameem Shah to uplink Channel Nepal, Nepal’s first satellite station, via Thaicom has been stymied over the last 2 months even though all the infrastructure is in place. Some critics say that the Government is succumbing to the Indian government’s alleged sensitivities by not allowing Channel Nepal to uplink.

The role of the Nepali media in general during the latest crisis following the royal palace killings has been disheartening. The broadsheets, of whom a lot was expected, essentially chickened out and did not go with investigative reports and breaking news for the first couple of days. Even later, they mainly concentrated on descriptive news. In fact it was the much-maligned weekly tabloids that lived up to some level of journalistic principle. The local FM radio stations and the national state – owned Radio Nepal fed the public with an overdose of mournful of shehnai music all of this past week and more, and the same was the case with Nepal Television.

There are constant references to the unpopularity of the Indian media during the coverage of the this tragedy. Is it possible to pinpoint the cause of this unpopularity?

Well, to begin with, the general perception that has been in place over the years is that when it comes to international affairs (including bilateral affairs with Nepal), the New Delhi press tends to take a ‘statist’ approach, that of the Indian Government. There is no surprise there. What happened with the advent of satellite television is that, particularly in the beginning, it was like a toy that was still being tried out. During the lengthy crisis of the Indian Airlines Kathmandu – Kandahar hijack, (Dec 1999- Jan 2000) there was a lot of tendentious reportage, particularly by one channel which chose to exploit the crisis to surge ahead of the competition. Nepalis felt during that period there was a lot of bias and shoddy reporting, and it is from that period that there has been negativism against the Indian media.

Keep in mind that Nepalis are especially critical of Indian media because they are also more of consumers of Indian media than Pakistanis, Bangladeshis or Sri Lankans. Given the bad quality of programming on Nepal television and given that thanks to Hindi films the  Nepali population , a large proportion of it in any case, understands Hindi, it is no wonder that there is such reaction to what is shown on satellite television from south of the border. Little things become galling for ‘nationalist’ Nepalis viewers, for example when the anchor will make the mistake and say, “in other news from around the country…” when referring to Nepal. The fact that there are very few Nepali analysts who are approached for their on – air views, that mistakes are made over and over again on basic facts of the country (in the present instance, the very makeup of Nepali royalty – one channel constantly refused Birendra and Dipendra, father and son, while presenting their bios), and so on, riles the Nepali-speaking, ‘nationalist’ middle class of Kathmandu Valley.

My personal view is that despite the mistakes made on a nearly continous basis initially, the Indian satellite channels have quickly become savvy about Nepal and in the absence of Nepal’s own media, they did play, on balance, a positive role in the present crisis.

If the countries in South Asia have to live in a degree of harmony, with some amount of economic cooperation what kind of role do you think the media in this region should be playing?

Media must not be imperious. Television media must know how it has the power to manipulate images and messages on the editing console. The need for ‘images’ by television media allows it to distort events. For example, if you have a team in Kathmandu at great expense, that team is forced to keep creating news just to justify its presence. This is something the programme directors have to watch out for.

But I would never support any kind of control. The television media, in particular, just has to get better. It can do this when there is reasoned criticism by representatives of the ‘target population’. At the same time, there should be much more variety out there. For the half a billion people or more out there who reside the northern half of South Asia who understand  various forms of Hindustani, how come there are no more than three or four channels in Hindi?

So, we should start with (market supporting) much more channels in Hindi so that there is more competition and hence more quality, but beyond that there should be satellite channels to begin with in Nepali, and then in all the other languages of the northern half of South Asia.

How has the media on occasion had negative influence on the harmony in the region? Can you give examples?

The excess of heroics and nationalism on private satellite channels coming out of India will not do us too much good. You see, these channels are Indian/Hindi channels, but they forget that their footprint is all South Asia. The other channels, particularly those of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal, are all government channels. Nothing good can be expected of them in any case. The only way I see the private channel really being sensitive to any other category other than the Hindi/English elites of North India is if they see their  advertising market somehow penetrating these other countries. But maybe there is another way.

Panchgani Papers

Who calls the shots?

Sucheta Dalal

I am going to begin with a story about a newspaper, which is probably the largest selling English newspaper in the country. In 1992, it was responsible for breaking the security scam. It was also responsible for pushing a whole lot of economic issues – the anti- Enron writings, corruption in the corporate sector, and the way public companies have vanished with the investor’s money; a paper which was probably among the first to break the CRB scandal.

Then, in 1998, the owners of the paper called the first ever conference of all their correspondents from around the country in Delhi. The agenda was to discuss legal issues. Just about everybody, who mattered in the legal community, was a speaker at the conference. And every one of them had a single point to make, “the media is not really the fourth estate, it’s the first estate: because a lot of things are brought to light by the media.” Journalists should not worry about issues like contempt, because while contempt frightens a lot of newspapers and journalists, it is as yet, an untested and unfinalised legal position on what amounts to contempt in the Indian context. Every single speaker, including the Chairman of the Press Council kept saying that journalism is a vocation and you people have to do a lot more; society depends on the media.

At the end of the session, once all the guests had gone away, the owners of the paper shut off the microphones and said, “okay, now you sit back and listen to what we have to say about what you are expected to get out of this seminar.” They said, “forget everything that you’ve heard over the last two days. The agenda here was not for you to learn how to test the limits of the law, but how to avoid cases. We want no court cases, we want no problems, we want the paper to be built in the personality of it’s owners which is low profile. We don’t want high profile editors, because if the owners are not high profile, why should the editors be high profile? We are not interested in setting the agenda for the nation. We are not interested in people learning the English language by asking their children to read the front page of this paper. Hinglish is in. So we will use slang, we will use Hinglish and we will go down to the masses.”

Now, this is a paper where apparently on people’s birthdays their friends go and get a microfilm of the frontpage of the paper, of the day they were born. But the owners said, “we are not interested in any of that. Televison  is the medium of record. Television gets all the ads, they make the money. Let them be the main medium of record and news. We want to make sure that you don’t get carried away by what you heard over the last two days.”

Most people who attended the conference went back in a state of shock. We later discovered, what the speakers had spoken about was not the agenda meant for the conference. The editors of that paper were trying to get the speakers to influence the owners. But nothing of that sort happened. What happened in this paper is a reflection of what is going on in the entire press today. This is the most profitable business group in the country. It is the group with the largest circulation and is the most profitable. Hence, it also sets the business agenda for other newspapers; about how far they are going to go, what they are going to carry and whether they want to test any limits. In fact, it has been setting the agenda on a lot of issues. It pioneered the page three concept. They are very proud of what they call ‘dumbing down’ of newspapers. That’s a new debate that has started in the last few days with some editors finally saying, “it’s gone far enough. We need to reassess whether ‘dumbing down’ or newspapers is good for society.

My question is, who decides what is good for society in the absence of a whole lot of institutions connected with the media which have just vanished or been systematically broken down? For instance when I started in journalism, seventeen years ago, you were expected to follow up news stories. And if you missed a story which was in another paper you were not only expected to follow it up but you were expected to find another angle to it. So that you still had something sensible. However, if you analyse the trends in the last few days, the minute one newspaper had a big scoop, unless it is raised in parliament. Then of course, they have no option but to report it.

Look at what has happened to journalists themselves. Most of them are now contract employees, which means that at the end of three years they don’t have a job. And if you are seen as protesting  too much or pushing your agenda, you not only don’t have a job at the end of three years, you don’t have a job anywhere. Because no other paper wants to hire difficult journalists. Earlier, you were expected to follow news stories, today when you do your third follow up. It is called a campaign. And they don’t want journalists who believe in the campaigning style of news reporting.

The only one which is thriving is the Press Club which is a place to drink, not to meet, not to lobby, not to set agendas and definitely not to stand up for each other. In fact, the biggest factor which gives the management strength is that journalists don’t stand by each other, don’t stick to causes, don’t say okay this is an issue where someone is being victimised. If today, a journalist is being victimised there is absolutely nobody they can turn to. We as journalists are expected to write about problems that other people face. But the contract system is absolutely illegal and they know it. But they get away with it because nobody challenges it. The first journalist who challenges the system is not going to be employed anywhere else. So even when journalists are not paid gratuity, they keep quiet, they turn freelancers, or they are out of journalism.

You then have what one likes to call, the role that the marketplace plays in either ‘dumbing down’ and destroying institutions or making sure that nothing negative is ever highlighted. You look at newspapers today. Even the average lay person knows that there is a lot more that needs to be written, but which is not being written. And the allegation usually is that journalists don’t follow up their own stories, nobody wants to do legwork. Yes! in a sense, it is true. Because the way newspapers are structured, if you do legwork, you end up spending your own money and subsidising the institution. And most big groups are not interested, because of this process where they say that a certain category of people read newspapers.

Referring to the ‘dumbing down’ debate, the editor of Business standard, T.N. Ninan, had written a whole column about the problems of this process and it’s possible effect on society. The result was that the No. 1 newspaper group in the country attacked him by name in a subsequent article and said, “ you know, the milkman who is growing his business aspires to buy our papers and aspirational value does not arise from editorial articles that are written  and moulded in the personality of the other editor (T.N.Ninan), but in the news that he reads on page three.” They say that society is growing and building around which boutique to shop at, which movie to see and who are the stars of page three whom they should emulate. That is the aspirational value that drives their circulation. Statistically, they claim, that it is page three and the city supplements that are driving circulation and not the main paper. In fact, we have a standing joke that very soon those city supplements are going to be the main paper and the national paper is going to be wrapped in the middle, like all the supplements.

If you look around at any sensible journalist who wants to do sensible work, and they are doing it with zero job security, most of them are unemployed. They can continue to do work only if they are outside the mainstream. So even before the pressure of the market place is felt, the newspapers themselves decide that it is not going to work. We should look back a little about why they have decided it is not going to work.

They say negative news makes them enemies. It makes them enemies in the corporate sector, which immediately means no ads. They are quite right when they say it means no ads. Take for instance one of the best reputed groups in the country, the Tatas. They have always hit back at newspapers by cancelling advertisements. When India Today quoted Ratan Tata, he denied the next day. But it was on record. So he cut all the ads to the Times of India (TOI).  He was not interested in right or wrong. On one hand you have this group with the big brand image – building hospitals and social institutions, funding NGO’s – and on the other hand this is how revengeful they get when it comes to the media. I am quoting Tatas as an example because that is a benchmark, everybody else is much worse.

Then you have the phenomenon of multinationals, which not only have obscene advertising budgets, but they even determine other factors. For instance, I am sure all of you have no doubts at all that this sudden rush of beauty queens that India has produced is not because India has suddenly developed beautiful women, but because of the sponsors behind each one of them. And if you observe what is happening for a week  as the build up to the finals takes place, you are able to predict whether the Indian woman is going to win or not. It has become an industry, and this industry depends on a whole lot of multinationals which are into cosmetics, crystals, dress designing and so on, each of which means a huge amount of advertising.

There is also another aspect in which industries hurt by the policies of this paper are not able to do anything. I will give you an example of the TOI Group. If you look at what happened to this dotcom revolution, dotcoms came and went, youngsters raised money and people became crorepatis overnight, sort of legitimately funded by mutual funds and venture capitalists. But the people who really made money are the TOI. They carried the maximum number of full page ads at a premium. Day after day there were about 15 pages of dotcom advertising. Then the Times Group decides that it will set up it’s own dotcom, the ‘indiatimes.com’.  Then they say that dotcom and IT companies are welcome to advertise, but they will get no editorial write up. So, when ‘yahooindia’ is launched, they don’t carry anything about it, except a paragraph. Now they’ve gone a step further to include classified advertisements. For instance, if you have a website and you put an ad in the Times, they will not accept your website address. This, according to me, is a restrictive trade practice. But then, we have dismantled the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act. This entire industry is now angry and worked up. They are the advertisers, they are enriching the paper, but they don’t have the clout to say, “ we won’t tolerate it.” The question is, who do you turn to when you are discriminated against?

For instance, this is the group that broke the story of the scam, and this is the same group that wanted to carry Harshad Mehta’s column in the paper. When the Consumer Education and Research Centre moved the Press Council of India, we discovered two things. One is that they don’t recognise the Press Council, it is a toothless body. Nobody fights for the Press Council getting more powers, and newspaper owners are very proud of saying that they don’t believe in the Press Council.  What is more appalling is that the lawyers of this paper made a case to the Press Council about how Harshad Mehta is someone who is an expert in his field, someone who has to be looked up to – he has not been convicted in any case, so why should not his column be carried? It was already carried by the Navbharat Times, and so on. They wanted it carried in the TOI. The Press Council gave a ruling against all newspapers who began to carry his column in 1998 and said that it is akin to a murderer or a serial killer saying that he’s an expert and so ask him on whatever his chosen weapon of murder and say that he can write a column saying how to go about doing it. The same logic can be stretched to other areas. But the point is, it is not as though the Times accepted the ruling and didn’t carry Harshad’s column. They didn’t carry it because Harshad overtraded in 1998, did the same things that he had done in 1992 and collapsed. So, overnight, when there was an investigation into the collapse and people lost money, he just wiped out his website. It was off cyberspace and he stopped his columns. The lesson here is, it can happen again. Because it is not that the Press Council made a difference. It is just that Harshad stopped writing his column. And there are going to be many more Harshad Mehtas.

We come to social issues which need to be highlighted. And where do you think you are going to find the space to carry them? You are talking about groups of people who have no advertising clout to influence newspapers. Unfortunately, you are not glamorous, so you can’t figure on page three. You would probably get written about if you had fantastic parties that are unusual. Or you could do silly things and make it to the press that way. So what is the forum by which real causes are going to be highlighted in a systematic manner? Otherwise you are going to the have the usual phenomenon of two stories appearing in a newspaper and that’s it. Two stories!

I call it cornering of the press, because every time you write a negative story, you are against a bunch of people who have loads of money, who are issuing ads in your paper worth chores of Rupees, who have high class PR departments, usually with foreign affiliations, and entire legal departments working for them. So they can send you notices, they can send you letters and there is nothing you can do. It has reached a stage where the paper immediately looks at the cost-benefit  analysis. One of the dangerous trends that you would have noticed, if you look at the five business papers that exist, you will have a number of stories where the paper apologises for correct stories. They are right, but they say , ”we can’t face the relentless pressure of the corporate house, so lets just apologize. Lets not bother” They have all adopted the same policy of avoiding court cases. If that happens to a reporter in the second or third year of his /her profession, where is the morale?

You talk about investigative journalism and I keep saying that it is not going to happen unless you find a way. The tragedy is that half of society doesn’t even seem to recognise it. Nobody looks inside newspapers to see what is happening. Of course, the flip side of this is the high level of corruption. Owing to the way that the system has evolved, it is so much more profitable and easy, and in a sense even sensible, to be on the side of the corporate sector. It is a bit like Japan, where every corporate house has an in-house journalist who is employed by the newspaper and who follows everything that the company is doing and writing about it. Increasingly, that is the trend. If you are nice to a business group, you get junkets, you get invited to all the parties which are happening all the time – not just their press conferences and the press ko daru pilao and khana khilao kind of thing – but it includes events that they sponsor, it includes fashion shows and derbies and what have you. The minute you are their enemy, you have to be at the receiving end to know what is the kind of campaign they can conduct against you. Apart from the letters that they orchestrate, they start a personality campaign. There is innuendo about whether you have taken money, and many, many things that you can’t fight  beyond a point. The next stage is when they blacklist you.

For instance, when I was in the TOI, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) blacklisted us. Today the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has blacklisted me. And the problem is that it is not an Enron or a Uni Lever company that is going to do it, but our institutions have begun to do it. So whether it is the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), or the RBI, there is no protection. So 1 keep saying, that it is not just the  marketplace, you have a situation today where there are twenty-five television channels vying for one quote, so you cannot survive in the profession if you don’t get access to people who matter in the RBI or SEBI. Because if you are a journalist with, say; four or five years experience and you are the special correspondent on a beat you have to get your stories on that beat. If you don’t, you are out. You can probably find yourself at another beat, but any area that you look at – whether you are covering capital markets or environment – you come up with the same problem. You antagonist entrenched forces in that area and they are going to blacklist you. How long are you going to keep running away?

One of the reasons why I really wanted to speak at this session is to draw people’s attention to what goes on. You are not going to find a lot of journalists speaking about this because most of them make their compromises. Let’s face it, today the biggest fixers in the country are journalists. They are the interface between business and politics. They are into policy making, they are into decision making. And it won’t change, unless the people react and the people respond. You have to make the owners and the editors feel that you as a reader are not going to tolerate this.  Every time I speak to people, I ask them, ”how many of you even write a letter to the editor?” Everyone is outraged over their cup of tea, they sneer at journalists and tell you how people don’t do their jobs – I am not defending the profession. Of course there is no research, of course there are people who are taking the easy way out and writing from handouts. Because that is comfortable that is goods that pushes them up the career path. The other trend is editors who have never written a story in their lives. They are people who manage the system, who are a good PR interface with all these angry people who make counter-complaints. They can probably talk articulately, come from a certain background in society and may have basic production skills. Increasingly, they are the editors of newspapers. So where are you going to get support?

This is not a problem with newsapers alone. All of us can say, ”oh! Newspapers are as corrupt as every other segment of society.” But you are the ones who are going to face it. Most of you here are NGOs pursuing a cause, and the cause will not reach the people. You can have 20 year debates on a particular issue with no resolution because it doesn’t go down to the masses. And the only way it is going to go down to the masses is not by rallies, but through the media. And unless you get together and decide how you are going to combat this and find a way to lend support to people who want to do things differently. It is not going to work.

- Based on Sucheta Dalal’s talk at the Human Rights and Media workshop in the Panchgani conference.

BOOKS

Islam Women and Gender Justice

Edited by: Asghar Ali Engineer

It is generally believed that problems faced by Muslim women are only of a legal nature and that if the Muslim Personal Law is reformed, their problems will be solved.  However, their problems are far many than only legal ones – economic, educational, communal as well as those related to health, and it is important to understand all these. Recently an all-India seminar was held in Mumbai in which subject experts, scholars and activists from different fiends were presented papers to discuss the various problems. These papers discuss not only theoretical and academic issues, but also the concrete problems and what could be done to solve these. This volume is a collection of 18 papers and is edited by Asghar Ali Engineer.

Published by Gyan Publishing House, 5, Ansari Road,
New Delhi – 110 002, Ph: (011) 3282060, 3261060
E-mail: gyanbook@del2.vsnl.del.in
Price: Rs.590

Reflections on the Caste Question: An overview of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerallam

by T. G. Jacob

This volume studies the caste factor in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Keralam. It focuses on the areas of actual and potential conflict. Emphasis is given to the rural areas, where the conflict is more visible, recognizing that migration, urbanization and ghettoisation are linked to the bleak rural situation. The study traces the outline history of the various social movements in the respective states and the trends. It explores the likely future trajectory. The book is for all those interested in development or human rights, and is an invaluable compendium for those wanting to understand the present within the historical context to address the future.

Published by NESA, 93/2 Charles Campbell Road,
Cox Town, Bangalore 560032
Ph:(080) 5485134,
E-mail: nesa@vsnl.com

Sarai Reader 01: The Public Domain

Taking of from the concept of the Sarai, a space where travellers meet, find shelter, sustenance, companionship, and much more, the Sarai Reader 01 , conceived to be the first of a series. Is a collection of texts by various authors from all over the world, that traverses the canvass of Public Domain and covers a wide variety of themes, ranging from the nature of public culture to conflicts over urban resources, issues of access, control and censorship of cultural material, to the publics and practices that constitute the media dense spaces of tree cities.

Published by Sarai: The New Media Initiative, Delhi and Society for Old and New Media,
deWaag, Amsterdam, c/o CSDS, 29, Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054,
Ph: (011) 3960040, e-mail: dak@sarai.net

Archive

Bhagat Singh’s letter to his father

On 23 March 1931 Rajguru, Sukhdev and Bhagat Singh were hanged for conspiring against the British Raj Bhagat Singh was only 21 years old. Their prosecution and trials created a major upheaval in the freedom struggle. Even the official history of the Congress Party confesses that Bhagat Singh was more popular than Gandhi at that time in the early thirties. Following is a letter written by Bhagat Singh to his father after the latter had written to the members of the Special Tribunal seeking mercy for Bhagat Singh.

Dear Father,

I was astounded to learn that you had submitted a petition to the members of the Special Tribunal in connection with my defence. This intelligence proved to be too severe a blow to be borne with equanimity. It has upset the whole equilibrium of my mind. I have not been able to understand how you could think it proper to submit such a petition at this stage and in these circumstances. In spite of all the sentiments and feeling of a father, I don’t think you are entitled to make such a move on my behalf without even consulting me. You know that in the political field, my views have always differed those with yours. I have always been acting independently, without having cared for your approval or disapproval.

I hope you can recall to yourself that since the beginning you have been trying to convince me to fight my case very seriously and defend myself properly. But you also know that I always opposed it, I never had any desire to defend myself, and never did I seriously think about it, whether it was mere vague ideology or that I had certain arguments to justify my position, is a different question and that can not be discussed here.

You know that we have been pursuing a definite police in this trial. Every action of mine ought to have been consistent with the policy, my principles and the programme. At present the circumstances were altogether different, but had the situation been otherwise, even then I would have been the last man to offer defence. I had only one idea before me throughout, i.e., to show complete indifference towards the trial in spite of the serious nature of the charges against us. I have always been of the opinion that all the political workers should be indifferent and should never bother about the legal fight in the law courts and should boldly bear the heaviest possible sentences inflicted upon them. They may defend themselves but always from purely political consideration and never from a personal point of view. Our policy in this trail has always been consistent with this principle. Whether we were successful in that or not is not for me to judge.

We have always been doing our duty disinterestedly.

In the statement accompanying the text of the Lahore Conspiracy Case Ordinance, the Viceroy had stated that the accused in this case were trying to bring both law and justice into contempt.  The situation afforded us an opportunity to show to the public whether we were trying to bring law into contempt or whether others were doing so. People might disagree with us on this point. You might be one of them. But that never meant that such moves should be made on my behalf without my consent or even without my knowledge. My life is not so precious – as you may probably think it to be. It is not at all worth buying at the cost of my principle. There are other comrades of mine whose case is as serious as mine. We have adopted a common policy, and so stood shoulder to shoulder, so shall we stand to the last no matter how dearly we have to pay individually for it.

Father, I am quite perplexed. I fear I might overlook the ordinary principles of etiquette, and my language may become a little but harsh while criticising or rather censuring this move on your part. Let me be candid. I feel as though I have been stabbed in the back. Had any other person done it, I would have considered it to be nothing sort of treachery. But, in your case, let me say that it has been a weakness – a weakness of worst type.

This was the time when everybody’s mettle was being tested. Let me say, father, you have failed. I know you are as sincere a patriot as one can be. I know you have devoted your life to the cause of Indian independence, but why at this moment have you displayed such a weakness? I can not understand.

In the end I would like to inform you and my other friends and all the people interested, that I have not approved your move. I am still not at all in favour of offering my defence. Even if the court had accepted that petition submitted by some of my co-accused regarding defence, etc. I would have not defended myself. My application submitted to the tribunal regarding my interview during the hunger strike were misinterpreted and it was published in the press that I was going to offer defence, etc. My application submitted to the tribunal regarding my interview during the hunger strike were misinterpreted and it was published in the press that I was going to offer defence. I still hold the same opinion as before. My friends in the Borostal jail will be taking it as a treachery and betrayal on my part. I shall not even get an opportunity to clear my position before them.

I want that the public should know all the details about this complication and, therefore, I request you to publish this letter.

Reflection

The Media and Devyani –

Insensitivity in covering a tragedy

Ammu Joseph

Media coverage of the massacre of the royal family of Nepal continues to confuse and confound. A major reason for the constantly changing and contradictory reports may be the lack of transparency with which the concerned authorities have handled the crisis. However, one aspect of the constantly changing and largely speculative coverage cannot be blamed on the Nepal authorities alone: the way in which the young woman the crown prince reportedly wished to marry has been presented by the sections of the media.

Of the five English language dailies published from Bangalore, The Times of India and the Asian Age, in particular, presented her as the femme fatale who had triggered the tragedy even though they provided no evidence to suggest that she had had any role in it or even prior knowledge about what was to take place.

On the day the story broke in the Indian Press, the Sunday Times of India published a special, bylined story headlined “Devyani: the girl behind it all” on page 10 which was also prominently showcased in a box on the front page. The story began with a ridiculous rhetorical question: “Could the woman Crown Prince Dipendra shot his parents for be Madhavrao Scindia’s niece? “(as the daughter of his sister what else could she be?!).  It also contained a rather irrelevant comment by a former Indian ambassador to Nepal, who recalled the young woman as very “cultured” – whatever that had to do with anything.

Significantly, the paper’s lead story on the tragedy, headlined “Love triggers bloodbath in royal family,” mentioned that the young woman had initially been reluctant to entertain thoughts of marriage into the royal family because she did not fancy herself as a queen but eventually fell in love with and agreed to marry the persistent prince.

The Asian age, in a story subtitled “Prince’s flame was Scindia kin” (under the dramatic red banner headline  LOVE KILLS ) also reported that “the girl over whom Prince Dipendra had the fatal argument is believed to be Deviyani Rana, the daughter of …”

On the other hand, the Hindu, The New Sunday Express (of the Indian Express southern editions) and Deccan Herald opted not to identify the young woman by name, mentioning only that she was “the daughter of a former minister and member of the aristocratic Rann family that ruled Nepal till 1951.”

By Monday, the Times of India had a 1993 file colour photograph of the young woman with her grandmother on its front page. The caption described her as the woman “who is at the centre of the royal murders in Nepal, “even while it acknowledged that this was only “one version” of the speculation about the killings.

While the Deccan Herald continued to ignore this aspect of the event, the Hindu and the New Indian Express had special stories on pages 14 and 11 respectively that did reveal her name but also emphasised the deliberately low profile maintained by the young woman through her student days, despite her family connections both in India and Nepal.

By Tuesday, most publications had procured photographs of the young woman. The Asian Age frontpaged its colour picture, with a caption that labelled her “Heartbreaker.” The others published the same black and white file photo (taken in Gwalior) on inside pages and described her merely as the person “believed to be the fiancée of the late Crown Prince…” (DH, NIE) and “whom Prince Dipendra wished to marry” (Hindu)

All the papers except the Hindu carried reports on Wednesday based on an Australian newspaper’s revelations about the young couple having stayed together in Sydney during the Olympic Games last year. It is not clear what public interest was served by such reports – other than the popular penchant for gossip.

On the same day, the New Indian Express publisheda bylined story which highlighted the terrible situation faced by the young woman, whom it described as the “living victim of the tragedy.” It pointed out that few have had the time, or even the inclination, to sympathise with the woman likely to “go down in history as being ‘responsible’ for what is perhaps one of the ugliest cases of a romance that went wrong.” Reporting on her flight from Kathmandu hours after the multiple murders, it made it clear that the young woman’s life had changed forever as a result of the tragedy. Not only had she lost the man she loved but she also ran the risk of being blamed for the massacre despite the fact, emphasised by a friend, that “ she had nothing to do with it.”

The sensational manner in which a section of the Indian Press chose to cover this aspect of the terrible events in Nepal over the past week revealed an unfortunate lack of sensitivity and taste. There was surely no need to rub salt in the concerned young woman’s inevitable wounds by presenting her as femme fatale, especially in view of the fact that there was no evidence of her involvement in the family conflict that allegedly led to the tragedy (except as the person the prince wished to marry – ostensibly against the family’s wishes) and that no legitimate public interest was served by dragging her into the picture in that way.

Reproduced from the web magazine “The Hoot” with their kind permission.

To visit “the hoot”, go to http://www.thehoot.org

Book Review

Incommunicado

- Dipankar Basu

Capitalism and the Information Age:

The Political economy of the Global Communication Revolution

Edited by Robert W.McChesney, Ellen Meiksins Wood and John Bellamy Foster
Published by: Comerstone Publications, India and Monthly Review Press, New York,
Year: 2001, Pages: 241
Price: Hardbound –Rs.200, Paperback – Rs.150

Has the communication ‘revolution’ of the late-twentieth century, epitomised by the lap-top, mobile telephones and the internet, effected an ‘epochal’ shift in the basic character of the global capitalist system? Has the World Wide Web laid the material basis for a ‘friction- free capitalism’, a production and distribution system marked by perfect information and co-ordination? Has the IT ‘revolution’ made the business cycle a thing of the past? These are some of the questions that the book under review tries to answer.

If the mainstream media – very much a part of the same ‘revolution’ – is to be believed, then yes, we are entering a brave new world, a new world of ‘flexible accumulation’, ‘just – in – time production’ and tele- workers scattered around the globe. The new “electronic republic” is going to replace the old production system that emerged in Western Europe with the Industrial Revolution, say futurists like Alvin Toffler and Newt Gingrich. Old hierarchies, monopolies and industrial bureaucracies associated with large –scale, mass production are being dismantled by the democratising impulse of the new Information Technology: just as intelligence and control are moving from centralised systems, like mammoth mainframes, to personal computers and lap-tops, so also is economic power shifting from mass institutions and corporations to indivisuals. The dream of American democracy, resting firmly on equity- capitalism, where ownership of capital is not concentrated in the hands of any one class and production takes place in units dispersed all over society, is almost on the verge of coming true!  A few more years of hard work and we will be there, says new Right Pundit George gilder. Or, are we already there?

The book takes the issue precisely with these and similar fantasies, fantasies moreover, which are being churned out by the millions in the enormous network of the mainstream media: newspapers, TV, radio, business reports, pop economics, futuristic nonsense and what have you. Arguing against the grain of this enormous literature is of course not as difficult as it might seem as first sight; that is the first lesson that the book manages to hammer home.  A few intelligent questions, and one can easily cut through the maze of propaganda and lies that are being dished out as futuristic writing or serious economics in the business press.

What the articles in the book manage to convey with rare lucidity is that all claims about a new phase of capitalism must be handled with extreme care and caution. Because behind this eternal urge to announce the new lies hidden the unconscious and structural desire to obfuscate the basic conflicts and contradictions of capitalism. Bill Gate’s fantasy of a friction – free capitalism is precisely such an attempt. It must be remembered that the invention and introduction of the steam engine or the motorised car,the radio or the telegraph, and even the printing press had all opened up possibities for democratising communications between people; but each of these technological improvements had been incorporated into the existing social structures of production and distribution, and were ultimately used for perpetuating the status quo. The democratic content was eclipsed by the desire for making profits. The possibility of the UT ‘revolution’ being used in a similar fashion is very high. And if the emerging indications are anything to go by, it has already started being used so. For, the Information Highway is nothing but a huge market place, slowly being colonised by the giant corporations, drawing customers to their products with the aid of seductive advertisements and the spurious authority of brand names.

Behind the wealth of information in each article, the book as a whole is trying to show that the question of technology is more complex than we usually admit. And so the authors are neither singing hosannas to the IT revolution as the mainstream media is doing, nor are they dismissing it off-hand like the eco-romanticists. Technology, to be properly evaluated, must be located in the socio-economic context in which it was generated and is going to be used; one must also take account of the social structures that necessarily mediate the effects of technology on people and the environment. Only by analysing technological inventions in this manner can we evaluate its impact properly. And so, most of the authors argue, though the IT revolution has the potential to democratise the production and distribution of goods and services on a global scale, though it has the potential between people and communities, its incorporation into the world capitalist system is bound to rob it of its potential. Other social systems would have used the IT revolution in a much different manner. The second dimension of the IT ‘ revolution’ that this book rightly highlights is its use to the capitalist system for the purposes of propaganda and social control. Building on the path-breaking work of people like Chomsky, Herman and Jacques Ellul, many authors in this book show how the tools of the new IT can be used by capital for controlling labour not only during work – which is anyway getting disintegrated – but also during leisure. The large-scale manipulation of ideas, ideals and even desires that the ‘entertainment’ industry surreptitiously strengthened if the ‘IT’ revolution is also enlisted in its ranks.

But of course this does not mean that people are not resisting this new form of capitalist control. Many of the articles draw attention to various small but successful experiments by groups all around the globe, which have, in their own way challenged the power of global capital. This book is a must for all those who wish to understand the current conjuncture of world capitalism shorn off the empty triumphalism of the mainstream media and the naïve criticism of post-modernist radicals!

Dipankar Basu is a research scholar at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, JNU.

Opinion

An Interview with Pritham Chakravarthy

We went to Taayamma’s house. She is the woman who does it with a barber’s knife. When I reached there Taayamma said, “You’re very thin. Do you think you’ll even survive?”

I said, ”l don’t care, but I have to do even if I die at the end of it.”

”Okay, now remove all your jewels,” said Taayamma.

So I removed all my jewels, but couldn’t remove the toe ring.

”You will have to go to the ironsmith tomorrow and cut it off, otherwise I won’t do it”, said Taayamma.

But I had decided I have to do it that night, I did not want to wait even a single day for it. So I managed to take it off tying a thread on it and pulling it off.

”Well, now I’ll have to do it. What would you like to eat? Tell me your favourite dish  and I’ll make it for you” she told me.

It is almost like the last meal. I asked for one curry made with dry fish and bitter gourd. You must chop onions and tomatoes, very fine. Then fry it deep in oil, after tempering it with mustard and fenugreek seeds.

Then add chopped bitter gourd. No seeds though. Add chilli powder and turmeric. Once the vegetable is cooked, add the dry fish. Make sure to use vazhai karuvadu without the skin. When you get the fish smell, then add thick tamarind paste, simmer and shut. This should be eaten with hot white rice. She made it for me. I ate it and I went off to sleep.

At about 1 o’clock in the night, I had a dream of a cock pecking me on my forehead. I woke up and through my window I could see a very bright sky. It was a full moon night. I thought it was already day and Taayamma had cheated me. I decided to pick up my fight with her in the morning. So I went back to sleep.

At 2 o’clock she woke me up. She took me to the room behind. There was a pit, it’s called the death pit, 3 ft by 3 ft, and Mataji’s picture was in one corner. She had done some Puja to her. She asked me to come and remove all my clothes. I removed everything. With a small string she tied the end of my penis and asked me to walk. As I walked, the penis got hard. The testicles also hardened completely. Once she could weigh it in her palm and see that it was completely hard, I had to come and stand across the pit.

Usually Taayamma’s husband holds the person from behind because you can faint with the pain. But he was ill and had gone to sleep. She said she will wake up Jansi.

“No, I don’t want Jansi, I don’t want anyone. I ‘ll stand by myself,” I said.

I had shaved off my hair recently and it was very short. They couldn’t even roll my hair, pull it over my mouth and tie it behind to stop me from shouting. So Taayamma took my blouse that I had removed and kept and gagged my mouth ‘Nipiyaadada,” she said (“But you can’t stand on your own”).

The suffix “da” is used only for a boy.

Once more you say ‘da’, I‘ll walk out of this house, naked, I don’t care.” I shouted.

”But you’re not yet a woman, why are you getting upset?” said Taayamma.

”Of course, I came here to become a woman. Give me half an hour and I’ll be a woman,” I told her.

She asked me to go down a bit on my knees and look up. She counted one, two, three and chopped it off. But it doesn’t die immediately. It’s like a fish, once you throw it out of the water, it squirms for at least two minutes before it dies. It was squirming like that. But I was on the floor. And I was clapping in a complete frenzy. This is what I wanted! I am a woman now! But the clapping was so loud that Jansi and Janki came rushing into the room.

“What happened? Did you actually chop it off?, they asked.

I shouted with joy, “Look at that! There! I didn’t want it anymore!”

This is an excerpt from an astounding, powerful, riveting, simply fascinating solo performance by Pritham Chakravarthy on a transgendered’s experience of ”Nirvanam,” the final ritual. Pritham doesn’t need a stage, no props, no supporting actors nothing at all. She just sits find tells you her story and leaves you overwhelmed and deeply touched. Over the years she has evolved this unique form and is known all over Tamil Nadu for her gripping solo performances. Here Pritham talks to us about her past and how she evolved this form of theatre.

How did you come into theatre?

I was in regular commercial theatre from the age of six, in which I continued till about fifteen. Then I went to the Madras Christian College and joined the union, the Students Federation of India (SFl). From  seventeen onwards, there were a group of us who were trying to look at other kinds of theatre. At that time we had just been introduced to Koothu , a traditional folk form. About ten of us sat down to discuss on this and three of them decided to take some funds and start a theatre group. Two of us walked out because as a committed SFl member, that didn’t seem right to us. And two months before they started their theatre group we went on stage with a completely hacked up performance, that was more to prove a point to the other group that we will do it without funds. That was in 1978, after which I’ve been in theatre.

How did you see theatre and politics coming together?

I really didn’t have a channelled growing. I was not really a part of mainstream. In theatre, I am not mainstream. I am not educated in it. I got admission in NSD but my parents did not send me there. Perhaps if I had gone there, my theatre would have been completely different from what I am doing today.

1975 to 1980 was a period in Tamil Nadu when one was really conscious of politics. It was the post-emergency period and we were college students then. So it was almost a natural process. If you went to certain kinds of colleges, you couldn’t avoid politics. It was in your purview a1l the time, especially the kind of college that I went to. It was a pocket like JNU, where being a part of SFI was very important.

Did you make a conscious choice on doing a particular kind of theatre?

We were watching different kinds of films and were involved with groups which were making different kinds of films. We wanted to be a part of everything different that was happening. I don’t think at seventeen  I really understood what kind of differences 1 was looking for. I only knew it had to be different from the kind of theatre I was involved in earlier. That was the only criterion. And, of course, it was also a note of defiance, to do something your parents didn’t agree with, as a matter of rebellion.

When did you settle down?

After 1979, we called our group Pariksha. At that time six similar groups  were trying out people’s theatre, all for other reasons, but with the same kind of commitment that we didn’t want to do commercial theatre, because there were issues that we wanted to address. So in 1980 we invited Badal Sarkar and asked him to give us training. We all went to Cholamandal, an artistes’ village near Mahabalipuram, stayed there with him for a month, and learnt the basics. It was great fun.

That was also a time when the literary world in Tamil Nadu was very active. The alternative cinema bracket was equally active. Film Societies were coming up, film appreciation courses were happenings the film festival – that we hadn’t had for a long time – was there. We were also getting other kind of cinema from outside. We had Shyam Benegal and a new kind of cinema during the ’80s. We just went into different kind of things, and at seventeen, all kinds of things can grip you.

When did you focus on the solo performance? How did this evolve?

It didn’t emerge just like that. In 1997 a friend of mine, who was also associated in theatre with me, was doing a television serial for the 50 years of independence. This was a fictionalised serial about history – a MA History student in her research goes back to find out about the social position of women fifty years ago, especially in Tamil Nadu. For that we took some stories from the book ”Women Writing in India, ” by K.Lalitha and Susie Tharu. There was this character of a Brahmin widow who had to shave her head and cover herself. He couldn’t get anyone to do this character. He didn’t want a regular television face, but the people who he offered the role refused to cover their head and dress up like a widow. So he made a last minute call to me. In five hours I did that role for him.

The next day he was shooting a story on Ratna Bai’s letter, which he had developed into a one woman script. A very big theatre actress of Tamil Nadu was supposed to play it. But when she read through it, she backed out. It was a 10 minute speech, steady, the camera is locked and you’re speaking, it was a play within a play, a performance. Again he made a frantic call and asked me to come immediately. When I reached the studio I hadn’t even read the script, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. One hour before the shoot he gave me the script. I went through it. I have a very good memory especially when it comes to theatre – I just have to go through it once and then I’ll remember it for life. He asked me to repeat the dialogue. I gave him the paper and said it all. He said, ”Okay, can you do it in one shot? I won’t give you a monitor. Do you want a rehearsal?” I said, ”No, just leave me alone for some time, I’ll go on stage.” So I went on stage.

How did the viewers receive it ?

It was part of a five-episode serial and this particular episode went on air on August 15. Since then Doordarshan Madras has screened it, I don’t know how many times. Every year it goes on air, just this episode. And if they have a dearth of programmes, they promptly air this episode.

It became very famous in Tamil Nadu. So colleges started calling me. I started doing theatre workshops for colleges, who wanted me to train their students for this particular piece. For almost a year I trained about 11 girls in and around Chennai to do this single piece. It was very interesting because every time I was adding on, subtracting and it was again sit-down-and-l-tell-you-my-story. I don’t do anything else. There is no movement involved, just talking and listening to it, and your nod becomes a part of my text. That interested me a lot. So, what started off as a 7 minute air time on television, during the course of a yearn it became around 20 to 22 minutes on stage.

Did you continue working with students?

At the end of the year, the MA- Tamil students of Madras University had a project in which they had to go to their native place and interview someone over sixty years old. The Head of the Department in Tamil, who had seen me do this work with college students, gave me five of these recordings. He wanted me to perform around those scripts so that students understood what they have recorders what they have asked, so that they ask different questions next time, or perhaps the same questions differently.

I liked two of those scripts very much. One was on a woman selling idles on a cart in a street behind the Madurai Minakshiamma Temple. She is over 67 and she has been doing this for 42 years. She spoke of her husband who ran away, which is why she had to start this shop, how she would hold the customers so that she could go and see the baby, the men she took in her life, and one scoundrel of a man who she actually kept, gave him money so that he can drink in the evening and play the ‘man’. Finally, she threw him out. Now she has a man who is about 49 and she says in the interview how fascinated she is with him, but then, she is also worried that he has an eye on the daughter. It was a very fascinating text, and all through there are intervening conversations with the customers like, ”Yes, I have only idlis . I cannot give you an omelette, there are no eggs, what do you want me to do? Don’t you think I have any other job except chopping onions for you?” It was fascinating. So I just demonstrated that, as an experiment.

Then, another student gave me his transcription of a 78 year old dhobi(washer woman ). She was absolutely fabulous. She talks on the shifts in the entire washing business – what soap powders have meant to her career; earlier they would do this complete vellavi , where they would boil the cloth. All that has become redundant. In Tamil Nadu, barbers and dhotis cannot cook at home. At night they go to their customers with an aluminium vessel and gather the leftovers. Till date they have to do it. She talks about all that and

how her grandson feels insulted and he refuses to eat it. He says, ”Why the hell don’t you cook? You have a home, cook your own food!” She talks about an incident. Her husband is a useless guy, he just fathers five girls and runs off. So, she travels 130 km from her in- law’s to her parents house driving twenty donkeys all by herself . She was 27 at that time, so she is carrying one child, she has one child which is yet to deliver, and she has three other children who are walking behind. So, five women- one yet to be born, and four others – had driven these twenty donkeys across 130 km and she says with complete sense, ”Othaiya ootikittu vanthen! ” To me that one line was fabulous. It means, ”I did it all alone, 130 km without losing a single donkey, I brought them all back!”

The South Indian Dalit Festival was to happen in a month’s time at Madurai. They invited me to perform this piece. I agreed, but there was a problem. Technically, a dhobi is MBC, not Dalit. Them I am a fair skinned, English educated, Brahmin woman and I was to play a MBC woman’ s role. However, the organizers discussed it with the committee and changed the title to Dalit Art festival of Oppressed Women.

I had a tria1 run two days before the actual performance. While watching my performance, the student who recorded it, was majorly upset. He was an upper caste boy who had interviewed the dhobi woman in his house – she was their dhobi even before he was born. He said, “The real Marudayi would never speak in the confident way that you speak. She said the same lines but she spoke with her head bowed down, holding her ears, her hands clasped together. You are too confident.”

So, promptly I shifted the locale. Earlier, I was sitting down and telling you my story.  In two days, I had trained a bunch of youngsters to come and wash clothes with me. I spoke the same lines in a confident way, as I felt the riverside was my own kingdom, therefore I would be confident here.

I went on stage afore an audience of over 2000. As I performed, women from far behind started moving forward – old women, long ears, no blouse, wearing traditional folk saree  – and confidently talking with me” “Just forget him, who he is to tell you? You tell me, no, “and went on with such remarks. And as they kept contributing to me, I myself and the performance was growing inch by inch. I was becoming more confident – my confidence in my skill as a dhobi woman, my confidence in myself for having brought up these five children, my confidence of my social role in the temple. It became very large.

I finished the performance after 1 hour 20 minutes. When I got off the stage, I changed into my pants and walked out for a smoke. A bunch of men came to me and said, ”Madam, orre cigarette. ” I gave them a cigarette. They told me that through the entire performance, I referred to my husband only twice, once when he does Kali dance in a temple festival and once when I say I have five daughters. Other than that he doesn’t feature at all. I am only talking about me, my village, my family, my skills and my village. So I sat downward started talking. They went on saying that my performance was good but a dhobi’ s job is never done alone, my husband must have also been there, why did I leave him out. Suddenly my younger daughter, who was lying down with her head on my lap, looked up and said, ”If Marudayi’s husband wants his story to be told, let him do his own story.”

So one thing just led to another?

Then a women’s group asked me to take a theatre workshop with women they were working with. I

didn’t want to do a theatre workshop for two reasons; one that I would find a group of forty too large to handle; secondly, I didn’t know what their agenda was, so it didn’t make much sense to do a theatre exercise. So I decided to perform Marudayi, and the following day, split them into groups and let them develop their own texts.

The next day they were to develop their own scripts. One of the women’s husband was apparently a major drunkard. When she brought rice in a plate to clean, he would be lying on the floor, and it was his great pleasure to kick the plate and watch the rice fly all over the house. And she would have to pick it all up grain by grain. She had shared this with the group. One group decided to develop that. They wanted her to just recite this scene. But she broke down while reciting it. So another woman in the group said, “Okay, you tell me, I will go and tell them.” And they did it exactly like how I had done my Marudayi. Fabulously. Overnight somebody else just picked it up and was using it for something else!

How did you think of the story of the transgendered (hijra)?

I had taken Marudayi over to 17 places. In one of the performances three hijras happened to see me act.

That evening they sat down with me talking and asking all kinds of questions. Until then I really didn’t think of hijras as a part of my script at all. Then I invited them home. They came over and we talked further. At the end of it, one of them, Mumtaz, started talking to me, who was sexually abused by men right through from the age of twelve. She started telling me about those experiences. But this process was very, very slow and went on for almost a year. Slowly, Mumtaz brings another friend and that friend brings another friend, there was this constant traffic of hijras in my house. I developed it like that. It took a long time.

I went on stage with this at the ”Other Festival.” This festival promotes the other kind of dance, but

they had an interface session. There were some gay dancers who had come from Malaysia and China, with whom we lead an informal interface.

Then came a call from the son of my college principal. I had not heard from him for over ten years. My principal is a Nadar Christian who studied his MA in Sri Lanka when his parents were posted there, and he got married to a Sri Lankan Buddhist. Somebody who had seen me in ”Other Festival” had spoken to his son in a party So he rang me up and wanted me to talk to his mother. She is a practising Buddhist. His father was almost disowned from the church for marrying a Buddhist. So had to forcibly convert a11 his children to Christianity, otherwise he would have lost that vault in the family graveyard, This seemed very interesting to me. I am going to meet her very soon. I am also supposed to meet a Devadasi woman who is very old and she wants to talk to me, so, I didn’t realise it would take me from one stage to another.

Resources

Films on Children

The Young Workers: Parts I, II, III, IV

English, 40 min, 1987

The series looks at the emergence of child labour in a historical, societal context, attempting to view children as subjects, rather than objects of concern, welfare and legislation. It covers aspects such as the history of child labour, legislation, alternatives and intervention attempted and case studies of the match and power loom industries in Sivakasi and Bhivandi respectively.

Film by: Tata Institute of Social Sciences
Source: Head, AV Dept, TISS, Deonar,
Mumbai:  400 088, Ph: (022)
5563289-96, Fax: 022- 5562912
VHS Price: Rs. 750

Girija

Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, (English subtitled), 30 min

A short feature film on the girl child using folk story and song format, It projects the image of the capabilities of the girl child while exposing the negative realities of her life today.

Film by: Madhyam
Source: Madhyam, No.1, 10th Cross, 10th
Main Vasanthnagari
Bangalore 560052,
e-mail: madhyamb@vsnl.com
VHS Price: Rs.250

My Children Who Should be Running Freely Through the Vast Open Spaces

English, 50 min

This is a film on Child Sexual Abuse (CSA), combining scenes from the play of the same title. With Interviews that reflect the opinions, views and experiences of a gamut of people ranging from activists, psychiatrists, police officials, judges and children, it attempts to truly examine tile
issue. Thus it deals with aspects of CSA within the different economic and cultural levels of our social structure.

Film by: Kritika Kumar
Source: Madhyam
See above VHS Price: Rs. 500

Child Rights

(Three 30 second ad spots)
English, Hindi, Kannada, 30 sec each

Three thirty second ad spot’s on Right to Education, endorsed by noted Hindi film actress Nandita Das in English and Hindi, and Kannada film star Sudha Rani in Kannada.

Film by: Madhyam
Source: Madhyam (See above)
VHS Price: Rs.100

Time to Listen

English, 50min, 1997
A film about the first international meeting of Working Children, Time to Listen documents the process by which 29 working child delegates from 33 countries came to a consensus on the strategies concerning them. Overcoming barriers of language and culture, these children spent two weeks together sharing experiences of work, organizations and political actions. They presented unified positions on the need to organize and represent themselves. The film advocates the cause of working children as protagonists and legitimate actors, actively participating in society.

Film by: Deepa Dhanraj
Source/info: D & N Productions, 268, 5th Cross,
3rd Main, Ist Block, Koramangala,
Bangalore 560 034

Akha Teej – Who is Afraid of Little Girls?

English, Hindi, 32 min
When drought, scarcity and poverty are rampant and virginity is the sole criterion for family pride, child marriages become away of life. This documentary tries to explore the compulsions which forces the people of Rajasthan to force their little children into matrimony, in open defiance of the law of the land and also all attempts at reform.

Film by: Sehjo Singh
Source: Sehjo Singh, D-3/31 73, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi 110 070
VHS Price: Rs.500/-

Amra Korbo Joy

(We Shall Overcome)
Bengali. English, 17 min, 1994
The video is guided by tine principle of ‘first call for street children’, a principle that the essential needs of the street children should be given highest priority in allocation of resources at all times. The visuals start with the objective reality of the miserable life of the street children, but later presents a child in his sleep reaching a dreamland and enjoying all the rights of children-, Finally he wakes up back to the world of reality and becomes conscious of the rights of children.

Film by: Suman Mukherjee
Source: 34, Astor Court, Loudon Street,
Calcutta 700 017

Barf (Snow)

English, Hindi. 53 min, 1997

A group of adolescent girls from the working class areas of Delhi go for a ten-day trek in the Garhwal hills. For most of them it is their first step outside their city. Far from the pressures of the home and the community, the girls sing, play and dream … The film traces the girls’ journey into the mountains. The adolescents pause to reflect on the violence, fear and deprivation in their lives in the city. Then it is time to continue with the journey. To exult in youthful energy, hope and desire. To overcome all obstacles and reach the snow life.

Film by: Saba Dewan
Source/Info: Media Associates, A-19, Gulmohar Park,
New Delhi 110049
Fax: (011) 6960947
e-mail: aakar@unv.ernet.in

Forced

Tharu, Nepali/English, 25 min, 1999

A video-log on the state or 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’ bas 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, Bimah Rawal
Source/info: Young Asia TM Worldview Nepal,
P. 0. Box 2912, Kathmandu,
Nepal, Fax: +977 1 536857,
email: yatv@wlink.com.np

Rahima: A Victim of Systemic Violence

Bengali/English. 34 min, 1998

Rahima is a twenty year o1d woman who was forced to marry at an age of 14. After refusing to become a prostitute for her husband, she suffered violent attacks by him. She reported this abuse to the police, but taking a bribe from a friend of her husband, they did nothing. This prompted her husband to attack again this time mutilating Rahima and leaving her for dead among some railway tracks. Although it was obvious that her hand, leg and ears were cut off using a sharp weapon. the hospital reported it as a train accident. The film attempts to expose the corruption and miscarriage of justice by the police and the hospital staff in her own words.

Film by: Faud Cbowdhury
Source: Faud Chowdhury, B.N. W.L.A.,
36/2 Mirpur Mirpur Road,
Dhaka 1205, Bangladesh,
Fax: +880 2 9663295,
email: bnwa @bdonline.com

Padhoge Likhoge, Hoge Nawab?

Hindi/English, 34 min, 1998

In present day Indian schooling is not as widespread or effective as it is hoped to be. Although adult experts offer reams of suggestions, several questions remain. Does schooling mean the same thing to all children? Does it open the same doors for all? Should education be compulsory, universal or uniform? Instead of offering yet another adult perspective on the subject, this film talks to some school going children to explore what schooling means to them. Here girls and boys from government schools in tribal MP, a public school in Delhi and an alternative school in Andhra describe schooling as they know it.

Film by: Vani Subramaniam & Surajit Sarkar
Source/Info: Surajit Sarkar, 92 SFS Flats, Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016
e-mail: surovani@hotmail.com