Alternate Media Times – Volume 5 Issue 19
September 2001
Peace needs a chance
It is said that history repeats itself, although not quite in the same manner. What happened this year on 11 September is perhaps too well known to merit repetition. However, to sum it up briefly; the US was attacked by terrorists.
Nearly thirty years ago on 11 September, 1973 the elected government of Chile headed by Salvador Allende was brought down by military junta allegedly aided by the CIA. In one week nearly thirty five thousand people were killed or went missing forever. Amongst them was Pablo Neruda; renowned poet, noble laureate and Allende’s minister of culture. Although Neruda’s death was never confirmed he has not been seen since.
Over six thousand people lost their lives in the brutal attack in America. The retaliation was equally brutal. The US began what they called the ‘first war of the century’ by carpet bombing a country ravaged by war and famine. The 11 September attack on the WTO was an inhuman act, not because it happened in US but because innocent people died.
The US claims that the bombing of Afghanistan or destroying the Taliban is not their real aim. They target terrorism and are determined to remove it from the roots. But once again, we are watching history repeat itself. In the 1980’s, the US foreign policy was developed to destroy terrorism, to fight the “depraved opponents of civilisation itself.” In the 80’s the enemy was communism. In this region the US brought together a disparate group of terrorists to fight communism. The place was Afghanistan, the enemy was Soviet Russia and the weapon was faith. Islamic fundamentalist groups, with very little in common between them, were grouped together, trained by the CIA, extolled as freedom fighters by the then US President Ronald Reagan, and mobilized to destroy the infidel communists.
The difference today is that the enemy has changed. Today Islam is the enemy. Meanwhile, those fighting the infidel in the ’8Os are now turning their guns on the US. They are using the resources, connections, strategy and the ideology developed during the 1980s. According to Chomsky terrorism is not the weapon of the weak, rather it is a weapon of the overwhelmingly strong.
Whether Bin Laden master minded the attack on the US or not, it is perhaps important to see where he, and others like him, draw their strength from. Apart from his legendary family wealth – and it is said that Carter and Bush, both ex-presidents of the US have shares in the Bin Laden family business – Bin Laden derives support from existing conflicts. When the US began bombing Afghanistan, Bin Laden raised the issues of Iraq, Palestine, and the US forces in Mecca. Later he added Kashmir to the list. But do the people of Kashmir, or for that matter Palestine, see Bin Laden as their leader? The point is that while issues like Palestine or Kashmir are left unresolved, people like Bird Laden will attempt to use these to their advantage.
Today certain parts of the globe can be called ”disturbed zones.” People here live with violence and mayhem as a day to day reality. Iraq, Palestine and even Afghanistan can be counted amongst these. In the coming years, if not tackled properly and quickly we will watch violence take new dimensions here.
The saga of Afghanistan is a case in point. Before the bombing began, aid agencies like the UN and Oxfam had warned that if aid was not delivered before winter set in, it would be impossible to do so and that that would lead to unforeseen deaths due to starvation. Well, as it happened, bombing began, aid could not be provided and now winter has set in. Today, while everyone is talking about the fall of Kabul, the new government in Afghanistan, the role of international agencies in settling disputes, nobody knows the situation of the people who were in a critical state before the bombing began. The bombing though is still continuing.
The one question everyone wants to know the answer to is: where is Bin Laden? The bombing has not stopped, all of Afghanistan is under US control and yet this man is not caught. If Bin Laden is captured will the war on terrorism come to an end? Who is the next US target? Iraq? Sudan? Libya? Or Iran?
Who is Bin Laden? He has chosen the path of violence, he asks for loyalty and vows by faith, he claims to have the support of millions, he does not hesitate to kill women or children, death does not stop him nor does the threat of starvation make him change his plans. So who is he?
And how can he be stopped?
Perhaps the most critical question facing us today is how to bring an end to violence that continues to kill innocent peoples cause untold suffering and compel regions and nations to live with war.
Convergence Bill introduced
Aimed at bringing the various sectors of the communication sector under one umbrella, the government introduced the much awaited Communications Convergence Bill in the Lok Sabha on August 31. The main thrust of the Bill is to regulate market dominance in a converged environment, ensure fair competition and protect the consumer interests.
Stressing on the need for a flexible legislation that can accomodate and encourage permutation and combination of technologies and services, the Communications Minister, Ram Vilas Paswan, said the existing laws were proving to be inadequate in dealing with the emerging scenario of convergence. Besides, the licensing powers and regulatory mechanisms for telecom, IT and broadcasting were currently spread over different authorities.
The Bill, drafted by eminent jurist Fali S. Nariman after a series of discussions and consultations in various fora, proposes to repeal five existing laws:
- The Indian Telegraph Act, 1885
- Cable TV Networks Act, 1995
- Indian Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1933
- The Telegraph Wires (Unlawful Possession) Act, 1950
- The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997
The bill has four primary aims:
i) facilitate and enable access to a national communications infrastructure;
ii) provide a wide choice of services to consumers;
iii) set up a regulatory framework that can tackle the convergence of technologies;
iv) spell out the powers and role of a single licensing and regulatory authority for all the three sectors (broadcasting, telecom and multimedia).
In order to achieve these objectives, an autonomous, super regulatory body called the Communications Commission of India (CCI) will be set up. The CCI will have wide ranging powers, duties and functions. The TRAI and the Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appelate Tribunal would be dissolved. The roles and all pending matters under these bodies will be taken up by the CCI. The CCI will have its headquarters in the national capital, with regional offices at Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.
The Bill proposes to replace the existing large categories of licenses with five broad categories:
a) to provide or own network infrastructure facilities (e.g. earth stations, cables, towers, pits)
b) to provide networking services (e.g. bandwidth services, fixed links, mobile links)
c) to provide network application services (e.g. switched telephony, cellular services, global satellite based phones, Internet based telephony, radio paging, trucking, date services, broadcasting)
d) to provide content application services (e.g. satellite broadcasting, subscription broadcasting, free to air TV and radio broadcasting)
e) to provide value added network application services (e.g. Internet services and unified massaging services)
IT- enabled services will be exempted from licensing and registration unless otherwise notified at a later date. The IT enabled services specified in the Bill include call centres, e-commerce, tele-banking, tele-education, tele-trading, videotext and video-conferencing.
The Bill will regulate the use of spectrum, communication Services, network infrastructure facilities and wireless network. Hence, no one can use any part of the spectrum or possess any wireless equipment without a license from the CCI.
The CCI will consist of a chairperson, up to 10 members and a spectrum manager. The chairperson and six members will be whole-time members, some chosen from fields of literature, performing arts, media, culture, education, films and social and consumer activities. The rest will be from specialized fields such as telecom, broadcasting, IX finance, management and administration or law. The CCI chief will be appointed by the Central Government on the recommendation of a search committee, which will be formed for the purpose.
The process of drafting the Bill began in June 2000. The detailed rules to govern the Bill are yet to be framed. Although much is expected in terms of use of resources and faster development of infrastructure, questions are being raised about the time it will take to pass the Bill and how the government will ensure fair play while framing the detailed rules, especially in the area of issuing licenses.
Children of the Valley in Delhi
Eight children from the Narmada Valley representing around seventy tribal children of the Jeevan Shalas being run by the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), travelled to Delhi on a five-day Jeevan Yatra to bring issues relating to displacement and rehabilitation of ousters due to the raising of the dam height to public notice. The children were accompanied by four NBA activists.
At the end of the Yatra on August 23, the delegation had planned to meet the President Mr. K. R. Narayanan, to lodge their protest against the lack of rehabilitation work and to demand an independent inquiry into the status of displacement rehabilitations and human rights in the Sardar Sarovar Project. However, they were not allowed to meet the President, and instead had to submit a memorandum to the Joint Secretary to the President. In its memorandum, the delegation urged the government to suspend all work on the dam site till the review was complete. It also requested the President to visit the Narmada Val1ey and witness the plight of displaced villagers.
The delegation was unhappy about excessive police highhandedness and harassment, due to which they had to abandon plans of a peace march on the Parliament Street. They had to change their plans and finally resorted to a dharma near the LIC building on the same road.
Katha Chudamani for Vijay Tendulkar
On September 3, Vijay Tendulkar was presented with the Katha Chudamani Lifetime Award for his unparalleled contribution to Indian literature. The award – carrying a citation, a cash reward of Rs. 51,000 and a publication of most of the writer’s significant works in English – is given for a work of exceptional merit in literature displaying true empathy for life and living, notwithstanding the size of the corpus of work or language.
Since he was 15, Vijay Tendulkar began working in a bookshop. Gradually he became a proofreader, eventually managing a printing press. In his long and illustrous literary career, he wrote innumerable short stories, plays and film scripts. Later he also produced television serials.
Some of his well known plays like Shantata, Court Chalu Ahe, Gidhade, Ghasiram Kotwal, Kamala, Jaat hi Poochho Sadhu ki, Sakharam Binder , to name only a few, have been enacted over and over again by street theatre groups all over the country. Films like Manthan, Nishant, Giddh, Aakrosh andArdh Satya , whose scripts were written by Vijay Tendulkar, inspired a series of hard hitting political films in the Indian cinema at a time that can undoubtedly be called the golden era of parallel cinema.
The Open Frame
The Open Frame, a festival of 23 independent documentary films was held at the India International Centre in Delhi between September 1 – 2, 2001.
The Open Frame is the result of a partnership between Prasar Bharati Corporation and the Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT), the latter comprising of eminent film personalities like Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Shyam Benegal, Mrinal Sen, Aruna Vasudev, Sharmila Tagore, to name a few. This union is working together to involve independent filmmakers in producing documentary films that, according to Rajiv Mehrotra, Managing Trustee of PSBT, ”will be able to represent and articulate the real agenda of the community so that they too find a voice in the non-print media.”
Doordarshan and PSBT share the costs of the film production with DD providing free air-time and PSBT bearing the operational and administrative expenses. ”The idea is to create a credible voice as an alternative to the State- controlled non-print media,” adds Mehrotra.
The films screened at the festival were largely on themes related to public culture, hidden knowledge and transforming events. Radhika Kaul Batra’s “Accounts and Accountability” is based on the work of Aruna Roy in Rajasthan and shows how the right to information can be a powerful weapon to root out corruption, narrating the struggle of a group of villagers to obtain some records and how they encounter the countless hurdles placed before them by vested interests. Moji Riba’s ”Prayers for the New Gods” was on the resurgence of indigenous religions in Arunachal, their beliefs and practices that represent a process of interpreting life. Vipin Vijay’s ”Kshurasya Dhara” is about the oracles of the Devi temple in Kuniyadi, a small town in Kerala.
Some of the other films in the festival were ”Cry of the Forest” by Krishnendu Bose (on the politics of wildlife and forest conservation, and the rights of indigenous people), ”Delhi Diary” by Ranjani Mazumdar (on events and rhythms: memories, nostalgia and terror), ”When Women Call the Shots” by Charu Gargi (on women in production, their relationship to image making and gender), ”Parenting Alone” by Moumita
Tarafdar (on single parenthood and reflections on children), ”Born Again” by Arun Khopkar (on the revival of puppetry in Maharashtra, its connections with theatre), ”Holy Duels of Hola Mohalla” by Vani Subramanian (on the quest for identity amongst immigrant communities and natives of Punjab) and “Pather Chujaeri” by Pankaj R.Kumar (on the decline of folk theatre in Kashmir and the crisis in the community).
The festival also had other interesting films by eminent filmmakers K. Bikram Singh, Ranjan Palit, Vasudha Joshi, Reena Mohan, Sandip Ray, Ajay Raina, Nirad Mohapatra, Artlna H. Prasad, K. N. T. Sastry, Meenakshi Rai, Meera Dewan and Ein Lall.
The films screened at the Open Frame festival are currently being screened on the DD1 every Sunday at 10:30 p.m.
Gujarat minister threatens to bring Press under consumer laws
On August 24, Liladhar Vaghela, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Gujarat, told the Gujarat legislative assembly that the government was initiating a move to bring the press in the state under the purview of the Consumer Protection Act. This was being done, he said, since certain newspapers were publishing ”distorted versions” of events in a ”free-for-all style.’
The press has been consistently criticising the Gujarat government about mishandling relief material sent by foreign countries and agencies embezzlement of funds and discrimination on caste and communal lines in the distribution of relief to the earthquake victims.
Taking serious view of the proposal initiated by the ruling BJP government under Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel, the opposition leader and state Congress Party chief Amarsinh Chaudhury reacted sharply saying, ”It is a fascist move with a design to gag the press.” He alleged that the Patel government was trying to curb the freedom of the press because most of the national and Gujarati newspapers have exposed the mishandling of the recent natural calamities that have hit the state.
However, the issue failed to gain much ground. The state I&B minister, in whose domain matters of the’ press are likely to come under, was not consulted about such a decision. Other party officials also denied that any such action was being considered. Later, the BJP National Vice President Madanlal Khurana, who was on a visit to the state, issued a statement that Vaghela’s views could be his personal.
From Heroes to Villains
Not so long ago Tehelka.com was hailed as a crusader against corruption that is eroding the very base of the system. Its crusade began with a stunning eye-opener on match fixing in cricket. Armed with a hidden camera and another self appointed crusader, a cricketer who had taken up guns to avenge the injustice betted out to him by the cricketing fraternity, an insider who was in the thick of the action in his playing days, it exposed the underbelly of the most popular and cash rich sport of the nation. Tehelka created enough tehelka to be on the threshold of having its name etched in the history books of investigative journalism in India.
Then, after a short period of lying low, primarily running a portal successful enough to be one of the top five Indian websites in the world, Tehelka dropped yet another bombshell, this time shaking the foundation of the nation. This time the methods were more unconventional, and the expose far more sensational. Operation Armsgate opened the pandora’s box, exposing none other than the Defence Minister himself, two party chiefs, both allies of the ruling NDA, a number of defence officials, and some sixteen defence deals. Along with hidden cameras, this time Tehelka used a far more complex methodology that included posing as representatives of Westend, a fictitious international arms dealer, making inroads into the entire structure by following leads provided by the various parties involved, and of course, recording their conversations without informing them. The expose was so startling that it virtually paralysed the entire country for a while. Spokespersons of the injured parties desperately fumbled for explanation. For a while it seemed the expose would bring down the government, the media equating the operation with the famous Watergate. This time Tehelka not only etched its name in the history books, but in gold. Tarun Tejpal and Aniruddh Behl became household names and Tehelka generic to investigative journalism.
The fever ran high for a while. Then Tehelka, ridng high on the sensation it created, acted too soon. Barely a few weeks later it exposed yet another sensational aspect to the whole episode – tapes and transcriptions of events that it had so far concealed, the use of wine and women. Immediately the whole world came down heavily on Tehelka, accusing it of taking their ”unconventional” methods just a bit too far. The BJP and Samata pounced on Tehelka with vengence, the media acidic in its criticism of using ”unethical” means, people began talking about issues of values normal privacy, motive, allegiances, finances, etc.
Yesterday’s heroes became villains today, much like the cricketers Tehelka initially took on.
Interestingly, the debate now centres around everything else but the scandal Tehelka unearthed. George Fernandez is backs once again as the Defence Minister. Tehelka has been pushed to a corner and its credibility under severe stress. What is more, speculations are rife that even the future of the Venkataswami Commission, on which the Government hastily thrust the responsibility of probing into the Armsgate scandal, seems uncertain. Not expecting the amount of evidence that the commission has already gathered, the government now is reportedly trying to systematically undermine the credibility of the commission itself and create a situation where its head, Justice K.Venkataswami, will be forced to quit, thereby derailing the proceedings of the enquiry. Nobody talks about corruption anymore. Now the issues centre around whether Tehelka should have used women or not, whether the women knew they were being recorded, whether Tehelka used its own staff and if that was ethical, whether Tehelka crossed the ethical line of investigative journalism or not, or finally, whether the shocking material in the tapes were at all for real or manipulated.
One wonders if there was any discussion about ethics, privacy or morality, credibility or motives when Manoj Prabhakar visited his cricketer friends, talked them into commenting on sensitive issues and people, recording them with a hidden camera, then exposing the material to the media and public. Why was Tehelka hailed then? And why is it being assailed now?
TN Assembly restricts media
To ensure that journalists get the ”right” version of what goes on in the Assembly, the Tamil Nadu government has begun to provide TV channels and journalists a taped – and edited version of the Assembly proceedings.
Reporters are not being allowed inside the Assembly hall and are expected to stay outside in a waiting room. At 5:30 PM, the state government gives them a typed transcript of the proceedings, and an edited tape with the state’s logo superimposed on the top right corner of the screen. Of course, most of the tape space is occupied by the Chief Minister, while the ”avoidable” bits of the proceedings, especially by the opposition speakers, are edited out.
Along with widespread attacks on media persons in the state, this is yet another assault by the AIADMK government on the freedom of the press and people’s right to information.
However, some politicians have found innovative ways to bypass the blockade. They are circulating copies of their Assembly speeches among media-persons and are reading them out to the benefit of the waiting TV cameras outside the permitted zone.
The Statesman Awards
The Statesman Rural Reporting Award, 2000, was awarded to Annam Suresh, a Kolkata based freelance journalist. Annam had won the award in 1996 too. She has also been recipient of several other awards, including the Chameli Devi Jain award, The national Fletcher Challenge Paper Commonwealth Media Award and the National Foundation for India’s Media Fellowship.
The Second Prize was shared by Reji Joseph of Deepika, a Malayalam daily, and Dilip Rajpura,a freelance journalist from Gujarat. The third prize was shared by Kshirod Chandra Mahato, freelance journalist from Purulia, West Bengal and Pawan Dubey of the Highway Channel, an evening from the Desh Bandhu group.
Blasphemy charges on journalists
On May 29, an Urdu language daily Mohasib published an article “The Beard and Islam,” which contested the view of certain Muslim clerics that a beardless man cannot be a good Muslim, and criticized the exploitation of religious faith for personal gain. Following protests by some religious leaders, the local police sealed the newspaper office and arrested four of Mohasib’s senior staff: Mohammed Zaman Khan, editor; Mohammed Shahid Chaudhry, managing editor; Shakil Ahmed Tahirkheli, news editor; and Raja Mohammed Harmon, sub-editor.
According to local journalists, the Federal Ministry of Religious Affairs and the Northwest Frontier Province Law Department have each issued statements arguing that the Mohasib article contained nothing that could be considered blasphemous. In early July, following the provincial Law Department’s review of the case, the IG of police in Northwest Frontier Province sent a notice to the senior superintendent of police in Abbottabad, urging local authorities to drop the case registered against Mohasib and to release the jailed editors. However, district officials refused to drop the case, citing pressure from religious groups.
Source: CPJ website
Bomb attack on journalist’s house
At midday on 29 July, assailants attacked the house of Al Amin Shahrior, correspondent for the daily ”Manavjamin” in Bhola (a district town in Southern Bangladesh), with a hand made bomb. No one was injured as a result of the blast, although Al Amin’s father was hurt as he was trying to escape from the attack.
Al Amin’s family members said that supporters of the local Awami League were annoyed with Al Amin because of some of his recent reports on their party’s activities. During the last few days, Al Amin received threats from workers of the Bangladesh Chattra League (BCL, the Awami League student wing), advising him to not publish any negative news on Awami League activities which might affect them in the forthcoming election.
Police stated that the bomb used in the attack was very powerful. After the attack, Al Amin’s family members had to leave the house for their safety. Thus far, nobody has been arrested in connection with this incident.
Source: Media Watch, Dhaka
Journalist murdered in Brazil
On August 16, journalist Mârio Coelho de Almeida Filho was killed one day before he was to testify in a criminal defamation lawsuit. According to local press reports, the 42-year old Coelho was killed by a gunman outside his house in Mage, a town near Rio de Janeiro.
Coelho was the administrative editor and publisher of A Verdade, a six- page paper that was published three times a month and circulated in Mage. A Verdade often criticized local politicians for corruption and other irregularities. Lately Coelho had been pointing fingers at Narriman Zito, the mayor of Magé, who belongs to the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB).
On August 17, Coelho was to testify in relation to a criminal defamation lawsuit brought against him by Zito and her husband José Camilo Zito dos Santos, PMDB mayor of the nearby municipality of Duque de Caxias. The couple filed their lawsuit after A Verdade printed the minutes of a Rio de Janeiro State Legislative Assembly session during which a woman member of the Brazilian Labor Party (PTB)
Nlibia Cozzolino, a political rival of Narriman Vito, alleged that Zito was having an affair with one of her security guards.
Coelho’s father suspects a political motivation behind the murder. According to Coelho’s father, his son had received several phone threats five months ago and had written about them in A Verdade. Although Coelho apparently knew the identity of the callers, he did not reveal this information in the newspaper.
At least four Brazilian journalists have been killed because of their work since 1996, according to research by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Novel advertising
Fay Weldon, one –time Booker –shortlisted author was commissioned by Bulgari, an Italian jewellers business house, to mention Bulgari a dozen times in her latest novel. Deciding to do the job well, Weldon not only mentions Bulgari and it’s products constantly through the novel but also decided to title it ‘The Bulgari Connection’.
This latest advertising gimmick by Bulgari, has been hailed by industry experts and the publishers Harper Collins as a fantastic idea marking the next wave of product placement… the literary world sees this as a move by market forces to take over creativity.
Several prominent writers of Britain raised dissenting voices against the ‘easy-to read-easy-to market literature that has been flooding the bookstores. This attack was specifically with reference to the latest best-seller ‘Ms Bridget Jones Diary which has sold over a million copies and has been made into a successful film.
1995 Booker prize winner Ms Pat Barker put down the new genre of literature to the insecurities of young people who love reading books which confirmed the insecure sense of their own identity.
However, others believe that it has more to do with the changing face of publishing, where an author needs to be as marketable as his/her books
Do women make the news (look good)?
”Who Makes the News? The Global Media Monitoring Project 2000” by George Spears and Kasia Seydegart of Erin Research and media expert Margaret Gallagher is published by the World Association of Christian Churches (WACC) and exposes some startling facts about the position of women in the world’s media at the start of the 21st century.
Whilst women are increasingly reporting and presenting the news they are rarely news subjects, according to the results of a massive one-day globa1 media monitoring project held on 1st February 2000, which involved hundreds of volunteers in 70 countries. Who makes the News? The Global Media Monitoring Project 2000, published by the project organizers WACC, provides an excellent snap-shot of the portrayal and representation of women in the world’s news media on TV, radio and in newspapers.
Not much has changed since 1995 when, on18th January, 71 countries took part in the first global media monitoring project organised by MediaWatch Canada. That study found that whilst women comprised
43% of news presenters and reporters they accounted for only 17% of news subjects. The 2000 study, which aimed to assess the situation of women in media five years on and at the start of the 21st century, reveals that women account for 41% of the presenters and reporters of the world’s news, but only 18% of news subjects.
The report confirms many of the concerns raised over the last decade by women media activists. Women form a majority as TV presenters (56%), but they make up only 28% of radio reporters and 26% of newspaper reporters. As TV presenters they form a majority in the 20-34 year age group but tend to disappear after 50. These facts beg some important questions about employment practices. Just how hostile is the newsroom for women journalists? Is appearance a stronger job prerequisite for women than for men?
Certainly, the international news media is failing to provide accurate coverage when it continues to exclude half of the world’s population as news subjects: women featured more in stories on arts and entertainment (35%) or celebrity news (26%). They barely appeared as news subjects in stories on politics (12%), international crises (11%) or national defence (6%).
Globally women appeared more often as victims than men – 19% of ‘female news subjects compared to 7% of male news subjects. In the UK, where women had a large share of news making roles (37%), 68% of these appeared in stories on crime and 55% were portrayed as victims. This was undoubtedly due to the fact that the international day of monitoring coincided with the guilty verdict against Dr. Harold Shipman who murdered 15 of his female patients. Dr. Shipman’s face appeared on the front page of all major newspapers and the story not only appeared in other European countries but as far away as New Zealand. ”1 feel a bit deflated as it was not a ‘typical’ day for news and the big story was such a downer on women” reported the UK monitoring coordinator, Dr. Karen Ross of Coventry University.
Women’s positions and occupations in society reflect stereotypes which should have been left behind long before the turn of the 21st century: women were a majority in one category, as home-makers (81%). They accounted for only 10% of politicians and only 9% of athletes. Twenty-five percent of all female news subjects had no stated occupation, compared with 9% of male news subjects. But most disturbing is that Who makes the News ? exposes the fact that women are still not considered people in their own right: 21% of female news subjects were identified in terms of their marita1 or family status as opposed to just 4% of the male news subjects.
lf women are so invisible as news subjects why are they photographed significantly more often than men?
Women accounted for 25% of news subjects appearing in photos as opposed to 11% of male news subjects.
Does this, then, support the idea that women continue to adorn news rather than make it?
This 104-page report contains global, regional and individual country statistics based on over 50,000 data records and 16,000 news stories a commentary by data analysts, Erin Research and an additional contextual analysis by media expert, Margaret Gallagher. It is illustrated with newspaper clippings, media company logos and photographs of the volunteers at work on the international day of monitoring. According to Erin Research this study is: ”the most comprehensive overview ever compiled of gender portrayal in the world’s media”.
Who makes the News? exposes a serious lack of diversity in the news and a media industry which has failed to address its own discriminatory practices, WACC Director, Teresita Hermano, points out: ”How many times have we heard the excuse that media are just a reflection of what is happening in reality? Yet how many times do we really see our views and lives reflected?”
WACC hopes that the results of this important project, which has helped democratism and demystify research and demonstrated the strength of the international women’s movement will be used by educators and campaigners to ”challenge media producers, journalists and media educators on their ideas of what news is.”
Source: WACC-Action
Iranian director Tahmineh Milani faces execution
Judy Stone, Special to the Times
CAIRO – Tahmineh Milani, the Iranian director of ”Two Women,” who recently served seven days in prison on shadowy, unsubstantiated charges, says she still does not know the outcome of her controversial case. She believes she has become a pawn in the ongoing struggle between the liberalizing policies of President Mohammed Khatami and powerful right-wing fundamentalist forces.
Her new film ”The Hidden Half”, which is currently playing in Los Angeles, just won a top prize at the recently completed Cairo International Film Festival. The film dramatises events in Iran in 1980, the year after the Islamic revolution. The hitherto taboo subject touched a raw nerve in Iran.
At that time, in their drive to make the universities Islamic, fundamentalist forces tried to get rid of all opposition by imprisoning people thought to be dissidents, and executing some. Other opponents of the new regime fled the country. That situation comes into public focus for the first time in the film. A wife played by Niki Karimi-she won the best actress award at the Cairo festival-appeals to her husband, a judge, to dig deeply into the case of a woman he is about to try, by telling him about her own youthful past. She confesses to her activism against the shah during college and her attraction to a married intellectual with a wandering eye, played by Mohammad Nikbin (Milan’s husband).
In an interview here, Milani talked for the first time about her arrest. Her husband, who is an architect, translated while she listened closely with occasional passionate interruptions. When the conversation seemed to get very serious, their frisky 5-year-old daughter, Gina, cuddled up to her mother. When Milani was arrested, Gina was told she had gone to a film festival in London, but after three days she seemed to understand what was going on and insisted on being with her father all the time.
Oddly enough, Milani’s problems started one month after ”The Hidden Half” was shown in Tehran theatres and continued to be screened even after she was in prison. Late in August, four men went to the couple’s office looking for her and then-proceeded to their home, confiscating handwritten notes and scripts.
According to Milani, they told her, ”We have permission to arrest you”; after 15 minutes, they took her, accompanied by her husband to the revolutionary court, which is under the control of fundamentalists.
Ordinarily, would have been possible to post a bond and then leave, but the judge wasn’t there so they couldn’t release her and for several days were not allowed to mingle with other women prisoners. When they met her, they rallied to her defence, giving her fresh clothing, volunteering their shower time for her – and suggesting she make a film about their plight.
“Every day for five hours, I was questioned by the court about my movie, “ Milani said. “I was accused of doing things against national security and collaborating with anti- revolutionary groups outside of Iran. It is one of the highest accusations they can make, and the sentence is the death penalty.”
After the judge saw the film, he realised that there was nothing against Islamic fundamentalist law in it, but speculation grew that her case was being used to discredit the Ministry of Culture and Guidance (known as the Ershad) which had licensed “The Hidden Half,” and to intimidate other independent directors. The rumour was that some unsuccessful filmmakers with powerful connections were responsible for making life difficult for filmmakers such as Milani and Jafar Panahi, whose film “The Circle” dealt with women who had just gotten out of prison. (“The Circle” was released in the U.S. earlier in the year.)
Meanwhile, Nikbin did not go to the press with the story because the deputy minister of Ershad was working to get Milani released. At the same time, concern was rising at the Montreal and Venice festivals about Milani’s fate, petitions were being circulated in her support and questions about the case were being raised in the press.
At two press conferences, Khatami said he had checked with the Information ministry and was told she had no record of anything subversive in her background. He said he knew her personally, that she was a very good citizen and he was amazed at her arrest.
Later, the Ershad minister Masjed Jamee appealed to Ayatollah Ali Khameini, the supreme leadership,who ordered her immediate release.
“We were extremely worried,” Nikbin said. “The court had charges and accusations but didn’t have any documentation. Two hours after she was released from prison, two groups came from the judiciary office. One came to our home and took whatever they wanted and another group of five started searching our office again. They took pictures, videotapes, handwritten notes, film books and scenarios.
Following Milani’s release, she and her husband tried to get the case closed and their belongings returned. “They have not given us a direct answer about when we’ll get them back or what’s going to happen, “ Nikbin said. Knowing she was dealing with a controversial subject, Milani said she wanted to make “The Hidden Half” because she thought it would be in line with Khatami’s proposals to start a dialogue on the past in order to renew the country.
“We need to see what happened to those people(dissidents) the year after the revolution, “ Milani said. “ I was in my first year of architectural school . There were many ideologies wanting to get rid of the shah and have a democratic system, and it ended up with the Islamic republic. How can we judge a teenager then who emotionally wanted to do something for the country and may have been attracted to a left-wing group? Many people left the country at that time for various reasons. Some wanted to become engineers or doctors, and now they are nothing. This is the story of their lives. They’d love to come back to Iran, but they can’t.” In Iran, the film has been watched by audiences with extraordinarily intense silence, followed by tears after the screenings and thanks to Milani for opening up the subject, Nikbin said. ”Until we get rid of the anger some people feel from those days and release that negative energy first, we can’t really be united” he said.
Filmmakers and supporters from around the world are joining in solidarity to help prevent the horrific possibility of Tamineh’s execution. Facets Multimedia In Chicago is organising a petition in which all who support Ms. Milani can sign their names. Visit www.facets.org to sign the petition.
This article first appeared on the LA Times on 26/1 0/2001 HAlf
US ATTACKS
On the Bombings
Naom Chomsky
After the dreadful attacks of September 11, the Bush administration declared an all out war against an elusive enemy. While the Indian Government as well as the media almost endorsed the US line, many dissident voices were heard in the west, even USA, against an aggressive retaliation.
The terrorist attacks were major atrocities. In scale they may not reach the level of many others, for example, Clinton’s bombing of the Sudan with no credible pretext, destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies and killing unknown numbers of people (no one knows, because the US blocked an inquiry at the UN and no one cares to pursue it). Not to speak of much worse cases, which easily come to mind. But that this was a horrendous crime is not in doubt. The primary victims, as usual, were working people: janitors, secretaries, firemen, etc. It is likely to prove to be a crushing blow to Palestinians and other poor and oppressed people. It is also likely to lead to harsh security controls with many possible ramifications for undermining civil liberties and internal freedom. The events reveal, dramatically, the foolishness of the project of ”missile defense.” As has been obvious a11 along, and pointed out repeatedly by strategic analysts, if anyone wants to cause immense damage in the US, including weapons of mass destruction, they are highly unlikely to launch a missile attack, thus guaranteeing their immediate destruction. There are innumerable easier ways that are basically unstoppable. But today’s events will, very likely, be exploited to increase the pressure to develop these systems and put them into place. ”Defense” is a thin cover for plans for Digitalization of spaces and with good PR even the flimsiest arguments will carry some weight among a frightened public. In short, the crime is a gift to the hard jingoist right, those who hope to use force to control their domains. That is even putting aside the likely US actions, and what they will trigger – possibly more attacks like this one, or worse. The prospects ahead are even more ominous than they appeared to be before the latest atrocities. As to how to react, we have a choice. We can express justified horror; we can seek to understand what may have led to the crimes, which means making an effort to enter the minds of the likely perpetrators. If we choose the latter coursed we can do no better, think, than to listen to the words of Robert Fisk, whose direct knowledge and insight into affairs of the region is unmatched after many years of distinguished reporting. Describing ”The wickedness and awesome cruelty of a crushed and humiliated people,” he writes that ”this is not the war of democracy versus terror that the world will be asked to believe in the coming days. It is also about American missile smashing into Palestinian homes and US helicopters firing missiles into a Lebanese ambulance in 1996 and American shells crashing into a village called Qana and about a Lebanese militia – paid and uniformed by America’s israeli ally – hacking and raping and murdering their way through refugee camps.” And much more. Again, we have a choice: we may try to understand, or refuse to do so, contributing to the likelihood that much worse lies ahead.
You’ve seen the attacks, now buy the T-shirt
Gary Younge
Last Tuesday’s attacks have spawned a small but thriving industry in the macabre, the patriotic, the jingoistic, the compassionate and the desperate.
As an open truck carrying rubble from what remains of the World Trade Centre turned a corner in Lower Manhattan yesterday a crowd of 15 people descended on it, each making a grab for a handful of mangled girders and rock as a ghoulish souvenir. Some were hard at work, gathering material to sell, as horrific mementoes, until a scuffle with the police looked imminent.
Meanwhile Michael Jackson is busy assembling an all-star cast to record a charity single – on the same lines as USA for Africa’s We Are the World – to raise $50m for the victims. In a statement over the weekend Jackson said the project had ”received” an overwhelming response from major artists al1 over the world ”, including Destiny’s Child, the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears.
”Michael’s aim is to stop the violence” the executive producer Marc Schaffel said. A sample of the lyrics includes: ”Brother to brother, lay down our fears and reach out to make a pact/Showing the love that is in our hearts, 1et us bring salvation back.”
Back in New York, street vendors are faring better than ever. On make- shift tables and cardboard boxes they sell hastily printed T-shirts bearing the message ”America under Attack” above an image of the twin towers ablaze, for just $4. Then there are bandanas, hats and hankies promising that ”evil will be punished” and a T-shirt with the words: ”l can’t believe I got out”
Prices for postcards and wall mirrors of what was the skyline have increased steadily. The best-selling book on Amazon.com last week was a coffee-table picture book, Twin Towers: The Life of New York City’s World Trade Centre. ”We all know why they’re buying them” said one newsvendor who has worked the same spot for 12 years.
‘We’ll never see these towers again and they want to show their children and grandchildren.”
For those who want to remember how it happened rather than how it was, young men sell snaps of the planes flying into the towers to tourists and fellow Americans. “Nobody’s given me a problem selling these” says Mike on the corner of Canal and Broadway clutching a selection of three different angles of the crashes. ”I’m working hard and getting paid. I’m not disrespecting anybody.”
Al1 over the country there are the flags. Fluttering from everything from taxis to prams, hanging from apartment windows in Chinatown and in gay bars in Greenwich Village.
A poll released yesterday showed that 82% of Americans had displayed the stars and stripes after the atrocity, far more than those who said they had cried.
Source: Guardian
The Disinformation Campaign
Philip Knightley
The way wars are reported in the western media follows a depressingly predictable pattern: stage one, the crisis: stage two, the deionization of the enemy’s leader: stage three, the deionization of the enemy as individuals: and stage four, atrocities. At the moment we are at stages two and three: efforts to show that not only Osama bin Laden and the Taliban are fanatical and cruel but that most Afghans – even many Muslims – are as well. We are already through stage one, the reporting of a crisis which negotiations appear unable to resolve. Politicians, while calling for diplomacy warn of military retaliation. The media reports this as ”We’re on the brink of war” or ”War is inevitable”.
News coverage concentrates on the build up of military force, and prominent columnists and newspaper editorials urge war. But there are usually sizable minorities of citizens concerned that a11 avenues for peace have not been fully explored and although the mainstream media ignores or plays down their protests, these have to be dampened down unless they gain strength.
We now enter stage two of the pattern – the declination of the enemy’s leader. Comparing the leader with Hitler is a good start because of the instant images that Hitler’s name provokes. So when George Bush Sr. likened Iraq’s takeover of Kuwait with the Nazi blitzkrieg in Europe in the 1930s, the media quickly took up the theme. Saddam Hussein was painted as a second Hitler, hated by his own people and despised in the Arab world. Equally, in the Kosovo conflict, the Serbs were portrayed as Nazi thugs intent on the genocide and words like ”Auschwitz-style furnaces” and ”Holocaust” were used.
The crudest approach is to suggest that the leader is insane. Saddam Hussein was ”a deranged psychopath” Milosevic was mad, and the Spectator recently headlined Laden: ”inside the mind of the maniac”. Those who publicly question any of this can expect an even stronger burst of abuse. In the Gulf war they were labelled ” talents or terrorists, ranters, nutty, hypocrites, animals, barbarians, mad, traitors, unhinged, appeasers and apologists”. The Mirror called peace demonstrators ”misguided, twisted individuals always eager to comfort and support any country but their own. They are a danger to a1l us – the enemy within.” Columnist Christopher Hitchena, in last week’s Spectator article, Damn the doves, says that intellectuals who seek to understand the new enemy are no friends of peace, democracy or human life.
The third stage in the pattern is the deionization not only of the leader but of his people. The simplest way of doing this is the atrocity story. The problem is that although many atrocity stories are true – after all, war itself is an atrocity – many are not.
Take the Kuwaiti babies story. Its origins go back to tine first world war when British propaganda accused the Germans of tossing Belgian babies into the air and catching them on their bayonets. Dusted off and updated for the Gulf war, this version had Iraqui soldiers bursting into a modern Kuwaiti hospital, finding the premature babies ward and then tossing the babies out of incubators so that the incubators could be sent back to Iraq.
The story, improbable from the start, was first reported by the Daily Telegraph in London on September 5,1990. But the story lacked the human element. It was an unverified report, there were no pictures for television and no interviews with mothers grieving over dead babies.
That was soon rectified. An organization calling itself Citizens for a Free Kuwait (financed by the Kuwaiti government in exile) had signed a $10m contract with the giant American public relations company, Hill & Knowlton, to campaign for American military intervention to oust Iraq from Kuwait.
The Human Rights Caucus of the US Congress was meeting in October and Hill & Knowlton arranged for a 15 year-old Kuwaiti girl to tell the babies’ story before the congressmen. She did it brilliantly, choking with tears at the right moment, her voice breaking as she struggled to continue. The congressional committee knew her only as ”Nayirah” and television segment of leer testimony showed anger and resolution on the faces of the congressmen listening to her. President Bush referred tot he story six times in the next five weeks as an example of the evil of Saddam’s regime.
In the Senate debate whether to approve military action to force Saddam out of Kuwait, seven senators specifically mentioned the Incubator babies atrocity and the final margin in favour of war was just five votes. John R Macarthur’s study of propaganda in the war says that the babies atrocity was a definitive moment in the campaign to prepare the American public for the need to go to war.
It was not until nearly two years later that the truth emerged. The story was a fabrication and a myth, and Nayirah, the teenage Kuwaiti girl, coached and rehearsed be Hill & Knowlton for her appearance before the Congressional Committee, was in fact the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. But the time Macarthur revealed this, the war was won and over and it did not matter any more.
So what should we make of the stories in the British press this week about torture in Afghanistan? A defector from the Taliban’s secret police told a reporter in Quetta, Pakistan that he was commanded to ”find nee ways of torture so terrible that the screams will frighten crows from their nests”. The defector then listed a series of chilling forms of torture that he said he and his fellow officers developed. ”Nowhere else in the world has such barbarity and cruelty as Afghanistan.”
The story rings false and defectors of all kinds are well-known for telling interviewers what they think they want to hear. On the other hand, it might be true. The trouble is, how can we tell? The media demands that we trust it but too often that trust has been betrayed.
Source:Guardian
Bush’s blank cheque puts more innocent lives at risk
Barbara Lee
Barbara Lee, a Democrat from Oakland, is the one member of Congress out of 535 who voted against handing President Bush the unconditional power to take military action. Here she describes what led her to take her stand.
On September 11, terrorists attacked the United States in an unprecedented and brutal manner, killing thousands of innocent people, including the passengers and crews of four aircraft.
Like everyone throughout our country, I am repulsed and angered by these attacks and believe all appropriate steps must be taken to bring the perpetrators to justice.
We must prevent any future such attacks. That is the highest obligation of our federal, state and local governments. On this, we are united as a nation. Any nation, group or individual that falls to comprehend this of believes that we will tolerate such illegal and uncivilized attacks is grossly mistaken.
Last week, filled with grief and sorrow for those killed and injured and with anger at those who had done this, I confronted the solemn responsibility of voting to authorize the nation to go to war. Some believe this resolution was only symbolic, designed to show national resolve. But I could not ignore that it provided explicit authority, under the war powers resolution and the constitution, to go to war. It was a blank cheque to the president to attack anyone involved in the September 11 events – anywhere, in any country, without regard to our nation’s long term foreign policy, economic and national security interests, and without time limit.
In granting these overly broad powers, the Congress failed its responsibility to understand the dimensions of its declaration. I could not support stitch a grant of war-making authority to the president; 1 believe it would put more innocent lives at risk.
The president has the constitutional authority to protect the nation from further attack and he has mobilized the armed forces to do just that. The Congress should have waited for the facts to be presented and then acted with fuller knowledge of the consequences of our action.
I have heard from thousands of my constituents in the wake of this vote. Many … a majority … have counselled restraint and caution, demanding that we ascertain the facts and ensure that violence does not beget violence.
Others believe that I should have voted for the resolution … either for symbolic or geopolitical reasons, or because they truly believe a military option is unavoidable. However, I am not convinced that voting for the resolution preserves and protects US interests.
We must develop our intelligence and bring those who did this to justice. We must mobilize – and maintain- an international coalition against terrorism. Finally, we have a chance to demonstrate to the world that great powers can choose to fight on the fronts of their choosing, and that we can choose to avoid needless military action when other avenues to redress our rightful grievances and to protect our nations are available to us.
We must respond, but the character of that response will determine for ourselves and for our children the world that they will inherit. I do not dispute the president’s intent to rid the world of terrorism but we have many means to reach that goal, and measures that spawn further act: of terror or that do not address the sources of hatred do not increase our security.
Secretary of state Colin Powell himself eloquently pointed out the many ways to get at the root of this problem … economic, diplomatic, legal and political, as well as military. A rush to launch precipitous military counterattacks runs too great a risk that more innocent men, women and children will be killed. I could not vote for a resolution that I believe will lead to such an outcome.
BBC apologizes
The BBC has apologized for a programme in which a former US ambassador to Britain, Mr. Philip fader, was reduced to tears in the face of a strong anti-American sentiment among the audience, many of whom, while condemning the September 11 terrorist attacks, said America should ask itself why so many people around the world ”despised” it so much.
A special edition of Question Time on BBC 1 two days after the tragic events in New York and Washington, was marked by a sharp criticism of the US foreign policy which the bulk of the audience believed was responsible for a ”hatred” of America. In the live programme, there were frequent clashes between US supporters and critics, mostly Muslims, which the moderator, Mr. David Dimbleby, found difficult to control. Mr. Lader, taken aback by the depth of anti-us feeling, said tearfully, ”I find it hurtful that you can suggest that a majority of the world despises the US. … I simply want to say that it saddens me how it is possible on this night, within 48 hours (of the attacks), that because of animosity of feeling on political issues we can frankly abstract ourselves from the senseless human victimization and suffering that has occurred.”
A front page story on the Daily Telegraph the following day, titled ”Outrage at anti-us ‘bias’ on BBC” claimed that viewers found the programme ”tasteless and insensitive.” It quoted one viewer who said that the programme was ”packed with Left- wingers and a high percentage of Muslims” who did not represent the views of the average Briton. The report also wrongly claimed that Lord Paddy Ashdown was ”rarely” allowed to complete a sentence…” Further, a Telegraph commentator spoke of ”outraged spectators” watching ”in disbelief as a former US ambassador was baited shouted cruelly before being down by an overwhelmingly hostile audience” – a description which many who viewed the programme felt was highly exaggerated.
The truth, however, was Mr. Lader faced the similar frequent interruptions that a11 the other panellists faced. If any panellist was attacked, it was Ms. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a leading commentator on ethnic affairs, and the Labour MP, Mr. Tam Dalyell, who were strongly critical of the US policy against Iraq. Ms. Alibhai Brown was in fact severely attacked by US supporters for saying that after the events of September11, America had joined ”the real world.”
Even though BBC officials defended the programme saying ”the right issues were discussed and a broad range of opinions were aired, many of them supporting the USA,” the BBC director general, Mr. Greg Dyke, quite unexpectedly, said in a public apology that he felt the ”inappropriate” and programme was should not have been telecast live just two days after the attacks in the US. Subsequently, the moderator Mr. Dimbleby also had to apologise for the ”offence caused by the intemperate language and aggressive attitudes of a small part of the audience.”
Miscellany
A Concise Lexicon of/for the Digital Commons
By Raqs Media Collective
Raqs Media Collective has formulated a concise lexicon of/for the digital commons as the beginning of a dictionary, a lexical resource on the commons, that could grow with what other people have to say. Here are interpretations of a few terms from the lexicon.
Access
The facility to log on and log a space or a network where people and meanings gather. To be present, to have the ability, the key, to decode a signal, to open doors, to be able to download/upload on to any 1 tem of signs and signals be it the Internet, a book, an art work, or a dinner party. There can be no excess of access.
Bandwidth
Describes the dimensions that are necessary for messages, signals anti-communications to get through. The greater the bandwidth of a system, the higher the number of messages, and higher the quantum of information that it can accommodate at any given time. It follows from this that access is a function of bandwidth. More people can make themselves heard when there is room for them to speak and be spoken to Bandwidth translates into content-rich information, streams of video, audio, and text flowing into each other. It also translates at the moment into cash. The hard cash and control that comes from selling pictures and sounds and numbers to more and more people.
Code
That which carries embedded within it a sign. A code is always a way of saying something to mean something other than that which is merely said. A code can be opened, in the sense that it can be accessed and entered, as opposed to ‘broken’. An open-access culture communication ‘reveals the source’ of its codes. A closed culture of communication blocks access to its codes, ‘Free code’ is code which welcomes entry, and is open to change. ‘Free Code’ needs to be shared for it to grow. Code connotes community, a community of “encoders, decoders and code sharers”. Like eggs, code is sometimes best had scrambled.
(to be continued)
For the full lexicon, contact: Raqs Media Collective <raqs@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in>
Introduction to Film Studies
A short course offered by
The AJK Mass Communication Research Center (MCRC)
Jamia Milia Islamic, New Delhi
What is tile cinema? How is it different from photography and the other ads? What are the different ways in which we can understand the power and value of the cinema? These are some of the many questions that will be addressed in this short course. The course is designed to offer an intensive learning experience that will initiate students into a deeper understanding of cinematic images. It will offer both a historical overview of different international film movements as well as a range of methodologies and techniques deployed to classify, read and understand the cinema.
The duration of the course will be from January 5 to March 5, 2002. The teaching team includes Shohini Ghosh, Rajani Mazumdar, Ashish Nandy, Ravi Vasudevan, Rashmi Doraiswamy, Ira Bhaskar and Patricia Uberoi. Classes will be held between 5.30 8.30 pm (Mon, Tue, Wed) while screenings of films will be held on Saturdays.
For more information, contact:
Ranjani Mazumdar at 2723764, 27244 13, (rmazumdar@mantraonline.com)
Or
Shohini Ghosh at shohini@ vsnl.com
The Politics of Censorship
Shohini Ghosh
The nineties have witnessed a heated public debate around issues of censorship. It is important to recall that the debate plays out against the backdrop of three major developments that has had a far reaching effect on the Indian media: the liberalization of the economy, the liberalization of the airwaves with the consequent proliferation of satellite channels and the rise of the Hindu Right. The emergence of satellite channels, in fact, almost coincides with the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992.
As we have al1 witnessed, the entry of satellite television has facilitated a simultaneous and paradoxical response by audiences and policy makers. With the new media explosion, people have engaged enthusiastically with tile media, on the one hand while on the other, expressing tremendous anxieties around the ‘invasion’ of western values and the resultant erosion of ‘Indian cultural values’. This anxiety has not been generated by the Hindu Right alone.
I leave dealt in about this detail paradox in an essay titled The Troubled Existence of Sex and Sexuality where I have argued that the nineties debate on censorship is really about sex and sexuality. The essay looks at two major players in the debate: the Hindu Right and the secular women’s movement. Motivated by entirely different agendas both these groups have mounted the most vocal opposition to satellite TV and public spectacles like the Ms World Pageant. The essay sought to study the intersection whereby the discourses of the two groups overlap. The images and representations that have simultaneously provoked outrage have been articulated around representations of sexually coded foments bodies. I have argued that in failing to distinguish between discrimination and desire, coercion and consent a11 representations that denote or connote sex leave been labelled ‘bad’ and consequently damned, thereby losing the crucial difference between sexual explicitness and sexism. I concluded the essay, by asking to create space for consensual erotica in which women are willing and active agents and for a feminist endeavour that would encourage a ”pleasurable, danceable, political, artistic praxis”. Without revisiting the details of the above debate, I will attempt to engage with certain concerns that arise out of the large, diffused and continuing debate around censorship. Exactly a year from now, feminists discussed issues around the restriction of speech in a plenary on Censorship and Silence on January 11, 2000 at the IX National Conference on Women’s Studies at Hyderabad. My presentation here is an engagement with some of the issues that emerged from the discussion. I will argue my points under three headings:
(1) Exclusion versus Censorship
(2) Identity versus Identification and
(3) State versus the Market.
Exclusion versus Censorship
Several feminist commentators attempted to expand the notion of censorship by looking at various forces in the state, market and civil society that selectively silence certain types of speech. I think that for purposes of clarity and even strategy, it is useful to distinguish between censorship and exclusion. While exclusion and marginalisation are definite forms of discrimination, they mark a critical departure form censorship. To my mind, the term censorship should be used to describe the attempt to silence or eliminate speech that has already come into existence in some form or another. Therefore, the absence of queer people from theatres is an act of censorship. Censorship is a deliberate and wilful act whereas exclusion may or may not be deliberate. Marginalisation and exclusion are caused as much by ignorance as by bigotry, opportunism and the profit-motif. I insist upon the distinction because the strategy to fight censorship is very different from the struggle to create a more inclusive cultural space.
Identity versus Identification
For those attempting to make interventions in the media, it is important to understand the complexities of spectatorial engagement with media texts. One of the problems of not having a rigorous and competing tradition of media studies in the Indian academia has been that the issues of theory and methodology have not been academically interrogated or challenged. Therefore, public debates on issues of spectatorship have been constructed largely through anecdotal experiences, studies with faulty or no methodology and common sense impulses.
There is great need to challenge the dominance of text-based constructions of the spectator in discussions around audience and reception. What homogeneous constructions of spectators fail to understand and address is that historical (‘real’) spectators – unlike their theoretical constructs – are influenced in their viewing habits by their own social and cultural identities. To conduct ideological readings of texts to show how audiences are being duped, usually end up demeaning the majority of audiences by showing up the aesthetic poverty of mass taste.
The post-satellite years in particular, have seen the emergence of a new cultural space that has radically transformed the around experiences spectatorship. It is important to that there can be no measurable unified impact of media messages simply because spectatorship is implicated in a much larger socio-historical context of which the media is only a part. It has been suggested that media spectatorship forms a ‘trialogue’ between texts, readers and communities making it thereby a negotiable site. Another useful manner suggested by feminist film scholar Christine Gledhill is to work with the idea of ‘negotiation’. Negotiation implies the holding together of opposite sides!. An ongoing process of give-and-take where cultural exchange occurs at the intersection of process of production/address and reception.
In beginning to understand how realise spectators may negotiate with various texts, it is important to understand the politics of location and the context that helps shape both text and spectator positioning. Very often, altered contexts can encourage altered negotiations. Moreover, spectators inhabit multiple identities having to do with gender, class, caste, religion, ethnicity, age, ability and sexual preference. However, it is critical to understand that socially imposed identities may not determine personal identifications and political allegiances. This is not to say that social identities are irrelevant but there may not be a direct correspondence between social identity and identification. The understanding that spectators inhabit multiple identities and identifications could help us comprehend the seeming anomaly of rural and suburban audiences identifying with films that present a milieu that is far removed from their own. Meaning, therefore, is fashioned not only by the texts but also by the pre-disposition of those who engage with the text.
The State versus the Market
It is now becoming increasingly common to speak of censorship imposed by the state and ‘censorship’ (or what I would call exclusions) by the market. Both the state and private channels privilege certain narratives over others and also indulge in active censorship. For instance, Star withdrew Nikki Tonite because Ashok Row Kavi called Gandhi a ‘bastard bania’. Star Movies censored some of the most subversive lines around women’s pleasure from Muriel’s Wedding because they thought it would be seen and considered ‘obscene’ by Indian audiences. Full Monty, a film about male strippers, was so badly cut that it was almost half its original length and the climactic sequences was almost completely censored. Many other well-known films have been mutilated in the same way. The censorship of Doordarshan channels is far too many to even count.
It seems however, that with the advent of the private channels, our attention has been displaced from the state onto the market. At a time when the forces of Hindu Right and the State have converged, this to my mind, may not be a very wise shift. In her essay titled Structured Silences of Women , Ritu Menon has correctly pointed out that ”If there have been not outright bans or proscriptions [by the stated] in the recent past, there has also not been a single instance of the state coming out in support of free speech, when such speech has been attacked by self-styled, free-enterprise censors”. It is true that none of the instances of the ‘street censorship’ in the recent past, whether Hussain’s work or Deepa Mehta’s film, where the success of the ”self-styled free enterprise censors” have not been consolidated by the inaction and tacit complicity of the state. The vandalism and violence against Hussain’s paintings, Fire and Water by extremists of the Hindu Right have a11 been indirectly supported by the BJP- led government does not end up getting made, it is because the government has failed to uphold the constitutional guarantee of free speech. The following are certain random instances of why we should continue to take the state seriously: The Information Technology Act: 2000: Under this act ”Publishing of information which is obscene in electronic form” is a punishable offence. Under this clause ”whoever publishes or transmits or causes to be published in electronic form, any material which is lascivious or appeals to the prurient interest or if its effect is such as to tend to deprave or and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to al1 relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it, shall be punished” with imprisonment up to 5 years or a fine up to one lakh rupees. (The issue that gets raised yet again is who decides what is obscene’?) This clause is made worse by another that allows a ”police officer and other officers to enter, search ”any public place and search and arrest without warrant any person found therein who is reasonable suspected of having committed, or of committing or being about to commit any offence under this Act.”
Similar restrictions have been brought in by the amendment in The Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995. The restrictions imposed by the BJP led government have not only imposed a highly problematic Programme and Advertising Code but also brought TV under the Cinematograph Act of 1952 which means that the rules applicable to feature films would also apply in here. As is commonly known now, the Advertising Code prohibits the telecast of cigarettes, tobacco, wine, alcohol, liquor and other intoxicants along with infant milk substitutes, feeding bottle or infant foods.
In order to ensure that these censorship provisions are followed, the I&B Ministry under Jaitley and now Sushma Swaraj has revived the Central Monitoring Cell on the Gurgaon- Mehrauli Road. Here, the 120 strong staff (aided by free-lancing students) sits and monitors TV sets and looks out for “anti-India propaganda” and other violations. When the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act was being enforced this cell was used to watch out for liquor and tobacco ads. The Central Monitoring Cell, originally set up by the Army and intelligence, is now serving as a panoptican through which the BJP-led government is monitoring media content.
The Hindu Right has been using the power to censor through both lega1 and extra-legal measures. The current convergence of the Hindu Right and the various machineries of the state represent one of the worst threats to the freedom of speech and expression in this country. Those of us who value this constitutional guarantee cannot afford to displace our attention away from the state.
Conclusion:
1. In the rapidly cleansing mediascape and decentralized modes of production, are strategies to fight exclusion and absences have to be multiple and complex. The struggle for inclusion has to be dispersed battle that will need to include the creating of cultural practices and spaces outside of TV channels.
2. There should be no compromise on upholding the constitutional guarantee of free speech.
3. There needs to be far more complicated understanding of media, messages and audiences before propounding universalized theories of either production or reception. The death knell for metanarratives has been sounded.
4. To create a culture whereby pluralistic and pleasurable cultural practices are encouraged 170th within and outside the mainstream.
(Shohini Ghosh presented this paper at the Panchgani Human Rights Conference)
The Censor Within (Part l)
Ammu Joseph
The controversy over the film, Gadar, is the latest example of censorship by mob, “which has become a regular feature of cultural life in India today. While both street censorship of this kind and official censorship by the state generate some public concern and censure, many more insidious forms of censorship that stifle creativity often escape public attention. Among these are several that are rooted in gender. This article on gender-based censorship as experiences by women creative writers in Indian languages, was first published in The Hindu(www.hinduonnet.com)
”Love is an agent of censorship. ”
This pithy statement by a participant in a workshop for women writers in Malayalam was echoed and endorsed by her colleagues across the country as they discussed the who, what, when, where, why; and how of creative writing by Indian women in a series of ten informal, language-specific workshops spread over the past two years.
The approximately 150 writers who participated in the workshops represented a cross-section of generations, communities, social and cultural backgrounds, ideological perspectives, literary genres and, of course, languages (Bengali, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu). Many of them were renowned writers, well-known within their respective literatures, if not on the national (or international) stage. The three-day residential workshops were designed to enable participants to reflect on their lives as women and as creative persons, on the intersections between their various identities and the impact of these on their writing.
As they shared their experiences, thoughts and feelings with each other, it became clear that censorship was an ever-present reality in their lives -even if they were not always conscious of it. Few of the participating writers had experienced censorship as it is commonly defined: tile silencing of writers by official censors, jailers or assassins. But most of them were obviously aware of other, more subtle but equally effective restrictions on their self-expression and creativity. ”We of the older generation of writers have been wearing the veil of censorship like a nine-yard sari”’ mused a seasoned Kannada poet.
Most of the writers also seemed to have an instinctive understanding of the links between gender and censorship – even if they had never consciously thought or talked about it before. ”A woman’s life is censored from start to finish and if not censored then severely edited,” said a Hindi writer. As they ruminated on their lives as women and as writers, they clearly affirmed the concept of gender-based censorship which many women writers across the world consider a real and potent threat to women’s right to freedom of expression.
“The Guarded Tongue”, a national colloquium held in Hyderabad from 20 to 22 July 2201, represents the culmination of the first phase of a project on gender and censorship, co-ordinated by Asmita – resource Centre for Women, Hyderabad, which comprised a series of workshops for female creative writers in ten Indian languages over two years(1999-2001)
The project evolved from and is informally a part of a worldwide initiative launched by Women’s WORLD(Women’s World Organisation for Rights, Literature and Development) in its efforts to catalyse global feminist work on the right to free expression.
Women writers from across the world who belong to WW (a spin-off from International PEN-Poets, Essayists and Novelists) believe that gender-based censorship is a major threat to free expression by women. The term, coined in 199 by Filipina writer Ninitchcka Rosce, refers to the historic, worldwide silencing of women’s voices through various means, which subtly but effectively obstructs the achievement of equality, sustainable livelihoods and peace by women.
According to a senior Hindi writer, the censorship experienced by women writers manifests itself in atleast four forms: political, cultural, familial and internal. These are obviously inter-connected and mutually re-enforcing but, in her view, cultural censorship is the most insidious and powerful of them all because it pervades every aspect of society and percolates into every social institution, including families and political formations.
Internalised constraints
Self- censorship emerged as one of the most widely experienced forms of censorship operating on women writers. As one Kannada writer put it, “What is most interesting for me is the censorship within us, the cultural policeman who’s inside us.”
The Malayalam writer’s observe lion that ”love is an agent of censorship” turned into a virtual chorus as writers across the country spoke of the restraints they routinely placed on their writing, primarily to avoid hurting loved ones and rocking the family boat. An English poet confessed that she found herself switching from the first to the third person in poems written after marriage in a possibly subconscious effort to protect her husband from unintended distress. A Kannada writer was forthright about the self-censorship she exercises. ”I might have become a far better writer if I did not subject my writing to such censorship,” she said. ”But I like family life as don’t want to upset the balance of my relationships.”
Evidently, however, self-censorship was not always a matter of personal choice. External factors clearly influenced the decision of many writers to avoid writing about certain subjects and even, in a few cases to stop writing altogether or, at least, for extended periods – sometimes as long as 15 and18 years!
Apart from apprehensions about the possible repercussions of delving into personal experiences or divulging family secrets through their writing, many women were admittedly inhibited by what one of them described as “the good girl syndrome.” The term became another catch – phrase as writers talked about the pressure they felt ”from within and without” to be and appear to be the good daughter, wife and mother, the dutiful, respectable middle class woman: in other words, to live up to social expectations, preserve personal reputation and uphold family honour.
Quoting from one of her poems, a Hindi poet spoke eloquently about the ”needle and thread” syndrome in women’s lives that kept their lips properly sealed and made them observe a stern ”aesthetics of silence”:
“Scissors to cut with,
a needle and thread to sew my lips with.
If I write my subconscious,
The earth will be covered with paper.”
The issues involved in self-censorship became particularly evident during extended discussions in several workshops on the difficulties of autobiographical writing, the differences between autobiographies by men and women, and the different ways in which these were perceived and received by the public as well as the literary establishment. ”When I write a short story, it is ultimately perceived as fiction”’ explained a Marathi writer. ”But when I sit down to write my autobiography, that can never be somebody else’s experience. Then I have to strip myself naked. And can I do that? The truth is that there are just so many levels of censorship that halt my hand and curb my writing.
” Several women spoke of their frustrated desire to write their autobiographies; a number of them had begun writing them only to abandon the project because of their own fears or the objections of family members. Others said they kept their personal, autobiographical writing strictly to themselves. According to one Kannada writer, if she ever managed to write the autobiographical novel she had been thinking about for some time, she would want it to be published only after her death.”
Familial Restraints
Many writers’ evident nervousness about autobiographical work obviously emanated from the attitudes of family members towards their writing. In fact, censorship by families emerged as a major obstacle in the way of many a woman writer’s freedom of expression and creativity. If emotional pressure was at one end of the spectrum of family imposed censorship, violence was at the other.
Two Tamil writers spoke of physica1 assaults by their husbands on account of their writing. Despite the powerful post she occupies in her full-time career, one of them said she was beaten every time she was published; even after she finally left the violent marriage her former husband continued to threaten her whenever anything by or about leer appeared in print. The other writer’s right wrist was broken by her ex-husband for daring to write a poem about their divorce. ”My hand hurts now even while mixing tamarind jice” she said as she broke down during the workshop.
A number of writers talked about the destruction of their creative work by family members, most often husbands. According to a Telugu writer, her husband used to routinely tear up her poems during the early years of their marriage. Frustrated by his behaviour, she stopped writing for ten years. Later, after she resumed her literary efforts, he burnt the letters she received from fellow writers, which were especially precious because was not allowed to meet anyone from the literary world. A Gujarati writer lost a number of manuscripts because her husband, who read everything she wrote ”not to appreciate but to censor,” tore them up before she could make copies. ”At such times I feel so suffocated that I think I’ll never be able to write again, “ she said. “But then I pick myself up and go on.”
For other women censorship came in less dramatic forms and from other members of their families, both natal and marital. Although many women traced their interest in literature to the environment in which they were brought up, the literary interests and pursuits of other members of their families, and /or the encouragement they received from various relatives, a significant number also talked about the obstacles placed in their way by family members, often in response to social pressures. Several writers had been prevented from writing by their fathers, fathers-in-law, brothers or sons. Others had behavioural or literary lakshman-rekhas drawn for them by their mothers or mothers in law.
An Urdu writer tore up 15 of her short stories after the publication of her first one, when her mother remarked that it would be difficult to get her married if she continued to write such stories. Another Urdu writer was until recently prevented by her husband from using the feminine gender in her poems; even now, she is not allowed to publish the few poems she has begun to write in the feminine voice.
Two Telegu writers had to be contend with negative reactions from family members with reference to menstruation in their writing. “Although the social criticism in my writing was very mild, even that was considered too radical by my family, “ said one of them. A Bengali writer revealed that before she set out for the workshop a relative had warned her against washing dirty linen in public.
As a Gujarati writer put it, “We are expected to follow the rajmarg (path prescribed by the powerful) and be involved in seva (selfless service), dharma(duty), kutumb bhavana (family feelings) or write children’s stories and beautiful songs about the sunset.’ According to her, when women writers follow these unwritten rules families tend to be proud of their ”artistic” achievements; it is when they venture onto roads less travelled that censorship begins. Similarly, in many cases, family resentment and opposition seemed to grow in direct proportion to the writers’ success and confidence.
Many writers across the country declared the widespread tendency among readers ”including family members and literary critics” to identify them with the characters in their works and to assume that the experiences, ‘ thoughts and feelings described in their writing were their own. ”People look for personal elements in whatever women write,” said a Malayalam writer. This rarely happened in the case of male writers, she and others pointed out. According to them, this unfortunate tendency nurtured and reinforced censorship by the self as well as the family.
Women’s prescribed roles within families and households were identified as yet another, albeit indirect, source of censorship. ”Life as a traditional housewife is one of the greatest curbs on a writer’s creativity”’ said a Marathi poet and short story writer. Her sentiments were echoed by a Malayalam poet who said she could write good poetry only when she was able to get out of the ”home-bound housewife” frame.
Lack of time and space for writing was obviously a huge stumbling block for an overwhelming majority of writers. Perhaps the most eloquent expression of the limits on creativity imposed by the inescapable daily routine of domestic duties came from a Marathi writer when she said’. ”For me, creativity is like a raincoat. When I enter my house I hang the raincoat outside the front door. I long for the day when that raincoat becomes my skin. But it has not happened yet.”
Her words became a theme song as they were repeated in workshop after workshop; it was obvious that writers across various divides, including language and class, identified with her predicament. According to a Gujarati writer, “The woman writer inevitably has to combine the –‘V’ of vasan (vessels) with the ‘V’ of varta (stories). It is never an easy task and it often makes me wish I was a man.” ”In the midst of all our preoccupations about what to cook and how to look after the chi1dren, it is only natural that we find it as difficult to concentrate on our writing,” said a senior Malayalam poet. As a large number of writers obviously shouldered almost exclusive responsibility for the home and family – including childcare, healthcare and eldercare -in addition to holding full time jobs outside the home. It was therefore not surprising that most of them said they wrote whenever they could find the time usually early in the morning or late at night when everyone else was asleep. Few seemed able to write every day and even fewer without interruption.
An English writer’s remark about the chai-pani (tea & water) interruptions that impede women’s creative work and another’s comment that a veteran male poet used to say that he often wrote better after an interruption sparked off a lively debate on the possibly gendered nature of interruptions as well as responses to them. As one writer put it, ”The chore for which a woman is interrupted is usually connected to what is seen as her primary responsibility. With men this is usually not the case.”
It turned out that paucity of time and space also influenced many writers’ choice of genre. A number of them admitted that they had opted for relatively short pieces of writing at least partly because they could not dream of devoting time to longer works. ”Often I feel a novel taking shape in my mind but thanks to domestic circumstances there is no continuity in my writing” explained a Gujarati writer. ”Ruptured writing does not read well and so I give up the idea of writing a novel and settle for a short ‘story instead.”
”For years I have dreamt that a Marathi woman writer will publish a lengthy, humongous novel, and that that writer will be me” said the well-known woman who contributed the powerful image of creativity as a raincoat. ”But I find I often cannot even write a short story. All I can write are else brief, humongous pieces. I am simply tortured that I cannot write that novel.” She recounted a conversation she had once overheard between two male writers; one said he was taking leave to finish a book while the other said he had rented a separate, small flat to work in ” with his wife sending meals there – so that he could complete his novel undisturbed. ”Where does a woman writer find the luxury of such time and space?” She asked. She herself writes in fits and starts on scraps fly of paper that she keeps clamped together by the gas stove.
”The spin of domesticity”’ as an English poet described it, clearly placed curbs on creativity in other ways, too. According to several writers, their canvas was limited because their mobility and exposure to the wider world was restricted. Acutely conscious that much of the literature women produce is often dismissed as purely personal, emotional, domestic, ”kitchen literature,” several writers pointed out that the traditional, patriarchal family structure, as well as the place and role of women within it, constituted a powerful means of censorship, however imperceptible it may be from the outside.
As a senior Hindi writer remarked, when so many women’s freedom of movement and association were so circumsubscribed, how could they possibly address social and the political issues? A number of English writers, too, confessed that their choice of subject-matter was limited by their inability to fully participate in public affairs. ”Many of us are middle class women from genteel backgrounds with a glass pane separating us from the real world like a kind of purdah” explained one. “We want to emerge from behind this glass pane and enter the real world but it is not always possible.”
On the other hand, several writers questioned the tendency to assume that serious writing had to be about ”wider issues.” According to an English poet, she colonised her experiences in the wider world and used it to write about the domestic sphere. ”I don’t feel the need to be defensive about writing from a woman’s point of view” she said. ”I think the female experience and the private or domestic sphere are as political as anything else ”
Can the media save the world?
Anuradha Vittachi
Anuradha Vittachi is the director and co-founder of OneWorldOnline, a web-based project dedicated to Development and justice. She delivered the following talk at the WACC Congress in the Netherlands on 4 July 2001.
In my TV documentary-making days, a very successful BBC producer warned me that, if I were making a 30- minute programme, I should include in it no more than two ideas – maximum.
For the task of the conventional TV producer is never to tax the viewer’s brain: it is to soothe, to be a surrogate parent. You may imagine that that’s just to keep toddlers quiet on Sunday mornings but no, it’s also for us adults: when we collapse in front of the telly after a difficult day of commuting, the last thing we want is to be got at, with disturbing thoughts about poverty and suffering. We want to regress to being toddlers too, coddled in a warm sofa, shown fantasy food we are never going to bother to cook, and told bedtime stories.
Portraying reality is really not TV’s goal. I find this so-called ‘reality-TV’ bizarrely misnamed. Isn’t it a quintessential contradiction to be able to audition to be a castaway? It seems rather an insult to real castaways. I am not sure how seriously you can feel lost – when you know that millions of beady eyes are keeping watch on you.
Of course it’s just a game. It’s Marie Antoinette and her chums playing at shepherdesses, 21st century style.
Even the TV news may not be a1l they’re cracked up to be. According to psychologist Chris Robertson, watching the news is, often, not so much a means of getting to grips with reality but a kind of addiction: a substitute for reality.
Our new-look news bulletins, with their canapé-culture sound boxes, allow us to pretend that we are responsible citizens, knowing about and engaging in, what’s going on in the world: when al1 we have actually done is sit and stare at a news reader on a screen for a few minutes – before we sit and stare at something more amusing.
How engaged with reality is that?
lf something unusually striking appears onscreen, like the telegenic pictures of helicopters dramatically winching people out of trees in Mozambique, we might be moved to act: i.e. to send money.
But that well-meant but vague, all-purpose gesture of support only goes to prove how confused and faraway we, the public, feel. Despite our 24-7 news media, we still haven’t a clue why there are these massive floods, or what we should do in response.
This powerlessness is (I think) what’s often mistaken for ‘compassion fatigue’. But one doesn’t get fatigued from the experience of feeling compassion! There are few experiences more rewarding and energizing. What makes one tired is the experience of powerlessness. That’s what brings on the depression.
But don’t worry: the media industry will do all it can to help us avoid anything too emotionally or mentally taxing. One US channel actually forbids its producers to offer the viewers any new ideas. In so many words. ‘No new ideas.’
It also forbids them to show images of o1d people, disabled people, or ugly people. Their channel is forever Malibu.
I grew up in a family of journalists who believed that the raison d’etre of journalism was not to indulge in escapism, nor to push a narrow slice of reality: but to help us understand as much of the Big Picture as possible – the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth – in order to make the world a fairer place. A favourite family phrase was: ‘information that’s not for transformation is just gossip.’
Here’s one tiny example’ of how compelling the media can be, when it does present us with a bit of real reality–TV. In Peru last autumn, startled viewers were confronted by a piece of home-video that showed all act of shameless corruption at the highest levels -Vladimiro Montesinas, the President’s right-hand man (was seen with a senior Peruvian politico handing over a bunch of banknotes. They were caught red-handed. And apparently this was only one video of many hundreds, each capturing a corrupt act.
This footage had a dramatic impact. I was in Lima, at a human rights conference, around this time and it felt like one of those South American infotainment soaps was swirling around me. President Fujimori fled to Japan, Montesinas disappeared – and the whole corrupt edifice was cleared out, practically overnight, like the Augean stables.
Of course be should remember that the development of ICT is still currently in its infancy Most of the world’s people – 9 out of 10 – have no access to the Internet; and, perhaps more surprisingly 7 out of 10 have never even heard of it.
The strange thing is that everyone in Peru must have known and accepted for years before this revelation that corruption was endemic. But somehow the footage sparked a crisis.
Was it because of the power of the image? Was there something about seeing the evidence in black and white? ‘Seeing is believing’ we often say. ‘I saw it with my own eyes.? And when we take something on board we say, ‘Ah, I see.’
Or did the fact that everyone shared in the act of knowing make the crucial difference? Does something else happen when evidence is in the public domain, and not only you know, but you know that everyone else in your community knows too; does it replace the fog of half-knowing and half-denial with a new, solid, shared ‘reality’?
A responsible media, I think, needs to facilitate a vertical communications flow between the ruled and the rulers – ie, to monitor the rulers vigilantly and help us, the public, to keep them honest and accountable – and conversely to carry the public’s concerns and posterities to the authorities.
But the media also needs to facilitate a horizontal, circular flow: ie. To create a citizens’ space, where all of us can explore and share our multi-truths about what constitutes a just and human society, and how it might be brought about.
The result may sound like a babble at first, but out of this multiplicity – if we are patient – could arise a new social reality that is richer and wiser than anything any of us could have arrived at on our own.
One thing that fascinates me is a curious coincidence: that, just at the time so many people around the world are beginning to realise how interconnected we are, a whole new set of media tools known as ICTS (Information and Communications Technologies, the most famous of which is the Internet) are emerging. that are themselves all about global interconnectedness. Perhaps it is neither coincidence nor causal but a phenomenon that is called ‘co-dependent arising’ in Zen Buddhism.
Of course we should remember that the development of ICTS is still currently in its infancy. Most of the world’s people – 9 out of 10 – have no access to the Internet; and, perhaps more surprisingly, 7 out of 10 have never even heard of it.
Only six years ago, Time Magazine ran a cover story that claimed that 83.5% of the data on the Net was pornographic. Two weeks later, this figure was corrected – from 83.5% to less than 0.5%. But the willingness of cynica1 journos and sub-editors to accept an error of this magnitude unchallenged is an indication of how the Net was perceived as little more than a media Wild West saloon bar (with a brothel upstairs) as recently as 1995.
Nor should we confuse the way most of us currently access the Net, on expensive indivisual computers, with the way ICTs are likely to be accessed in the pretty-near future. Instead, we should look to the new, public service media systems – of which OneWorld.net is an example.
One World is the world’s favourite civil society space on the Internet, devoted to issues of human rights and sustainable development. Launched in 1995, it operates as a partnership and currently has about a thousand partners – big and small, from all over the world- as well as around 200 community radio partners – and now also a growing number of video/ TV partners.
All of these partners share their material for free – at present around 2 million text documents – not only with one another but also with around a million readers each month from over 125 countries, and many millions of radio listeners. Editorial teams in ten OneWorld centres around the world organism the partners’ material so that it is easy and attractive to retrieve – thematically, or chronologically, or by kind (eg news, for kids). Many organizations are now experimenting with blending email, radio, video, the Web, satellites, mobile telephony, and who knows what else, in innovative combinations to create new information delivery mechanisms. And these delivery systems are in turn being linked to a whole array of community access points: at NGOs, health centres, schools, community centres, radio telecentres, post offices..
Several of these systems are being designed specifically to help overcome poverty, language and literacy barriers – and also the relevance barrier: there is a serious need to circulate locally relevant, and locally developed, copyright-free content (known as ‘open Source Content’ or ‘Open Source Publishing)
The amount of creativity that has been released, now that the ICTs are not restricted to the narrow thinking of the media conglomerates, is inspiring.
That’s what I really like about ICTs: its potential to re-shape media power relations. It can take a large measure of power out of the hands of the government censors, and the hands of the commercial gatekeepers (censors by another name), and gives it back to the producers – who are often not professional producers but the erstwhile readers.
Jon Snow, distinguished presenter on Channel Four, complained to me the other night that a man in a village with no electricity wouldn’t be able to access the Net. Button wasn’t being logical. That man wouldn’t be able to plug in a TV set in his house either.
And – much more importantly – he would never, ever, be in a position to make a conventional TV or radio programme, to convey his own views back to the world. But within a few years he could use a community access point send an email or an audio-message – or even a video-clip.
This is the real issue about access. It is not just about being able to get access to other people’s voices, it is about being able to include your own: the change of direction in the flow of information is critical to a democratic empowerment. When citizens are ‘the media’ with all their multi-truth diversity, the professional media will finally have to shed their arrogance and become, no longer top-down disseminators of North-centric ‘truths’, but the servants of the public that they should always have been.
So it is absolutely vital, in my view, that there is universal access for everyone as soon as possible, and the kinds of local capacity-building that will allow local content to be shared locally and south to south – as well as south to north.
It is a matter of right. The declaration of Human Rights said, way back in 1948, that ‘everyone has the right to seek, receive and impart information, regardless of frontiers.’ lf we believe in democracy as we say we dos then must it not be an abuse of human rights for the voices of the majority of the world’s people to go unheard?
Secondly, it is a matter of accountability. It cannot be consonant with good global governance to exclude from global decision-making processes the views of those most affixed. Like the decisions on global warming that seem to be being made by President Bush, who doesn’t – a far as I know owns a house on the Bangladesh delta.
I am told there are really not that many technical difficulties standing in the way of connecting the world; the difficulties are human. We need political will – though new initiatives like the G8′s DOT-force and the UN’s ICT Taskforce could help to generate this. But there is another obstacle that I think is far harder to overcome than the digital divide, and that is the denial divide.
Let me explain this in terms of my challenge to myself. If the media were willing to explore and understand the root causes of the wretchedness of the world we live in, would 1 really want to know what those causes are?
Maybe I wouldn’t want to get the bottom of what 1 would need to change, in case I would have to change my lifestyle too much for comfort. Am I – are you? – really willing to take the barriers down, and share the world in a way that is genuinely equitable? Am I secretly glad the media isn’t telling me the whole truth?
Of course I want the good consequences that come with a fairer world; but am I prepared to pay the costs to myself? Or do I want it both ways?
I suspect that 1 might be rather like those hundreds of people in Copernicus’s time who knew his theory about the sun-centric universe but didn’t really take it in, so that they were able to go on holding two mutually exclusive thoughts in their minds at the same time, as if in two sealed compartments – because the consequences of realising what he meant were just too disturbing.
That’s what denial is: it’s not about not knowing something. It’s about knowing something but not wanting to know that we know it. Because we are afraid that if we did allow ourselves to know it, it would disturb us so much we would feel we were going crazy. So in order to prevent ourselves feeling like we are going crazy, we do something that is crazy: we pretend we don’t know all kinds of things we do know.
It was a whole century later that people allowed themselves to hear what Copernicus had been saying – when Galileo said it. So poor Galileo was the one who got locked up instead.
We are now facing (I think) a potential paradigm shift just as great as the Copernican one, and just like his fellow-citizens, I suspect we don’t really want to take its full implications on board.
For we are just beginning to acknowledge that the world is an ecologica1 whole, and the home of one humanity – but that we are living now in a way that is not just a little bit risky for the planet, or a little bit unfair to people: but in a way that puts the environment in the greatest peril, and is so grossly unfair to most of the world’s people, that it can only be described as ‘global apartheid’.
Even the kinds of improvements that are being proposed – like the Kyoto Protocol – are little more than moving deckchairs around on the Titanic. The magnitude and prevalence of corruption in the world makes
Montesinas seem almost ordinary. I think we are faced now with a choice that is best expressed for me in a symbolic spiritual story about Prince Siddharta – later the Buddha. Siddharta’s fathers the King, wanted to shield his beloved young son from all that was painful in the world, everything that could suggest suffering, transience or deaths; so he kept him sheltered in a beautiful place, where anyone who was old or sick
or ugly was forbidden to enter. (Does that remind you of a certain TV channel?)
But as the boy grew up into a young man, he pleaded to be let out of the shadowless paradisal garden; until his anxious father finally allowed it – though only after he had the streets cleared of anyone he considered unsuitable.
Nonetheless, somehow, an old sick beggar managed to squeeze through the crowds and approach the prince – who was utterly shocked. On his return to the palace, he could think of nothing else.
That shock ended his childlike innocence; instead, he left his old life of comfort in the palace behind, left his young wife, his child, and his parents, and started on a lifelong path of simplicity and self-awareness – that led eventually to Enlightenment.
So: do we want to live like the King, who tried to split off the shadow and keep it out: outside the palace walls? Or do we want to live like the Prince, whose soul beckoned him to a life of wholeness, where the shadow and the light live intertwined? And where he learned that the shadow we see outside springs from the seeds within our own hearts and minds? What we see is what we are. ‘By our thoughts’ as he put it, ‘we create the world.’
So to attempt to answer my first question: ‘can the media save the world’?’ I suppose I might say’ (temporarily, till I learn something better) even if the media wanted to, it couldn’t unless, we are prepared to ‘ save the world’.
And that means being prepared to make the changes needed, inside and outside, on the scale that’s needed. Inside, through seeing our own ambivalence; outside, through changing our behaviour to practice what we preach. Because if we are not, we may as well stop blaming the media, settle back on the sofa, change the channel, and go back to watching ‘Castaway’.
The choice is ours.
Status of journalism in India:
An excerpt from the India 2000: Country Report, a country report prepared by the Committee to protect Journalists (CPJ)
Indian journalists are justifiably proud of their freedom, which remained largely intact last year despite ongoing sectarian and political violence, and a general climate of intolerance that leas worsened under the leadership of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Journalists in India’s urban centers, especially those who work for the powerful English-language national dailies, tend to be insulated from threats of violence and intimidation. Members of this elite are apt to identify the most worrisome threats to the press in similar terms as their American counterpart warning that news is increasingly driven more by corporate concerns than by the values of public service.
Shortly after the 25th anniversary of Indira Gandhi’s infamous declaration of a state of emergency-during which the press was censored as part of a broad political crackdown-the national English-language daily ‘The Hindu published an editorial lamenting the changed character of the media: ”The press has discovered new passions; business, food, fashion, beauty pageants, leisure…. It finds upwardly mobile India sexy and rural India a bore. It celebrates information technology because that is sexy too…. Who needs censorship?” Although this trend is particularly evident in the English-language media, sections of the vernacular press are moving in the same direction.
When Pradeep Bhatia, a photographer for the national daily ‘The Hindustan Times, was killed in Srinagar by an August 10 bomb for which the militant Kashmiri separatist group Hezb-ul Mujahedeen claimed credit, some press analysts feared a return to the days when journalists in Kashmir were routinely targeted for their work. Including Bhatia, nine journalists have been killed in Kashmir since 1989, when simmering unrest in Muslim majority areas of the Himalayan territory began to escalate toward civil war. However, Hezb-ul Mujahedeen spokesman Salim Hashmi claimed the attack was aimed at Indian security forces and expressed regret over Bhatia’s death and the many journalists injured.
Physical assaults against journalists in Kashmir were in fact down from years past, although the local press continued to face pressure from militant groups attempting to influence coverage. The state-owned broadcast media, generally seen as mouthpieces for the central government, remained an especially popular target, Militants fired three rifle-propelled grenades at the national Doordarshan television network affiliate in Srinagar on March 18, and exploded a bomb outside the compound of Radio Kashmir on April 15. No one was hurt in either incident.
Violence in the country’s North- eastern States, particularly in Assam and Manipur, also continued to take its toll on journalists. Competing separatist militants are active throughout the region, home to numerous ethnic minorities, and state investigative agencies tend to blame any disorder on rebel forces without further investigation. In the past two years, two journalists have been assassinated in Manipur, but neither case’ has been prosecuted by the authorities.
In addition to the threat of physical harm, journalists covering civil conflicts in India have been vulnerable to national security laws. This problem may intensify in 2001 if the parliament approves the Prevention of Terrorism Bill 2000, which includes a section that would compel journalists to tell authorities what they know of terrorist activities or face possible jail terms. Like its predecessor, the notorious Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, known as TADA, the proposed bill would dispense with constitutional guarantees for due process, allowing for preventive detention.
Before it was finally revoked in 1995, TADA was frequently used to intimidate and arbitrarily detain journalists who maintained contacts with militant groups in the course of their professional work. In response to press complaints about the new bill’s impact on journalists, the Home Ministry argued that the law did not treat them any differently than other citizens.
Other laws designed to curb civil unrest have been applied to censor the press. In February customs agents at the Calcutta airport blocked distribution of the U.S. news magazine ‘Time because it contained an interview with Gopal Godse, the brother of Mohandas Gandhi’s assassin, Nathuram Godse. The assistant commissioner of customs claimed the article was ”defamatory and derogatory to the Father of the Nation” and that it contained ”statements which can create communal disharmony.”
In practice, the charge that a given piece of news could provoke ethnic or sectarian conflict tends to be invoked at the whim of officials and politicians, rather than to protect the public from imminent harm. The belated prosecution of Bal Thackeray, leader of the right-wing Hindu organization Shiv Sena, for his role in inciting attacks against Muslims during the 1993 communal riots in Bombay, is a case in point. Evidence against Thackeray, a former cartoonist who has billed himself as the ”Hitler of Bombay,” included a series of front-page editorials in the Shiv Sena paper Saattlna, labeling Muslims as ”anti-nationals,” calling for a holy war, and exhorting Thackeray’s followers to ”crush the traitors.”
On July 14, more than seven years after the riots, the state government of Maharashtra announced that it would prosecute Thackeray for ”the promotion of enmity between different groups on the grounds of religion.” However, the prosecution effort was clouded by partisan politics, since the state government is led by the opposition Congress Party while the Shiv Sena is closely aligned with the ruling BJP. The case was pending before the Bombay High Court at year’s end.
Source: CPJ website
(www.cpj.org)
An interview with Sabeena Gadhioke
Sabeena Gadhioke is a film maker, teacher, researcher and a cameraperson. She is also a part of a collective of filmmakers: Media Storm, that she and five other women set up in 1986. Her award winning film ‘Three women and a camera’ has been widely screened and has received critical acclaim.
Where did you study and what brought you to this held?
I actually didn’t plan to come into this field. I wanted to be a teacher. And it is strange that eventually I became a teacher, but in a completely different discipline. I had studied history and appeared for a B. Ed exam that I didn’t clear. There was a problem with the combination of subjects, or whatever. Then I came to Jamia and found that the combination of subjects for the B. Ed didn’t work here either. I met the Vice Chancellor who suggested that 1 apply for the Mass Communication course instead. I read the prospectus and 1 remember thinking that I can’t do this. Still, I joined the course and in many ways it changed my life. Because I met different kinds of people. I met the people who were going to become my closest friends, people who taught me and people who opened an entirely different world for me. And today when I look back, I can’t think of any other profession that I could have possibly taken up. But at that time it all
seemed really very remote.
And you started to do the camera, which was quite rare for a woman.
When I began studying, it was always a cameraman. There never was a question of a cameraperson. And we were taught in a manner in which the assumption was that only men would do the camera. I remember there were two of us who were very interested in the camera. We would constantly want to practice and use the camera more than others. And it just so happened that in the final film shoot, the two of us were selected to do the camera.
What were the girls expected to do in class?
There was always an expectation that women would either become directors, or editors. Because, women are supposed to be good with their hands. They are meticulous. Being inside the editing room isn’t really a problem – it’s a confined space, it’s a closed space. But the camera with it’s connotations of being out in the open, of being out in the ”real world” is a problem. And this is not an Indian problem only. It exists even in the West where there is a kind of an inhibition about women using the camera. Of course that is changing. Things have changed drastically in the last sixteen years. Today there are many women who work with the camera. Many of my students are employed as camerapeople.
We were three women who began to work at the Centre after graduation. We were very young, at the bottom of the ladder. And we had to use these cameramen from the centre, who were sexist and often refused to do what we asked them to, not only because we were new. And so it all began with my friends asking me to do the camera. That’s how it started and 1 went on and became involved with the technology.
I’ve always had that kind of an interest. So when it came to teaching, I teach the camera, I do it because I like doing it.
How did people react to a woman cameraperson?
I think that my experiences are not the experiences of the mainstream. In some senses 1 think I have a privileged status. And I’ll tell you why. I have different identities. I teach, I make films, I research and all that. So my livelihood does not depend upon camera work only. I don’t have to compete for assignments like women in the mainstream do. So I don’t face the same kind of discriminations.
The other thing is that I’ve always worked with women. Most of my assignments have been with women from the collective that I too belong to. In some senses I’ve always worked with people that I know – with exceptions of course. I have workers on assignments with other people as well.
On the other hand, I am packed to do assignments that are to do with women. So there’s a stereotype working there. But I have had no constraints with this because I am happy to do gender work. That’s the area that I’m most interested in. It hasn’t really bothered me that I haven’t been packed to do other kinds of work.
But coming back to your question, you know I am often asked this one question – was it a problem for you as a woman? In fact I think it’s just been the opposite. I think in some ways you tend to be very underestimated because you are a woman. And in some ways I think you get away by doing a whole lot of things as a result of that. I have been with Media Storm to places like the Babri Masjid, you know, where they did not allow any male cameraperson inside. But they 1et us go in because they said, ”Ladki hai, to
kya kar legi?”’ (”She’s a girl, what can she do?”) So we were able to shoot inside. This is a very small example but I think in some ways that has helped me. Being a woman has helped me, rather than be a problem. But like I said before, I don’t work within the mainstream. I haven’t really had to face any kind of discrimination. I haven’t had to struggle for jobs where as a woman I am paid less than a male cameraperson. So 1 haven’t actually faced all of that. But that is not to say that it does not exist.
You are doing many different things at the same time, is that a problem?
I really enjoy it although in many ways its a very chaotic existence in which you are trying to juggle around teaching with a certain amount of production. I also do camera work, which I really enjoy doings and I do a little bit of research. I do enjoy this mix of academics and production. And I don’t want to give up on either because the teaching gives me different things, as does production. And I think in some ways they both enrich each other as well. With teaching for instance, I enjoy the interaction with the students. So I wouldn’t want to give up on that. And at the same time, I think if I only taught, and I didn’t also do productions, that would be a problem. So, as I said earliest it is a very chaotic existence. I have to keep shifting between these identities and yet, I wouldn’t want to give up any of them.
Tell me a little about ‘Three women and camera’.
Well, I think one of the strengths of the film is the rapport that one was able to build up with the three women. And for that I think Shohini deserves equal credit. Because to be the director and thta cameraperson at the same time is very, very tough. And I realized that in the very first shoots where I was trying to look through the lens and think of the technical problems and at the same time build a rapport with somebody like Homai Vyarawalla who is 87 years old, who has a problem with her hearing etc. And Shohini helped me make the film. Without her the film wouldn’t have been what it is because she was able to build up a rapport with the women. And I think that part of the strength of the film actually lies there.
Have you screened it? What has been the response to it ?
I must have done at least 30 to 40 screenings. Then, as a part of the ‘Travelling Film South Asia’ it has travelled all over the world. I think people have responded very strongly to the film, to the three women in the film. Of course, different audiences identify with different aspects. The responses also vary.
But one question keeps coming back: The question of the relationship of women to the camera. Inevitably people ask, ”is there an intrinsic way of looking through the camera? What are you trying to say about these three women?” And 1 think there are similarities. For instance, one thread that runs through the experiences of a11 three women is their concern with the subject. Their need to build up a rapport with their subjects and also their respect – I think the word is respect -that all three of them have for the people that they are photographing. And yet, I am very unwilling to say that there is an intrinsically common way in which they all look through the lens. And I’ve always said, in every interview about the film, that the film actually celebrates their differences. It looks at three women from three different contexts. And it looks at some
of their similarities but also looks at their differences. Their different ways of looking through the camera. And I think that’s something that I keep coming back to, whether in my study, or whether it’s in my work as a cameraperson. I think I feel the need to constantly articulate this. Because somewhere I do have a problem with homogenizing the experiences of women.
Tell me about your study, your project on women photographers.
It took off from ‘Three Women and a Camera’ which talked about two generations of women. There were the two contemporary photographers and there was Homai Vyarawalla, this older woman photographer who had been photographing as a photojournalist. And somewhere in the film, Sheeba Chhachhi asks, ”what happened in between two generations?” Were these just three women in a vacuum? Or were there other women photographing as well?” And she gives onë set of answers where she says that there were
women who photographed, who couldn’t actually own a camera, working class women for instance, but they went to the studio to get themselves photographed. And then there were perhaps women like Nony Singh, Dayanita Singh’s mother, who photographed in the home.
My study took off from the questions that the film raised about this larger legacy. Is there a larger legacy of women photographing and what have women photographed? Did they actually use the camera? I am trying to reconstruct a history of women using the camera in their own contexts. And what I am talking about is the presence of a few women who were using the camera in hidden spaces, in places like Zenana Studios that were run entirely by women, for women to photograph women. Or for instance, in spaces like the home, where domestic holography, popular photography, amateur photography was an important form of expression. And I’m talking about some of these less common forms of photography.
To me, looking at women’s work with the camera is significant because of my own history, I suppose, as a cameraperson. I mean, I’ve always looked for a larger history for a larger legacy of how women have used the camera. So I am trying to look at how other women used the camera and to see whether the camera in any way was empowering for these women.
What are you going to do with it?
The idea was to develop illustrated lectures. I think another film would come out of it. Probably its too early to think of a book because there a lot of gaps in this history..
When we started Media Storm in 1996, at that point of time the cause of a film was very important. I think form took a back seat. I mean, there was always this mantle of self importance that you carried on your shoulder because you were making films on political issues. And of course, they had their own historical place. Somewhere along the way I think at Media Storm we reused that there was also need to engage with questions of form because there were more and more people making those kinds of films. The language of political documentary was being appropriated by television. You had News Track coming in and they were also picking up the same language of interrogating the State. Of course, News Track had it’s own kinds of biases. Everybody had their own politics to play as well. But somewhere along the way we realized that there was also a need to engage with form. In some ways my own notions of what is political and what is political documentary has been redefined. At that time, the kind of documentaries that we
made were to do with the State, to do with religious fundamentalism. Today I think that political documentaries may not always be about issues like that. They could be about…
I would say ‘Three women and a camera’ is a political …
Absolutely. It could be politics of a different kind. But I think what would engage me now is to try and interrogate an idea, a political idea, in a way where I paid attention to form as well. I think there are these competing discourses all around, in terms of the language of film and television around us.
I think we are living in very cynical times. There is an entirely new generation that has actually been brought up with globalization as their backdrop. And your relationship with politics has also changed in some ways, you know, in terms of what you are seeing around you. I mean, everything on television is not negative. But at the same time, you are seeing a particular class of people on television. You are seeing the absence, complete absence of other groups of people. Now how do you actually bring back that marginalisation, back to the mainstream? Because you have to bring them back into the mainstream, otherwise there is a problem.
But I also feel that there is reason for hope. Because I see people doing interesting things and, as 1 said earliest the notion of politics has changed.
But is there a future?
I don’t think that political films are not being made. For instance, I have just shot two films for Ranjani Majumdar and Shikha Jhingan. I think both of them are political films. Ranjani’s film ‘Delhi Diary: 2001′, which is about three people and their experiences of living through catastrophic events. One being the emergency and the other being the ‘84 riots. It is a film about memory. But it has been done very differently in terms of its form. It’s a political film and yet its done differently from the way that Ranjani may have made this film more than ten years ago, when we first made the Media Storm films. If we had to make a film on the ’84 riots and the emergency then, we would have treated it very differently. And then of course, there is Shikha’s film which is on the Mirasans, which again has it’s own politics. lt’s talking about a certain politics of exclusion, of the marginalisation of women performers. So it is politics, but in a different way. So by no means am I suggesting that people are not making political films. We are making political films in a re-figured way. And I think it is a very welcome change. I wish that there is more of that. I wish that there is more experimentation.
What about your students? I mean, the younger generation?
Some of them are making very interesting films. I wish you could see some of the documentaries that they’ve done. I always say that you will always have that small number of students in the class that make at really worthwhile. You feel at the end of it that it is really been worth it. It is really good to be with them. Somewhere I think that we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that this Centre (MCRC) was set up with a social agenda, as a place to train people for documentary and for people with a social concern. And I think its something we need to keep reminding ourselves of. Because, you know, in this new situation where UGC has stopped our funds, there is a tendency to take the easy way and say that lets generate money by running quick, technical courses. Of course, we could earn a lot of money by doing that. Because there are people dying to get their hands on technology, and push buttons and learn the technology. And yet, one has to keep reminding oneself and holding back on that and saying: look, this place was set up with a different agenda. We’re not training people to become technicians. We’re training people to be thinking people who will hopefully make documentaries with a social conscience. So, in a class of 35 students, there will always be students who will make films on issues that you may not agree with. And as a teacher I don’t believe in censorship, so there’s no question of actually telling them what to do and what not to do. And yet there will always be those three films, in the middle of the eleven that will make you feel worth it. So I’m not complaining.
Some films by the PSBT
The Holy Duels of Hola Mohalla
Hola Mohalla , the festival that marks the baptism of the Sikhs as the Khalsa, or the pure ones, has always been a vibrant celebration of the martial tradition of the faith.
Going beyond the colour and spirit of the festivities, the film explores how these celebrations are also a window to the many battles that confront this martial community at the beginning of the new century.
Film by: Vani Subramaniàm.
Can’t Take it Anymore
This film delves into the life of working women, who, apart from social stigma and work pressures, are coping with negative sexual behaviour of their bosses and colleagues. It brings into light the true world of working women exposing some of India’s prestigious organizations and their derogatory attitude towards the issue of sexual harassment. The film unveils the ugly facet of workplaces as women not only share their experiences of sexual harassment but also make it clear that they are not willing to take it anymore.
Film by: Meenakshi Rai
Cry of the Forest
For a distanced observer, conservation is all about saving trees and animals and having our greens intact for a world with clean air and water. This film tries to look into a more holistic meaning of conservation, where people are also a part of the forest and animals. The film argues that people staying inside and around the forest (National Park and Sanctuaries) should not pay the cost of conservation. They be made a part of this instead and be reintegrated into what was theirs. The film begs a re-look into the conservation policies being presently followed. Without didactically pushing one line, it opens a debate and fills in the people’s side of the story.
The film is located in Kanha, Madhya Pradesh, famous for its Tiger Park. It is also from where the first of the adivasis were relocated in the early ’70s. The film meets Sardar, a Baiga who is a vast source of knowledge on medicinal plants but today laments the loss of control. We spend a night in the middle of a paddy field and get a first hand look into wild animals depredating crops, laying waste a whole year’s hard work. We meet Sona Bai, now 60, who recounts how she was thrown out of her village Aurai, inside the Kanha park, in the monsoon of 1972, how she had to sell everything to settle her family again. Finally the film looks at a village which is still inside the National Park – Jami – and closely watches it sustainable use the forest.
Film by: Krishnendu Bose
Accounts and Accountability
The right to Information movement in Rural Rajasthan
Accounts and Accountability is a documentation of the power of the common man to effect revolutionary change at the grassroots. Set in Rural Rajasthan, the film shows the Right to Information At can be a people’s weapon to root out corruption and prevent the siphoning off of funds allocated for development works. The Act has been in existence since 2000 and it enables any person to obtain photocopies of details of expenditure relating to development works within four days. However, the ground reality is vastly different.
The film relates the struggle of a group of villagers in Janavad Panchayat to obtain the records. Powerful groups with vested interests try and prevent this exercise. The villagers enlist the support of a voluntary organisation Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan and after a year of sustained effort, finally obtain the records.
Film by: Radhika Kaul Batra
Delhi Diary 2001 (Parts 1 & 2)
Delhi Diary2001 is about the relationship between catastrophic events and the rhythms of the city. Moving between the event, daily life and fragments of memory, the documentary explores the idea of the spectacular political event through the prism of the urban experience, The immediate focus is on two crucial events In the history of Delhi and of India. These are the state of National Emergency (1975-77) when all civil rights were suspended and the events of 1984 when thousands of Sikhs were killed in pogroms following the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
At the centre of the narrative are three residents of this city – Fazaluddin, who lost his shop in the Turkman Gate demolitions of 1976, Nanki of Tilak Nagar, whose husband was killed in 1984 and Gurmukh Singh, a taxi driver who lived through both the Emergency and the violence of 1984.
Through an interweaving of the archival, the everyday, the semi fictional, and the subjectivity of the filmmaker, Delhi Diary 2001 attempts to create an alternative visual archive on the memories of violence, displacement, suspicion and terror embedded in the history of this city.
Film by: Ranjani Mazumdar
Parenting Alone
A film on single parents – divorced or deserted, widowed or living in separate spaces due to career reasons, these people are tackling the task of rearing children all by themselves. Are they stressed? Are they unhappy? How does society look at them? How do the children of these parents cope? A wide spectrum of such experiences have been movingly captured in Parenting Alone.
Film by: Moumita Tarafdar
When Women Call the Shots
The film centres around three women working in mainstream Hindi Cinema – Tanuja Chandra(Director), Bela Segal(Editor) and Namita Nayak (Sound Recordist). Through their views and experiences, the film revolves around questions of why are there such few women in production of commercial films, do their work reflect a different sensitivity or they too have to behave like the men to survive in mainstream cinema, what they feel about the way women are being projected on the screen, what are their definitions of success, and how they negotiate and work in a predominantly male environment.
Film by: Charu Gargi
A Group Portrait
Red, blue, yellow. pink …
Patches of different coloured cloth, usually fragments from old sarees were traditionally sewn together with a simple running stitch (sujni) to make quilts for babies …
In 1989, Viji Srinivasan of Adithi, a Patna based NGO, started an income generation scheme aimed at assisting the mainly Rajput women who were living in poverty, yet prevented from working by social custom.
The women’s centre is located in a double storied building in village Bhusura, Muzaffarpur district in North Bihar. Women take the work home and embroider in the evenings after their household chores are done. Often 3 or 4 women work on the large pieces at the same time – sujni has opened a way for women to come together.
Viji Srinivasan was determined that the women were not going to be passive pairs of hands in an assembly line of doily sets and cushion covers. She wanted them to embroider large narrative quilts that would reflect their lives and tell their stories … of flora and fauna, of mythology and folklore, of social and political themes. Tile project is unique for its transformation of a traditional craft into a vehicle for expressing contemporary concerns. The film documents their extraordinary journey.
Film by: Reena Mohan
Trikaalayani
Trikaalayani – the colours of time past, present and future. Prophesies recorded in age old palm leaf manuscripts according to Naddi Shastra , a lesser known traditional predictive science practised in Tamil Nadu.
Naddi Shastra believes that during deep meditation and prayer to Lord Shiva, the tapasya of Sapta Rishis , or seven sages, bore fruit. It gave them intuition to foresee the destinies of people in the Kala Yug to come. More importantly, corresponding remedies to mitigate the inevitable sufferings individuals will face were recorded on these palm leaf predictions.
Today, palm leaf manuscripts are preserved by Naddi Shastra astrologers and at the Saraswati Mahal Library, Thanjavur.
Film by: Meera Dewan
All the above films are approximately of 30 minutes duration and in English. They have
been produced by the Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT). VHS copies of these films are available with the PSBT at a price of Rs. 500 each (with discount on orders of 5 films or more).
For further details and copies, contact
Ms. Tulika Srivastava,
Public Service Broadcasting Trust
A 86 Nizamuddin East, New Delhi 110013
e-mail: psbt@vsnl.com