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Discussion

What is our Culture?

As soon as BJP and its allies came to power, the debate around the issue of culture began once again. This is because the BJP believes that they are the guardians of culture and have taken on to themselves the mantle of preserving its purity and integrity. The I&B Minister, Sushma Swaraj has repeatedly aired her party’s resolution to protect the Indian culture. At the time when the BJP was in power for 13 days, Sushma Swaraj (who was the I&B minister at that time too) gave special directions about the clothes to be worn by women news-readers on TV. She had specified that their dress code should be in accordance with the “Indian culture.”

To the I&B Ministry, the main threat to the Indian culture is from foreign cultures. Hence, they believe that the Indian culture must be protected from the growing vulgarisation portrayed on media, especially the audio-visual media.

It appears that their parameters to judge cultural degradation are restricted to the clothes worn by, and the bodies of, women. Hence the responsibility of maintaining cultural integrity falls on women while they also have to act as a barometer to measure cultural degradation.

The I&B Ministry has called for a halt on advertisements of alcohol. They believe that such ads go against the culture and tradition of India. While this step is praiseworthy, it does not tell the entire story.

In recent years, women’s struggle for prohibition has become a national phenomenon. Compelled by women’s demands, Haryana and Andhra Pradesh initiated a complete ban on alcohol. Later, however, both the governments withdrew the ban on one pretext or another. Incidentally, BJP is also part of the same government in Haryana. The reality is that each and every state government is dependent on alcohol for revenue, earning upto 50% of the revenue from the sale of alcohol.

In such a situation, merely banning ads on alcohol will not resolve the issue of cultural degeneration. Neither will the issue of culture be resolved by merely restricting the debate to women’s dress codes. Nor can the issue be resolved through censorship of vulgar dances from films. The issue of culture is extremely complicated and must be viewed in the context of justice and equality.

Mahant Advaidyanath is one of the leading figures in the movement to build a Ram temple in Ayodhya. After the destruction of the Babri Mosque, during an interview, he expanded on Indian culture and the Indian women. Tea was being served in clay cups, called kullars in North India. The Mahant commented, “Indian women are like kullars. She remains faithful to the the lips that she touches, while a foreigner woman is like a glass. She travels from lip to lip.” The Mahant was defining the Indian tradition and culture. His concept of culture defines the boundaries for women: Under all circumstances remain committed to one man’s lips, or else face the onsequences of violence and rape! Ready forever to touch a man’s lips, dedicated forever to the man who touches her, waiting patiently for him to throw her into the trash bin! Is this Indian culture? Will women like Draupadi please stand up and be counted!

After the destruction of the mosque in 1992, troubled by the wide spread riots and I had asked a supporter of the temple movement, “Is this is our culture? After all, our culture extols plurality and respects different faiths and traditions.” He had answered, “That precisely was our mistake. Now we have to correct the wrongs of the past.” This answer brings us face-to-face with a reality: A culture is neither stationary nor absolute. It changes and modifies with time, and according to need.

We build our culture according to the life we want to lead and the future we want to create. It is true that in all societies the elites and the exploited live with different philosophies and naturally the resultant cultures are different and often in conflict with each other. Many examples from our tradition reflect the conflict between the hegemonistic brahmanical religious philosophy and humanist cultural traditions. Traditions like the Lokayat, Bhakti and Sufi movements worked towards establishing humanist tendencies by giving supremacy to love, justice and equality.

Today in India consumerism, religious fundamentalism and technocrats are attempting to create a common culture which provides no space for plurality, protest or equality. On the other side of the fence are Dalits, tribals, women and other struggling masses, whose common culture is based precisely on plurality and equality. The cultural conflict of these two opposing camps will decide what form our culture takes. By restricting the debate around culture to only portrayal of vulgarity or women’ s dress it is not possible to do away with questions of inter-relations between life, culture, equality and justice.

Media News

Nuking the Media

Consequent upon the nuclear testing in the Pokhran desert, we have witnessed a hitherto unattained degree of vehemence directed against the opponents of India turning nuclear. The BJP government true to it’s manifesto went ahead with the testing, which conveniently diverted attention from uncomfortable issues. That the event was staged as a ploy to shore up party fortunes is only a part of the truth. The Parivar with it’s male, militaristic discourse found it imperative to conduct the tests as part of the larger plan to change the very socio-cultural ethos of the country. The opponents therefore had to face virulent attacks as they are viewed as being part of the ‘pseudo-secularist’ brigade.

Anti-national, foreign agents or the milder soft-headed peaceniks are some of the epithets heaped upon these people. What is significant is that these charges were levelled not just by the ideologues of the Parivar but also by people who do not see themselves as belonging to the saffron camp. A cursory look at the coverage of the tests and their aftermath in the media reveals the level of acceptance of the government’s logic.

The bombs were a good story, a hot item which the media lapped up. With higher TRP ratings bringing in the advertising revenue, we had a spate of congratulatory editorials and commemorative issues. All this reinforces the centrality of Pokhran as the site of a metamorphosis of the country, a resurgent India. Opinion polls showing overwhelming support for the tests were conducted as part of the strategy to portray Pokhran as the expression of the desire of every Indian. Marginalised groups, over half the population living below the poverty line – these insignificant facts were glossed over. The bomb was presented as the panacea of all problems and issues.

In a way, the bomb has helped in pinpointing the inadequacy of the media in the country. The treatment of the tests as an event to be sold as much as possible, and ignoring the responsibility to highlight other aspects of the debate, which presumably, not being very palatable are undesirable, reflects the commercialization of the media. This is a setup where Shaukat Osman, a leading literary figure of the sub-continent barely gets a mention on his death. While an American actor – Frank Sinatra who died around the same time – has entire pages devoted to him, ostensibly as he represents popular culture. One can argue that the phenomenon is more manifest in the English language press, but it still illustrates the decreasing space for all alternative views.

With saleability being the moving force behind the coverage of the news, and with media barons with vested interests controlling information, events or voices which challenge the status quo shall not find any space. In denying a pluralistic perception of events the media seems to reflect the changing nature of the Indian state.

ART for God’s sake

Two incidents occurred in rapid succession barely a few months ago, that would have struck even the most lackadaisical with a sense of deja vu. First the famed Ghulam Ali’s concert was disrupted by Shiv Sainiks in Mumbai – in keeping with their ‘policy’ of not allowing Pakistani artists or players to perform in their territory. Just a few days later their simian counterparts, the Bajrang Dal, ransacked M. F. Hussain’s Cuffe Parade residence incensed by a 20 year old painting.

So what’s new? One might ask with good reason. Nothing. Hussain hasn’t been attacked for the first time, there have been earlier edicts – issued by a failed cartoonist -banning Pakistanis from performing in Maharashtra. The phenomenon is not even restricted to Maharashtra. Jatin Das was nearly lynched in Delhi when he dared to ask VHP (yet another Parivaric arm) warriors doing jehad against Hussain as to why they wanted his blood. Even the consequences are beginning to get somewhat cliched. Some amount of outrage is expressed by secular defenders, followed by a Hussain apology – this was the second time he had to do that.

What is new – though not entirely unforeseen – is the remarkable confluence of arguments and reactions one is witnessing on the issue. Apart from the Hindutvaites, some Muslim groups and individuals are also raging against the painter, calling him a known trouble maker and as being unrepresentative of Muslim opinion. Mr. Tahir Mahmood – the chairman of the National Commission for Minorities – flayed Hussain on grounds of ignoring Quranic precepts forbidding the denigration of non-Islamic Gods.

It must be acknowledged in uncertain terms that right wing forces are rapidly streamlining all facets of culture into a monolithic structure. Ranging from a rewriting of history to how individuals must behave, they are trying to impose their own version of a ‘national ethos,’ a particular consciousness that brooks no dissent. That is precisely why taking a he-does-it-again attitude towards Hussain is succumbing to their logic,that is why inviting Ghulam Ali to perform in Calcutta assumes importance.

“Saamna incited communal passions” – Srikrishna Commission

Five years after the bloodbath, the one-man Srikrishna Commission looking into the Bombay Riots following the destruction of the Babri Masjid on December 6,1992, officially endorsed the truth that everyone was well aware of –that is those who wanted to believe in the truth.

In its course of enquiry, the Commission, headed by Justice B.N. Srikrishna, reviewed statements from a number of sources, namely those of 10 police stations situated in the most affected areas, senior police officers, media persons and politicians. The Commission found innumerable evidences that prove the direct involvement of the Shiv Sainiks, their supremo Bal Thackeray, Chief Minister Manohar Joshi and their loeader Madhukarrao Sarpotdar in organised attacks on innocent Muslims that turned Bombay into a city of horror and death.

Moreover, ‘Saamna,’ the Shiv Sena mouthpiece, and ‘Navakal’ were two papers that were found to be responsible for inciting communal passion amongst Hindus. According to the Commission, the incidents that sparked off the second phase of rioting on January 6, 1993 – the murders of Mathadi workers and the Radhabai chawl incident – were exaggerated by the media, especially ‘Saamna’ and Navakal,’ to communalise the issue and instigate the violence that followed. The Commission pointed out that though several incidents of violence occurred between December 15, 1992 and January 5, 1993, large scale rioting and violence were commenced on January 6 by Hindus incited by writings in the two papers.

According to the Commission, on January 1,1993 there was an article in ‘Saamna’ under the caption “Hindunni Akramak Vhayala Have (Hindus should be more aggressive)” that openly incited Hindus to violence. Joumalist Rajdeep Sardesai, a witness for the Commission, said before the Commission that one of Thakeray’s editorials in ‘Saamna’ titled “Rashtra Jeevant Theva(Keep the Nation Alive)” expressed anguish at Hindus being subjected to attacks and the inaction of the government. Though ostensibly the editorial advocated violent means against Muslims who were disloyal to the country, Sardesai felt that the distinction between anti-national Muslims and other Muslims was not made clear. The editorial also contained expressions such as “Shantichi Kabutare Akashat Udvayachi Nahit (We do not want to fly doves of peace in the sky).” It goes to prove yet again how media can be misutilised to propagate hate speech and mass genocide.

Apart from reviewing accounts of hundreds of witnesses,the Commission also reviewed two films that were made on the riots.:Madhusree Dutta’s “I Live in Behrampara” and Suma Jasson’s “Bombay Blood Yatra.” Interestingly, while the Commission “appreciated” both the films in their “zeal,” “artistic merit,” creativity,” etc., the Commission found it “difficult to draw factual support therefrom.” The reason provided for this conclusion is that the films were edited to prove the personal points of view of the film makers. In Suma Jasson’s case, she “did not do cross-checking of facts at the micro level, but she had only done cross-checking at the macro level, believing that the people interviewed by her spoke the truth.”

Press Council censures TOI

The Press Council of India censured the noted daily, The Times of India, for communalising the case of FERA violations against its group chairman, Mr. Ashok Jain, distorting statements of three eminent citizens and attempting to pressurise the Directorate of Enforcement by coercive reportage.

According to the ruling, the newspaper, through its ‘Human Rights Watch’ column, communalised the whole issue of arresting Mr. Jain by carrying two reports on 28 January 1998. While one spoke of the Digambar Jain community’s resentment over the ED’S alleged “harassment” of Mr. Jain, the other said that the Tamil community had condemned the action against Mr. P. R. Krishnamurthy and Mr. C. R. Balasubramaniam, both Tamilians and employees of Bennet, Coleman & Co. Ltd., which owns the daily.

The PCI chairman Justice Sawant pointed out that the Digambar Jains were reportedly concerned only about Mr. Jain, and the Tamil community condemned the action only against two of its members. This amounts to communal reporting.

The daily was also found to have distorted the statements of three eminent citizens in the write-ups published under the same column. Certain views attributed in the column to the former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court, Justice Rajinder Sachhar,well known columnist Mr. Rajinder Puri and Dr. R. N. Pal, stated their criticism of the ED in the Ashok Jain case.

Justice Sawant observed that the column was started only after the anticipatory bail plea of Mr. Jain was rejected. In all 99 write-ups were published under this head between January and May this year, all of them making serious allegations about some human rights violation or the other. As many as 22 of them were against the ED itself, with two articles directly related to the Jain-FERA case. Some of the articles went to the extent of demanding the removal of certain ED officers. According to the PCI, all this amounts to pressurizing the department into submission.

Human Rights and the Media

In recent months the law and order situation in Uttar Pradesh has worsened. Incidents of robbery, kidnapping and rape have reached an alltime high and have made a mockery of the BJP government’s claim to provide a “fearless society.” Failing to control lawlessness, the BJP government decided to give a free hand to the police. On 30th April, 1998, at a law and order review meeting of the StatePolice, the Chief inister Kalyan Singh declared, “I want performance, result. I want you to take a vow that you will create a dhamaka (impact) in the state. If noted criminals can be liquidated, do it. I am here to protect you.” After the CM’s assurance, the police went all out to create the ‘dhamaka.’ They went on a ‘liquidating spree,’ killing more than 200 people in a few months. However, it is doubtful whether all those killed by the police were really criminals. Meanwhile, all newspapers (Hindi and English) regularly carried news about fake encounters in which innocent Dalit and Muslims youth were being killed.

It is the first time in the history of independent India that the Executive has openly passed a liquidation order, thus denying the Right to Life guaranteed by the Constitution. People’s Media, a forum of journalists and concerned citizens, along with PUCL and other mass organizations have initiated a mass awareness campaign against the civil right violations by the state government.

On 19th July, PUCL and People’s Media had organised a seminar on “Human Rights, Government and Media.” The seminar was supposed to be held at the Hindi Sansthan auditorium in Lucknow. At the last moment the organisers were denied the auditorium on the plea that no anti-government activity was allowed at the Sansthan. Clearly this was done on government instructions.

Meanwhile, as protests and mobilisation by various groups gained momentum, the Genaral Secretary of the All India Muslim Forum, M. K. Sherwani submitted a petition in the High Court accusing the State Government and Kalyan Singh of violating Fundamental rights.

In terms of coverage, although some newspapers have covered the excesses their response is not very encouraging. In the first week of July, during the debate in Vidhan Sabha on a Bill to constitute the State Commission on Human Rights (introduced by opposition and rejected by government), the Press gallery had only three correspondents attending. It is really a matter of concern as to why the Press is so indifferent about such a vital issue. Ajai Singh’s article in the TO1 (July 18) titled “Human Rights and the Press” made an observation that, “Journalists in general consider Human Rights as a law and order issue and do not view it as an essential pillar for a civil and a democratic society. That is why they cannot adopt a critical attitude towards the establishment.” He also observed that “on June 21st last the National Commission of Human Rights (NCHR) had issued its annual report (1996-97) on the status of Human Rights in the country. It did not get the extensive front-page coverage which it deserved and AIR and DD also ignored it.”

Shankar Guha Niyogi Award

People’s Media, a media forum based in Lucknow, has initiated the annual Shankar Guha Niyogi Award for the best reporting on human rights issues and workers’ movements in India.

Mr. Anand Swaroop Verma, editor of Samkaleen Teesri Duniya, a Hindi monthly published from UP, is the first recipient of the award. In 1980 – 81 Mr. Verma had published a cover story with a 17 page report, the first in Hindi, on the immensely popular labour leader Shankar Guha Niyogi and his innovative movement of unorganised workers in the Chhattisgarh area of Madhya Pradesh. Later in 1991, Mr. Verma again published a cover story on the Chhattigarh movement after Niyogi was murdered.

Mr. Verma, who started journalism in 1965, is an acknowledged expert on South Africa. He has authored and translated more than 20 books. He has also played a pioneering role in mobilising international support for a movement against human rights violations in Bhutan.

The award was announced in a Jan-Samvad (public meeting) organised by People’s Media in Lucknow on August 10,1998. The Jan Samvaad was organised as part of a Jan-Yatra from Chhattisgarh to Deoria in UP to mobilise support against the injustice in the Niyogi murder case. Following a CBI enquiry into the murder case the Sessions Court in 1997 had sentenced the hired killer Paltan Mallah to death. Paltan belongs to Deoria district. Five other accused, including two industrialists Moolchand Shah and Chandrakant Shah, were sentenced to life imprisonment. However, the MP High Court in a shocking judgment on 26 June 1998 acquitted all the accused. The Jan-Yatra was led by the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha President Janak La1 Thakur who is also a member of the MP Assembly. The Jan-Yatra was supported by several organisations including People’s Media which has decided to launch a broader campaign against injustice in the murder cases of leaders of democratic movements in the country like Niyogi, Datta Samant, Safdar Hashmi and Chandrasekhar. The list is endless. The Shankar Guha Niyogi Award is a part of the campaign.

This year’s award will be presented to Mr. Anand Swarup Verma at Bhilai on 28 September 1998 in a workers rally being organised to mark the 7th death anniversary of Shankar Guha Niyogi. The award will carry a People’s Media fellowship of Rs. 1000 per month along with a people’s fund of unfixed amount to be collected from the workers, human rights activists and different organisations.

People’s Media appeals to all to contribute to the fund, which may be sent to its office through crossed cheques/drafts payable to ‘People’s Media’ at Lucknow.

People’s Media
19/843 Indira Nagar, Lucknow 226016, Tel: (0522) 342176, e-mail: upmedia9lw1.vsnl.net

Daily, but Weakly – the Press in the North East

The people in the North East have easy access to electronic media and foreign channels, yet their motto seems to be the more newspapers the merrier. Mizoram is in the forefront. With a population of 700000, it has 40 dailies and as many periodicals. The capital town of Aizawl alone is said to have 20 dailies (mostly in the local language). About 103 publications were listed with the Registrar of Newspapers in India till 1996 with more applying over the last two years. The growing readership can be seen in the context of the state’s literacy rate which is next only to Kerala’s. Assam with its history of 150 years in journalism had only one English daily till the late forties. Now Guwahati alone has a dozen, both in English and vernaculars. In Nagaland 11 dailies and weeklies cannot afford modernisation. A new one with the latest technology launched three years ago by a former Chief Minister is now defunct thanks to over-dependence on outside technical hands and trained manpower and, dare we say it, over-dependence on official influence. While in shillong there are at least three English newspapers and five in local dialects, Imphal has five, its first broadsheet in offset coming out in 1996. Tripura (population 30 lakhs) has 16 dailies (two English). In Arunachal Pradesh the Chief Minister’s wife is said to own one of the two English dailies.

The interest in publication is the lure of government tender notices and other official advertisements. The life span of most smaller publications depends on a cozy relationship with the government. Anyone not toeing the official line is out. Such unprincipled journalism has neither credibility nor can it provide any worthwhile service to readers. The future of most Nagaland dailies and weeklies, with the exception of one independent from Dimapur, is hanging in the balance with the govirnment allegedly holding payments for ads over the past two years. What price freedom?

Courtesy: The Statesman

Media Watch by Citizens

Gujarat Senior Citizens Federation, based in Baroda, undertook a unique exercise, that of a citizens study of the media coverage of the elections in Gujarat state. Examining the reporting of prominent newspapers, the group tried to ascertain if there were any biases reflected in them.

A panel of eminent citizens kept a close watch on the reportage of some of the prominent Baroda based dailies between 8 and 28 February 1998. The papers under scrutiny were Indian Express, Sandesh, Loksatta, Gujarat Samachar, Gujarat Mitra and Times of India (Ahmedabad edition, one page of which is devoted to Baroda).

As part of their guidelines the group scanned headlines, captions, cartoons, space allotted to different political parties or candidates and also the columns and editorials of the newspapers.

In short, the panel found papers such as Sandesh, Lok Satta and Gujarat Samachar either overtly or covertly biased towards the BJP. Often their headlines or photographs did not match the reports, clearly proving an intention to influence public opinion. On the other hand, Indian Express, otherwise found to be fairly objective and informative, was rather obsessed with Sonia Gandhi in the initial phase. The panel found Gujarat Mitra and Times of India to be more balanced in its information and representation, true to reality and worth reading.

At a juncture when the role of the media in influencing voting patterns is known to be all important, this initiative comes as a welcome step towards ensuring the impartiality of what is essentially a public institution.

For details contact:
P K. Desai, Gujarat Senior Citizens’ Federation, A-64 Ashok Soc. -4, Opp. Lion’s Hall, Race Course Circle, Baroda 390007

Festivals

New Delhi Video Festival

In order to encourage meaningful video production on relevant issues, the National Institute of Social Communications, Research and Training (NISCORT) is organising the New Delhi Video Festival (NDVF), a biannual video festival, the first of which will be held in Delhi between February 26,27 and 28, 1999. The NDVF will be dedicated to videos and not celluloid. All videos made from January 1997 onwards will be eligible for entry. The first prize winner of each category will be awarded with a cash prize of Rs.25,000. The festival venue will also host stalls, videotheque for private viewing, a market section, symposia, discussions and quiz shows. Deadline for entries is December 24. 1998.

for further information, contact:
Dr. Jacob Srampikal, NDVF, NISCORT-CBCI
Centre, 1 Ashok Place, New Delhi 110001,
e-mail: niscort@nde.vsnl.net.in

Sakshi Festival &amp Colloquium

Sakshi, a 10 day festival of independent Indian documentary films of the last 20 years, is being organised jointly by Janamadhyam, and alternate media network based in Bangalore and the Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore. Apart from the festival there will be a 3 day colloquium of film makers, users, policy makers and media. The festival will be held in Bangalore from 12 to 22 November 1998, and the colloquium between 20 to 22 November.

The festival is open for documentaries on film and video.

for details contact:
Chalam Bennurakar, Sakshi, 2 Lavelle Road,
Bangalore 560,001
E-mail:awhrci@glasbg01.vsnl.net.in

An Appeal

Help sought for a film on radiation

In an age where nuclear bombs are sought to be portrayed as symbols of national pride, the disastrous effects of uranium mining on people are given little or no attention.

BIRSA, a research, training and documentation centre, and KRITIKA, an audio-visual media group working on the documentation of socio-cultural and political issues of the Jharkhandi people, are jointly video documentary on the effects on the people of Jadugora, the first uranium mine, in Singhbhum district.

Though most of the video documentation is complete, the final editing of the film held up due to paucity of funds.

Both groups appeal for financial help in order to complete the film through pre-sale of this film. The cost of a VHS copy is Rs.1000/- for those within India. A receipt for each payment and a copy of the video with English subtitles, when completed, will duly be sent.

Orders may be placed with:

Shriprakash, KRITIKA
30 Randhir Prasad Street, Upper Bazaar
Ranchi 834001, Jharkhand (Bihar)
Tel: +91 651 317461

Global Media

Serial Suicide

A few years ago when the immensely popular TV serial Ramayana was telecast, some children injured themselves by trying to play out the battle scenes in the serial. Taking an even more worrisome and horrific turn, a young boy died when he leapt off the roof of his house trying to emulate Hanuman whom he had seen flying on TV. In case we had forgotten the consequences of TV making violence an accepted, domesticated part of our lives, another gruesome reminder has been served – this time from the US.

Twelve year old Darren Lawrence Green under the influence of the wildly popular serial South Park committed suicide by putting his head inside a plastic bag, taping it to his neck and closing the mouth of the bag with a piece of thread – he died of asphyxiation. He left a letter for his parents saying they should watch South Park if they wanted to know why he was taking his own life. The serial full of violence, is centred around a character called Kenny who in every episode is brutally killed, and whom Darren had mentioned in his letter. Kenny is shown as an eight year old who is always upto some pranks, and the punchline in every episode is “Oh my God! They’ve killed Kenny!”

According to the Maryland police, Darren was not suffering from any psychological problems or depression, and in fact had a good relationship with his parents.

The serial is broadcast by the Comedy Centre cable channel, and is also presented in the form of video games and at hundreds of web sites. It has also been written about in prestigious magazines like Newsweek, Span and Rolling Stones.

Action for Children’s Television, an NGO has termed the tragedy as a warning for all parents. The broadcasters expressed grief and sympathy for the parents. Meanwhile, schools in Georgia and Texas have banned clothes based on South Park characters.

Videazimut Seminar to be held in Cape Town

The fifth Videazimut International Seminar entitled “The Right to Communicate and the Communication of Rights,” will be held in Cape Town, South Africa, from 19 – 20 September 1998.

The seminar is being hosted by Videazimut, an international coalition of practitioners of alternative video and community television united by their concern for the democratization of communication. The seminar fits into a series of activities which include the Videazimut 1998 General Assembly, for the members of Videazimut, (21 – 22 September) and an international video festival which we will run throughout the whole four days of the event. The video festival will be on the same theme as the seminar.

In the past Videazimut has organized five international seminars on several continents. On these occasion: it has brought together practitioners activists, women, researchers, and political decision-makers around theme related to the role of communication in democracy as well as to the democratization of communications.

The Cape Town seminar will hold special significance as the 50^th anniversary of the universal Declaration of Human Rights will be commemorated in 1998. For all practitioners of democratic communication,it is mportant to revive discussion of the inalienable right to communicate, its meaning at a time when a one-way “globalization” seems unrestrained and the difference in conditions affecting the use of this right.

For details contact:
Dorothy Ntone
Conference Organiser
e-mail:ebongo@global.co.za
fax:+27 21 465 3563

Turkey censors Kurdish TV station

MED-TV a Kurdish language television station has become a symbol of the Kurdish people’s right to freedom of expression. The Turkish state is sparing no efforts to stop the satellite station which broadcasts programmes across Turkish borders.

MED-TV serves the exiled Kurdish population in Europe, North Africa, the Russian federation, the Middle East as well as the Kurdish people living within Turkey. It’s potential audience is thus 35 million people. The Turkish state seems convinced that the station is a mouthpiece for the PKK, the Kurdish Workers Party fighting against Turkish oppression.

However MED-TV has since it’s launch stressed that it’s aim was to ensure the Kurdish people their right to “explore, celebrate and develop their unique Kurdish identity, as defined by their own distinct language, culture and traditions,” and has strongly objected to any allegations of connections with armed separatists.

The station is a provocation by its very existence and promoting Kurdish language and culture within Turkey, where Kurdish television programmes are banned. The anger the Turkish authorities resulted in harassment of both MED-TV staff in Europe and viewers within Turkey. MED-TV believes that the police raids on it offices in London and Brussels in September 1996 were carried out on the advice of the Turkish internal security service. In Turkey reports of harassment of viewers of MED-TV have bee common since 1995. Recently the intimidation seems to have increased.Reception is blocked, buyers of satellites are registered, police are checking the direction of peoples satellites and marking those houses where the dishes are pointing in the direction of the saellite carrying the signal of MED-TV dishes have been removed by the police etc. The governor of Turkey’s state of emergency area threatened the banning of satellite dishes in Kurdish speaking regions.

Undercurrents – Making waves through media activism

Despite all obstacles that small, radical, non-profit organisations face, Undercurrents, an Oxford based media activist group has made a significant impact on the struggles for social and environmental justice in UK in only two years of its existence.

The main plank of Undercurrents is the Undercurrents alternate news video magazine, seven issues of which have been produced in the past two years. The magazine carries mini-documentary features on various campaign issues, like illegal evictions, pollution and other environment issues, human rights abuse, police excesses, etc The entire magazine is produced by video activists using domestic camcorders. Many of the features are made by first timers.

Apart from distributing the magazine through mail orders, Undercurrents also organises national screeninqs of their magazines with local groups. Thousands of people view the programmes. Along with Undercurrents organising their own screenings, many local groups also take the initiative to regularly screen the magazines in their local areas.

In the last two years, Undercurrents has developed an archive of over 500 hours of footage on campaign issues. Formal marketing of this footage to television companies generates substantial revenues, while some of it is also provided for legal defence. Even though most of the features are made by first-timers using domestic camcorders, television companies all over the world use this footage in their programmes. Many of the Undercurrents stories have also won awards at film and video festivals around the world. Lately Undercurrents have also started training activists in making videos.

for details, contact:
Undercurrents,
16 B Cherwell Street, Oxford OX4 lBG, UK
e-mail: underc@gn.apc.org

Mexican media in Turmoil

At the recent government sponsored National Journalism and Information Awards in Mexico, some of the winners rejected their awards, calling for greater Press freedom. President Zedillo had ironically used the ceremony to stress the advances made in Mexico for Press freedom and democracy. “Mexico is a country where the freedom to express ideas is not restricted, much less persecuted,” he said.

Some journalists obviously do not agree. The newspaper Reforma, one of whose reporters won an award for ‘best investigative article’ refused the prize as a way of strengthening its editorial independence. Julio Scherer, considered to be one of the fathers of investigative journalism in Mexico, also rejected his award for ‘life-time achievements.’

Journalists state that the media has found a way of appearing neutral when it is (actually) acting on behalf of the government and large scale magnets.”

Courtesy, WACC Action

When profit rules over social needs

Telephone boxes may soon be phased out in the rural areas of France, to the anger of unions and country folk who say that a vital link with the rest of the world will be cut simply to maximise profits.

Built out of concrete, metal and glass, the French telephone box is one of the most useful and least attractive features of the countryside, but France Telecom, the partially privatised telephone network, insists that many are no longer financially viable and should be progressively abolished. Because of the increasing popularity of mobile telephones, the 226,000 telephone boxes across France are attracting less and less customers. Since January, use of telephone boxes has dropped steadily, where France Telecom had predicted a growth of 5% this year, and company officials say the time has come to dismantle unprofitable boxes. The move has been greeted with dismay by unions and regional groups who say that it is a prelude to the disappearance of the rural telephone box, further isolating the rural areas. “This is an infringement of everyone’s right to communicate, and the poorest and youngest people will be most heavily penalised,” the SUD-PTT telephone workers’ union said.

The unlovely and often malodorous modern French telephone box has often been criticised as an eyesore, but is invaluable to isolated villages, not to mention visitors lost on country roads without a map or mobile telephone.

By law, France Telecom is technically required to provide at least one public telephone for every 1000 inhabitants, and critics have accused the company for forgetting its obligations.

The row over rural telephone boxes is part of a wider debate over privatisation. “Once again, the logic of financial profit has prevailed, to the detriment of public service and the interests of customers,” the Communist led CGT union said.

The sharp fall in the number of calls from telephone boxes “has come much earlier and more seriously than expected,” Mr. Jean Francois Pontal, executive director of France Telecom’s public service arm, wrote. “In the circumstances, to maintain the level of profit anticipated, a radical change in the direction is necessary.”

“Of course mobile telephones are eating away at the profitability of telephone boxes, but social utility must outweigh profit,” insists Mr. Alain Baron, a union leader. “Not everyone has the money for a mobile phone, but everyone should have access to a telephone box, wherever they are.”

-Ben Maclntyre
Courtesy, The Times, London

At the Oberhausen’98

Oberhausen is a pilgrimage for documentary and short film makers. Even for a film to be selected in the festival is a certificate of recognition. This year Amar Kanwar was at Oberhausen with his film ‘A Season Outside.’ Amar shares with us some of his feelings.

It was my first time there, I had no idea what it was going to be like so I had no expectations. I only knew that it is a heavy duty festival that is in it’s 44th year, it has had a significant history and that they had a very involved and careful selection procedure.

From the point of view of organising a festival it was really well done. It is quite a treat to be able to see a whole cross-section of originality, of very different film makers telling their own story in remarkably different ways, and I would probably just value the experience for that.

At the same time some things quite disturbed me. I know that Oberhausen likes to give an opportunity to totally different kinds of films, and even experimental work, but I did feel that if you had something clear and direct to say then that was not very comfortably received. There seems to be two kinds of trends now. One is that there’s nothing more left to be said. So if anyone is trying to say something it’s just not worth it, because whatever had to be said has already been said. That’s a quite terrible situation to be in, especially if you have an audience – or at least some people in the audience – who feel that way, and I did definitely get a feeling like that.

The second thing I saw was a kind of a trick of universality, that you make a film that anybody would like; regardless of your culture, regardless of background, of politics, across television channels to festivals to audiences, it works for everybody. It is not too culture specific, it does not have ingredients that you have to really think hard about. Films like these are very good to package and take around. Of course they are very good, they are technically superb, they are crafted very well, with a little dash of being politically correct. If you see one separately you really enjoy it, but if you see 10 – 15 of them together, then you start noticing that there’s a pattern to it, that they have obviously been made a particular way. Also if you are able to hang around in the world of the absurd, and the ironic, and maybe get existentialist most of the time, but keep throwing in a little bit of meaning – that seems to go. Or if you are just remarkably original about dealing with the absurd that also sells very well. It might be nice to see, but it’s just not nice to only see that.

Sometimes I kept wondering what is it that they liked about my film, and selected it. My film is very clear in trying to say something all the way through. I found more people from a Turkish, Iranian, Lithuanian, Brazilian or Armenian background reacting to my film rather than those from Europe. That also made me wonder.

But it was good too, I had three screenings in a week which was really good and these were in the main theatres. Mine was the only Indian film. Just the fact that it was the only Indian film did generate some kind of interest, but I kept getting the feeling that in mainstream Europe – if there is such a thing – it doesn’t climb the universal, ironic, absurd bus.

There was one Korean film, one film each from Hong Kong and Japan, and my film – that was Asia. There were about 70 films that they had selected for the international competition, the largest contingent was Europe. Second came America and Canada and third was South America and Asia.

I would say that there were about a dozen films that were political films, in the sense that we here in India would relate to and could even want to show it around. To that extent one could say that 2 or 3 films, in spite of their language, would still work here. There was a film from Greece about a dam, more about a grandmother, the filmmakers grandmother, who had been through various periods of extreme violence, and pain and unhappiness in her life – with the Germans or the war and so on. Without actually talking about it you start slowly seeing that the violence that is going to happen to her life this time -is happening to her life – is going to be irreplaceable. It’s a verv beautiful film. There was a Brazilian film about a river, which was also verv beautiful, the whole film was a poem about river. Another mentionable film was an Irish one about rape and incest inside the family, which was a fiction film based on a poem.

It’s a very big market working there, and there are representatives of festivals and broadcasting agencies from all over the world. So there are too many currents and preferences working there. I have not seen very many festivals, but somehow I kept getting the feeling that we are living in one world and they in another.

The whole experience makes me a little concerned, because a lot of documentary filmmakers here are not just film makers, but have been activists at some point or associated with different kinds of campaigns, and all of us have a tough time surviving and getting to make films on what we like, what with the requirement of TV channels and so on. Most of the time we are making films we are asked to make. There are very few filmmakers who make films on their own. It’s tough to make them financially, but I feel that somewhere we also have to respond to what is happening politically and socially in India at this moment.

There is a great deal of change taking place at various levels with serious implications for people and for the politics of this country. It is most likely that films on these changes and on these events are not going to be funded at all. They are not going to find space on mainstream channels. There is no way we will be able to make a living out of films about what is happening in this country. So we have to find a way of making a living as well as be able to respond to this as documentary filmmakers. If we don’t respond, then we are going to go the same way either as the market wants or as the bunch of films you see in Amsterdam or Oberhausen. If we don’t keep working at two or three levels, we will end up working at only one, we will only end up conceiving form as to what is suitable for the market in terms of mainstream TV, or for what is suitable for an international audience. Both are extremely dangerous traps. Although working together might pose problems, it’s important that people work together. Working together might be in areas of resources, of people, of distribution, of screenings, of collaborating on those areas. Surely it is possible to make a short, totally independent film – a 5 or 10 minute film – every now and again.

Radio Sagarmatha – Nepal’s first community radio station

By a TWN Team

Tiny landlocked Nepal, the Himalayan country that is home to some of the world’s highest peaks, is showing the way to South Asia by going right ahead and setting up its first community radio station.

Official restrictions have not wet blanketed the arrival of “Radio Sagarmatha,” the first non-official, community-run FM station in the country. It was set up some months back. Each morning at seven, this station already fills the airwaves of capital Kathmandu with the sound of long forgotten Nepali folk music mixed with “development messages.”

Sagarmatha – literally meaning the forehead of the ocean – is the Nepali name for Mount Everest, the mightiest peak in the world standing 8,848 meters tall.

The Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalists (NEFEJ), the lead organisation implementing this project, has a plan to develop the Kathmandu station of Radio Sagarmatha as a prototype and a training and resources centre.

“Our long term objective is to encourage dozens or more of small stations throughout the Himalayan country,” NEFEJ executive director Om Khadka said.

But Radio Sagarmatha launched its own test transmissions early June only after a herculean effort to get the green signal and a license from the government.

Over a dozen other applications are believed to be pending with the ministry of communication and information, in this Himalayan kingdom. But, analysts in Kathmandu feel, it is unlikely that there will be more private radio stations going on the air shortly.

For the present though, Nepal has only two FM stations both operating from Kathmandu. Radio Sagarmatha’s 500 watts transmitter has just joined the government-run FM Kathmandu. It covers the Kathmandu valley, an area of around four hundred sq. km.

Radio Sagarmatha is an unusual experiment in other ways too. Some of the country’s best-known media organisations – including the Nepal Forum for Environmental Journalists or NEFEJ, the Nepal Press Institute, publishers of an upcoming South Asian magazine, Himal Association and Worldview Nepal have taken a lead in getting this project going.

Radio Sagarmatha began its test runs in June. It is expected to begin full-fledged programs shortly. Most would contain “info-tainment” and “edu-tainment”. This mix of information, entertainment and education is needed to draw audiences and yet keep within its mandate. Only onequarter or so of the programmes are slated to be of an entertainment nature.

The United Nation’s Cultural, Educational and Scientific Organisation donated US$60,000 worth of equipment for setting up a recording-cum-air studio in Kathmandu, for transmitters and some studio equipments.

Like its South Asian neighbours, Nepal has been slow in loosening bureaucratic control over the airwaves. “Nepal’s government has shown reluctance even in reviewing the applications, et alone the granting of licenses,” says NEFEJ’s Khadka.

“Those in governance in Nepal were, and are, so reluctant in adopting any new approach that they hesitate in going forward. This was the main cause for Radio Sagarmatha taking five years in taking off,” said Khadka.

He added: “Though we have democratic rule in Nepal, governments of either rightists or leftists have been reluctant to free the communication medium in the country.” In 1990, following pro-democracy demonstrations, Nepal’s King Birendra proclaimed a constitution which relinquished his absolute powers, and brought in a multi-party system.

Under the terms of its own license, Radio Sagarmatha is restricted to only two hours of airing programmes daily. In addition, the radio is required to hook-up for news from the national radio broadcast of Radio Nepal. Entertainment programmes are restricted to one-quarter of total air time. Each week’s programme menu needs to be submitted to the government for review.

“The license contains a number of things that are even against the norm of existing laws, and most of these are impractical,” say those manning the new station. There are hints that the promoters of this venture might opt for a legal battle to get more breathing space for their operations.

UN development statistics say 75% of Nepalis live below the poverty line. Average life expectancy is 55 years. One in every 10 infants dies before the age of five, and 40Y0 of Nepali children are undernourished.

Environmental problems have been a concern in Nepal for quite some time. Some two-thirds of the country’s rural population live in mountains and plateaus with only 30Y0 of Nepal’s arable land. Its backers hope that the Radio Sagarmatha experiment will boost pluralism in the broadcast media in the South Asian region, where the scene has largely been dominated by large, sometimes-monolith official organisations.

“Radio has always been a potent medium of mass communication for Nepal as two-thirds of the country is mountainous, making accessibility difficult, and 70 percent of the population is illiterate,” comments Nepali joumalist Deepak Gajurel. South Asia as a whole has considerable growth potential for radio, particularly since newspapers and television still play only a weak role here. Barely 25 newspapers are read by every one thousand persons in South Asia, who also have to share 50 televisions among them.

Station director Murari Shivakoti has been quoted saying: “Radio Sagarmatha’s network of stations is aimed to inform, educate, and entertain the target communities with programmes that help them understand issues better and help them make informal choices in their everyday lives.”

Government-owned Nepal Television’s board directors chairman Hem Bahadur Bista himself told local journalists: “Mass media has so far not been used in Nepal for the development purpose. Now the day has come to use it as a tool for development.” Community radio, point out its promoters, offers great potential for two- way communication. This could help reduce the gap between decision-makers and the grassroots, it is argued. Consequently, the people would have a greater say in decisions on community development schemes.

Courtesy. Third World Network Features

Events

The A. C. Sen Memorial Lecture

Media and the Marginalised

P. Sainath delivered the first A.C. Sen Memorial Lecture on 30 April, 1998. The lecture was organised jointly by PEACE, Vikalp and Magic Lantern Foundation. Provided below is an excerpt from the lecture.

Today, I’ll deal with trends, fragments and a few possibilities as well. The media as everything else, has been driven by the liberalisation agenda but there are different phases. Post 1991,there are two phases. 1991 to ’94, a very gung-ho phase where there was no space allowed for anything, and post ’95 where you see some differences as the euphoria comes down a bit.

I want to step back to November – December 1997. That was the period when I spent two months at home. I did two exercises. One, I watched a few Television programmes. And I tore off the covers of the first 30 – 40 magazines that were lying around and spread them around to see what were being covered.

Well, there were two very well done stories on TV. Good stories and yet an irony for that. The story was about the unbelievable proliferation of weight loss clinics in the big cities of India. All the stories noted that the clinics had mushroomed since ’91. They did interviews with those who were being conned by these clinics. You loose 10 kgs and you put on 25. You have severe physical and emotional problems because of the drugs they use. Moreover you have shelled out anything between 5,000 to 10,000 rupees for this. It was a necessary story. It was a well deserved exposure of a very unscrupulous practice. Now I found that very interesting because another story was unfolding at the same time, between ’91 and ’96. At the time, when the ‘war on obesity’ was going on, hundreds of millions of Indians were eating less than they did before 1991. They were fighting to not lose any more weight than they already had. So you have this tremendous story on weight loss clinics – thousands of urban Indians trying to loose weight.

But you also have this story about millions of Indians trying not to lose anymore weight. But that didn’t make a story.

Another set of covers that I found very interesting – and I found at least 14 on this subject – is the rising executive salaries, particularly the gigantic packages taken by CEOs. Youngsters in the corporate world were getting salaries that their parents could not match in thirty years of work, the 1 crore, 1.5 crore salaries. Both the Indian and foreign media reveled in such success stories of the post-liberalisation India. In many regions of this country, the real wages of agricultural labourers fell in the same period.

It was not treated with the same importance. But it was the rising salaries of the CEOs and the executives that held the attention.

Now, what makes it impossible for certain kinds of things to be covered? Let us consider the beats that are in the newspapers today. If you look at the beats you find that certain beats have become virtually extinct. The labour correspondent is now virtually extinct. Find out how many newspapers have full time agricultural correspondents. The interaction you have professionally is also shaped by the beat you cover. The extinction of these beats means that journalists are not interacting with very important classes of our society in an organised and structured manner. And if you have not interacted with 60% of your society I don’t think you can do a very job of reporting what’s happening in your society.

What’s happened to the beats? I found a non-financial daily had specialised correspondents for covering aspects of business. The political correspondents were being overtaken in leaps and bounds by business correspondents. Then comes sports correspondents, which in India means largely cricket reporters. One newspaper actually had a full time Golf correspondent. There are also, apart from the usual beats, the emergence of fashion, design and society correspondents. There are also glamour correspondents.

My favourite which I have tried unsuccessfully to land is to become the eating-out correspondent.

I have no problems with this. If it has something for everybody, fine. You want to have a full time golf correspondent, be my guest. But in all the large publication in the country there is not a single full time correspondent on the beat of rural poverty. I don’t mean assistant editors doing analysis from their head, I mean reporters. This in a country with the largest number of reporters in the world. In the few newspapers that have attempted any kind of systematic coverage of education for example, the focus is on the college campus. Not on primary or adult education. The focus is on the campus beat and the education correspondent is usually loaded with 6 or 7 other responsibilities. The labour correspondent has almost disappeared.

Now this break down of beats and the lack of specialisation, how does this effect? If you were sent out to cover Enron, your editors would grill you with a thousand questions before publishing the story. But if you are sent out to cover poverty, you can write anything. The modes of covering poverty are many. One of the great ones is the Messiah mode. The visionary with a far away look in his eyes, solving all the problems in the village and the transformation in that village will spread to 5 lac other villages and country will be saved. Another mode is as the poor as unending victims – poor, helpless, desperate people, sometimes reaching very close to the Noble Savage view of people. The other is the poor as unvarnished romantic heroes. That’s another, against all odds, about to triumph. One is the rhetorical over statement that you find in a number of stories. Another mode is: here time has stood still. Time has never stood still in the planet anywhere, but in the village it always stands still.

One of the problems is the inability to look at poverty, not as an absolute, but to look at poverty in terms of disparities, in terms of class and in terms of exploitations. So if you find poor people you write that this district has this terrible poor. A few days ago I read a story – Bundelkhand: a place without any hope. Poverty has entrenched everyone. Then it names Tikamgarh as one of the 4 worst districts of this 9 district region. It says that this area is barren, infertile and nothing will grow. Now Tikamgarh has topped wheat production in Madhya Pradesh for many years now. There is enormous affluence and prosperity alongside that poverty which the correspondent had clearly recorded. The inability to link the incredible prosperity of a few with the unbearable miseries of many, robs these stories of their real usefulness. Every feudal chief in Tikamgarh has his private fort. Its a land of fortresses. There are lots of poor people in Tikamgarh. But it has nothing to do with the area being unproductive. Tikamgarh is one of 45 districts in Madhya Pradesh, it is number 1 in production, and number 45 in human development. While being number 1 in wheat production it had an infant mortality rate of 195 according to Govt of MP figures. Now this is a story. The disparity. This incredible wealth and the poverty. So this fake sensationalisation actually robs you of the really sensational.

The problem with the way we cover poverty is that there is no distinction because you have got slotted into reporting events rather than problems. There is definitely no distinction in the Indian press between hunger and starvation, between drought and famine. Every story of hunger becomes a story of starvation. Larger than Orissa, larger than Bihar, larger than Madhya Pradesh the largest number of hunger deaths, in the period between 1991 and 96 took place in the richest state of Maharashtra. It took place in Belgaun. About 1000 children died of hunger related causes. The largest number of hunger deaths are taking place within 90 or 100 kms of the country’s richest metropolis. Look at it in those terms. This happened as the sensex was crossing 4000 mark. You have to go beyond what obvious levels. You have to get into the question of politics, class structures, exploitation, these sort of areas.

Now, why do we make different demands of the Indian media? I must say that despite all the criticisms I have been making, I am proud to be an Indian reporter because we have one of the finest reporting traditions. What is the difference between the emergence of media, say in Europe or Britain, and its emergence in India? There are huge differences. They didn’t emerge as news gatherers, they emerged as agents of commercial interests. At the time when transatlantic trade between US and Europe was going on it became necessary to know what the markets in the US demanded, what the markets in UK demanded. Therefore the news agencies came up to service the stock markets of London.

The Indian media did not emerge in that fashion. It emerged out of the freedom struggle. It tried to give a voice to those who didn’t have a voice. Let me give you an example. In 1893 the Reuters correspondent was sent to India to cover the planning districts of India. To write about the noble work being done by the British Administrators, and more importantly to counter the noisy riffraff of the nationalist press and wild propaganda. I was stunned by that. In 1893 Congress was eight years old. There were no national level political movements. But the threat was already playing the role of the opposition. And the world’s mightiest empire felt compelled to respond to it. The Reuter’s correspondent goes on to record, “the suppression and censorship and the closure of the riffraff of the nationalist press was not only expedient but absolutely desirable and necessary.” This is the great champion of freedom of expression from Reuters who said, “Yes, we will clap and cheer when the administration closes off the Indian press.” Here is the paradox. A tiny narrow press, in terms of India’s extremely low literacy level, served a much wider social function. Today a gigantic press serves a much narrower social function. That’s what has happened, between 1893 and 1998.

If you said that the development of the Indian media is parallel to that of the American media, I would not agree. The Indian media had 3 streams. From the 1920s onwards it had the pure colonial press, totally represented by the Times of India. The other was the fundamentalist stream of journalism of Hindu Mahasabha and Muslim League. It had the nationalist, secular mainstream. But the nationalist secular mainstream had ideals represented by visions so noble that the American press of late 1700 and 1800 could never match. If you look at it, the American press, with one or two glowing exceptions like Thomas Paine, when they spoke of freedom they meant freedom for the white, adult, propertied male. There was no question of women or blacks figuring in the freedom of speech or in the bulk of the press.

In your place, from 1861 when the first Indian press comes into being with Raja Ram Mohan Roy you had people who were talking of the rights of widows, widow remarriages, against female infanticide, people who were speaking for much wider classes than themselves. It is absolutely false to say that people are not interested beyond their class interest. Its not been true of the history of the Indian press. And you have journalists like one Mohandas Karamchand who showed you that he could make a very high impact with very low circulation figures.

There are many positive things in your tradition that you can take appeal to. And also the fact that the illiterate, the so called illiterate, uneducated public of this country, have created spaces for freedom for people like you. When Tilak was tried and sentenced for sedition, it was the unlettered workers of the Textile Mills of Bombay who came out. Twenty one of them were shot and died on the streets to defend the freedom of expression of the man whom they could not read. But they said, “He has the right to freedom of expression like any one else.” In the emergency so many great people crawled. Finally emergency was brought down by the people of this country through a democratic process. And that opened spaces for media like never before. The people of your country have fashioned a space for you, use it.

The completed text of the talk is being printed. Write to Magic Lantern Foundation for ordering copies.

Debate

Documentary or Drama?

By Stalin K.

Stalin K. is a founder member of Drishti Media Collective. He and his caeague Shabnam Virmani have made many important documentaries which are aimed at people struggling to change society. Some of their films like ‘When Women Unite’, which use enactment, are rejected by many individuals and festivals on the grounds of being ‘dramatised’. In the following article Stalin K. discusses his ideas about drama. We invite readers to participate in this discussion and enrich the debate.

There are two opinions about using drama in a documentary. The first attempts to justify the use of drama. There are certain things we cannot shoot, for example a rape scene, or certain things that are not manageable. Or we lose the opportunity like in “When Women Unite,” where we entered a situation when everything had already happened. In a sense, this point of view is defensive.

The other point of view is that is that there is a need for drama because things are dramatic and you feel that it can be conveyed better through drama. I want to use drama as a valid treatment for documentaries and not only because I am unable to shoot reality.

There is a heavy pressure on documentary film makers to represent reality, the ‘truth.’ Our culture itself, often, reflects ambiguity. But here we are, documentary film makers, coming from very diverse cultural backgrounds, coming from the post- modern age, wanting to state facts, capture facts. But what about ‘facts’ like editing? Or music? Or the pace of a film? These techniques are used precisely to enhance the dramatic.

We have a history of story telling in India and we have grown up with stories, whether it is the Jatakas or mythological tales. We have learnt to extract wisdom from the narrative forms. Our folklore and narratives have always used symbols, animals and trees to communicate wisdom, morals or values. What we try and do is extract the ‘saar,’ the essence. I might not go and see the Pandava caves in Panchmari, but I’ ll try to find out and know what is the essence of the Mahabharata; which also has an effect when we make films. That is also part of the reason why we go towards drama, because it works. It works for us and it works for the audience.

The ‘divide’ between drama and documentary is purely a Western concept. ‘When Women Unite’ was rejected by some festivals only because it used drama. Several festivals do not accept dramatised films in their competition section. If we take BBC documentaries, they make a very conscious effort of saying reconstructed.’ But do their documentaries represent truth? Or do they represent a mind set which is often biased against third world struggles?

Yet, we are expected to be the prophets of truth. Why should we take on that mantle when we accept that there is no absolute truth? Why should the onus of truth rest only on documentary film makers? As a film maker I can make a fact based scene in a very dramatic form. I could also make a documentary which is far from the truth. We know of such documentaries, which ‘recreate’ every shot, every action, and yet are considered documentary.

I think it is a question of a perceived notion of credibility, that when a person is talking on the film, in an interview, what he says is the truth. Even if I use dramatic elements – cuts, transits, music, juxtapositions, text etc. to enhance drama, it is truth, although these elements are abstracts from drama. But the moment you go for enactment, the moment you use scripts and dialogues, it is denigrated as ‘drama/ even when the actors may be the same people who have been the real actors of a process. In ‘When Women Unite,’ the women who led the struggle against alcohol were used as actors when we made the film. Yet it is not accepted as reality, only because of the element of enactment.

How would I distinguish the activist’s use of drama for recreation of reality from the mainstream use of drama? I don’t think there is any difference.Drama is a form, it is a kind of treatment. Both the genres can and will use different treatments. In our films, like ‘Ek Potlu Beeknu,’ or ‘When Women Unite,’ the enactment is used for recreating history – which is what Richard Attenborough did for ‘Gandhi’ or Ketan Mehta did for ‘Sardar Patel’. Feature film makers don’t get into this problem of defining what is drama and whether it is a feature film or a nonfeature film. They are making a ‘film.’ The feature films too can be criticized for not providing the true and absolute picture. There also you take something and you leave something out from your own personal point of view. But why is it that when you come to documentary films you have all these notions of truth?

In a way I am sad that this discussion on drama is happening in India, within documentary film festivals in India. Why should we be apologetic about using it? Why should we go into a definition? It’s a treatment. I don’t even consider it to be a genre, because then it becomes very tricky. I am considered to be a lesser human if I work with drama. In any case I am considered lesser because I am doing documentaries as against feature films. So my films are put separately in a festival, my jury is separate. Even so, if I use documentary I am better off, but then I’m doing drama! It’s like saying I could not become a film actor and in the event became a street theatre actor. These notions have to be broken. These classifications are basically European and don’t work in India, they don’t work anywhere. While they are slowly accepting that it does not work, we are still trying to figure out whether we should accept their notion, whether it is the politically correct thing to do.

A documentary attempts to communicate. It works both at an emotional as well as at a rational level. The potential of drama is that it can recreate events very well, almost to the extent of reality. However, there is a danger, of misrepresenting things. That is a genuine problem and you have to be very sure of how to use drama before attempting to use it.

By using dramatic elements, I reinforce and make my case stronger because within a short span of time I have something to say to you. You have limited time, you have the choice of seeing several other things. I want to make my point well as possible The primary focus is to communicate so I would do anything under the sun, to do so, sticking to my sensibility, giving as much an objective a picture as I can. But also included in this is my subjective point of view. I have to have my point of view. As an alive, intelligent, aware, individual of society, want to know what you have to say. That’s how we grow -by sharing each other’s points of view. If we restrict that, in terms of definitions or a certain treatment – here called dramatisation of documentary – we shall limit that growth.

Mirror

Lies of Our Times

Noam Chomsky

In the study of any system, it is often useful to look at something radically different, to highlight crucial features. Let’s begin, then, by looking at a society that is close to the opposite pole from ours: Brezhnev’s USSR.

Consider policy formation. In Brezhnev’s USSR, economic policy was determined in secret, by centralized power; popular involvement was nil, except marginally, through the Communist Party. Political policy was in the same hands. The political system was meaningless, with virtually no flow from bottom to top.

Consider next the information system, inevitably constrained by the distribution of economic-political power. In Brezhnev’s USSR there was a spectrum, bounded by disagreements within centralized power. True, the media were never obedient enough for the commissars. Thus they were bitterly condemned for undermining public morale during the war in Afghanistan, playing into the hands of the imperial aggressors and their local agents from whom the USSR was courageously defending the people of Afghanistan.

For the totalitarian mind, no degree of servility is ever enough.

There were dissidents and alternative media: underground samizdat and foreign radio. According to a 1979 US government-funded study, 77% of blue-collar workers and 96% of the middle elite listened to foreign broadcasts, while the alternative press reached 45% of high-level professionals, 41% of political leaders, 27% of managers, and 14% of blue-collar workers. The study also found most people satisfied with living conditions, favoring state-provided medical care, and largely supportive of state control of heavy industry; emigration was more for personal than political reasons.

Dissidents were bitterly condemned as “anti-Soviet” and “supporters of capitalist imperialism,” as demonstrated by the fact that they condemned the evils of the Soviet system instead of marching in parades denouncing the crimes of official enemies. They were also punished, not in the style of US dependencies such as El Salvador, but harshly enough.

The concept “anti-Soviet” is particularly striking. We find similar concepts in Nazi Germany, Brazil under the generals, and totalitarian cultures generally. In a relatively free society, the concept would simply evoke ridicule. Imagine, say, that Italian critics of state power were condemned for “anti- Italianism.” Such concepts as “anti- Soviet” are the very hallmark of a totalitarian culture; only the most dedicated and humorless commissar could use such terms.

With these observations as background, let us turn to our own free society.

Begin again with policy formation. Economic policy is determined in secret; in law and in principle, popular involvement is nil. The Fortune 500 are more diverse than the Politburo, and market mechanisms provide far more diversity than in a command economy. But a corporation, factory, or business is the economic equivalent of fascism: decisions and control are strictly top-down. People are not compelled to purchase the products or rent themselves to survive, but those are the sole choices.

The political system is closely linked to economic power, both through personnel and broader constraints on policy. Efforts of the public to enter the political arena must be barred: liberal elites see such efforts as a dangerous “crisis of democracy,” and they are intolerable to statist reactionaries (“conservatives”). The political system has virtually no flow from bottom to top, apart from the local level; the general public appears to regard it as largely meaningless.

The media present a spectrum of opinion, largely reflecting tactical divisions within the state-corporate nexus. True, they are never obedient enough for the commissars. The media were bitterly condemned for undermining public morale during the war in Vietnam, playing into the hands of the imperial aggressors and their local agents from whom the US was courageously defending the people of Vietnam. For the totalitarian mind, again, no degree of servility is enough.

There are dissidents and other information sources. Foreign radio broadcasts reach virtually no one, but alternative media exist, though without a tiny fraction of the outreach of samizdat. Dissidents are bitterly condemned as “anti-American and “supporters of Communism” as demonstrated by the fact that they condemn the evils of the American system instead of marching in parades denouncing the crimes of official enemies. But they are not severely punished, at least if they are privileged and of the right color. Again, the concept “anti-American” is particularly striking, the very hallmark of a totalitarian mentality.

Excerpts from”The Propaganda System,Lies of Our Times, May 1992,Letter from Lexington.”
Text downloaded from Noam Chomsky Archive.

Opinion

An Interview with Madhushree Dutta

Undaunted by riots all over Bombay, Madhushree Dutta shot her first film ‘I Live in Behrampara’ tracing the socio-political reasons behind the riots through a case study of Behrampara, one slum in Bombay. ‘I Live in Behrampara’ was one of those rare films that was extensively screened and used by groups all across the country in camaigns for secularism. Apart from being a film maker, Madhushree is also part of Majlis, a group that provides legal aid to women and the marginalised people of Bombay.

You are basically a theatre person. How did you get involved in films?

I wouldn’t say ‘basically’ because now I don’t do theatre. But yes, I’m formally trained in theatre. I passed out of NSD in 1983. After that I did theatre and ran a theatre group for four years. I was too young to start a theatre group, and ours was a group of thirty people. Today I can’t even imagine how I did it. Running that group really killed me, exhausted me. Theatre demanded all of you, all the time – that means your body, mind, energy, everything. I got exhausted. So the only way out at the time was to get out. In fact, I’m in films by default. I came to Bombay to learn cinema at the Goethe institute, then I assisted people and learned on the job.

How you feel about ‘I Live In Behrampara’ ?

Actually, I’m very unhappy I made that film. None of us want riots to happen, and we hope we never have to make a film on riots. That was my first film. You want your first film to be a dream project. I wanted to prepare for my first film, I wanted to enjoy it, dream about it for a long time and then make it. But this was not that dreamed of project. It was a successful film because it was made for a purpose and it has served that purpose more than enough – I mean rarely does a video film get the kind of distribution this film did.

When I was making the film there was a lot of pressure, to finish it quickly, to show it at various places. Somebody asked me “Who did your sound?” I said “nobody.” There was no time to contact any sound recordist – no money of course – but many people may have worked without money, and anyway people were under curfew, they couldn’t have come. So it was direct camera recording done by the camera attendant. I met the cameraman for the first time in my life just five minutes before the shoot.

I think many things worked for that film, it worked cinematically too; I just don’t know how, we didn’t even have a sun-gun with us. But that it worked shows that the issue was so important, so vital, that all these problems were overcome.

I am also interested in the politics of culture, but I couldn’t deal with it at that time because it is a war film, an emergency film. At such times, knowing film making is just knowing a skill and you lend that skill to a particular purpose; you don’t have the luxury of doing what you want to do.

Did you manage to spend some time thinking about your second film before making it?

Yes, I did. My second film was made in a luxury because I shot on and off for a year. ‘Memories of fear’ is made on the feminising of fear, how fear has an essentially feminine quality and how women are taught to be afraid, how fear has seeped deep into us, layer by layer. It is done in a totally different genre, because I don’t think fear is perpetuated only by an outsider, like a riot is done by the enemy, by the other community. Here, somebody may be close to me – it could be a husband, mother, grandmother, it is not even gender specific so clearly. So I thought about it and took a long time to do it. I tried to raise a few questions about modes of representation, and it was not taken kindly. Because by that time I was slotted. It was taken for granted that I would always make ‘emergency’ films, war footage films.

People compared ‘Behrampara’ with ‘Memories of Fear.’ I said ‘Behrampara’ has it’s own place, but I don’t always want to make films where the camera is on somebody else – it should be a mix, it should be a to and fro process, because I am making the film. It so happened that I was not a Muslim – in fact I could make ‘Memories’ the way I made it because I had made ‘Behrampara,’ because I had made a film on other people’s fear. Then I thought, am I so privileged? Don’t I have any fear? Will only other people be vulnerable all the time? So I had to make myself vulnerable.

What is your next venture?

My next venture is on communalism in a way, but it is also on sexuality. There is a poet called Mahadeviakka, a 10th century Kannada poet of the Bhakti movement. She wrote in very erotic terms. Again I must talk about going to and fro, I wanted – as a person who loves to read poems to understand Mahadeviakka’s poetry. It started from that, but again the outside has entered the film, it’s not only her poems and me as a filmmaker, it’s also me today, when the BJP government is at the centre, and about what the Hindutva-wallas are doing to Mahadeviakka.

What is happening is that, with this whole upsurge of the Hindu movement, which is swallowing up everything, there is an attempt to valorise her. First of all they are trying to valorise the Bhakti movement itself. The Bhakti movement started off as a protest against Hindu rituals and Brahmanism. Now Brahmanism is claiming it back, the way they claim back Jainism, Buddhism, Ram. This is going to be widespread and it has already started, like they have taken an oath that in Maharashtra, they will have a temple in every district. To think that Mahadeviakka will be modeled to make more Rithambaras, a poet will be killed and a fanatic will be made.

So I have to make a film on this process and Mahadeviakka the poet. They are making her an icon, they have hired one of the most expensive models of Karnataka, called Bharati, to model for her, they have got key chains and calendars made in her name. Now that will also come into my film – that’s what I meant by to and fro.

How would you differentiate between your ‘to and fro’ process and the need to personalise your experiences politically, when the trend is to make documentaries extremely ‘personalised,’ to the point of being self-indulgent?

I think there should always be a map within which you work, which will be there anyway, since we live in a country like India which at the moment is so volatile. Like I told you, even if I want to make a very personalised film on a poet who died a thousand years back, I can’t, because she is iconised already. So the map is there, and I just place myself on the map, I don’t draw it from outside. That also tends to happen in Indian documentary. If we make films on others, the thing to do is to place ourselves in the middle of those others.

Sometimes I may have to get out of the film and then intrude again, but I am there: I am my camera. It’s not as if the camera is a third person, that kind of objectivity is also suspect, it’s the kind of thing talk-shows are trying to project and we’ll also have to break that. All the satellite channels have hijacked our language, they are bringing so called ordinary people on the screen, they are using cinema verite, they are taking over all the topics that we always thought were documentary film topics. So today we have to think very seriously, we have to change or be very conscious that it has been hijacked. I’ll have to place myself separate from them. They are using a very superficial language of the medium, but what do you do? The language is gone nonetheless. So, in case there is an utopian channel one day, and it only shows our kind of documentary films, people will say, “haan, yeh to dekha hai – we have seen this kind of thing in a talk show …” My fear is that even if they get the chance they will not see, so what do we do? That satellite channels have commercialised things, and is very consumerist; all this is very true. But we are ignoring one thing which is more dangerous – that they have taken away our language.

The problem with European politics, even it’s writing, is that the map, the social map, is neither so well defined nor so complicated. I don’t think individualism as a culture, as a post-capitalist culture has developed in our country. Unless a person thinks in very western terms, it is very difficult in our country to make that sort of a film. Unless somebody is copying. Because that individual mentality even in the most upper class people is not developed.

As a documentary film maker you can’t only make a film, you are the one who has to reach it to the audience. What do you feel about this additional role?

I think the situation is much more liberal now. However, we should look into the concept of literacy here, not in the literary sense, but in a cultural sense, in a political sense. If day in and day out watch an advertisement of a soap which they cannot buy, what will happen even if we reach those people? Even if we manage to blackmail them to see our film, nothing is going to happen. So there must be literacy not only at the literal level, but at the visual level, so that good film can reach them. A good film just cannot reach them on it’s own. We need workshops with people, students, in colleges and schools, so that they get used to seeing things, until they get interested, until their minds respond to it.

How do you see the role and future of a film activist, a film maker like you, our society?

This is a question often asked of documentary film makers and street theatre workers. I would say that a film has never brought revolution, but when the soil is ripe for revolution, film plays a role. If you have a society which bans a film and a spectator who allows the film to be banned, that means the soil is not ready, but the soil is about to get ready. I don’t call myself an activist film maker, I call myself an activist and a film maker. Making a film in itself does not mean anything, but because I have a self that is activist, it obviously influences my choice of subject, the way I see and the way I edit the film.

Initiatives

Netwaves – an initiative in video distribution

Netwaves may be the beginning of an end to a vast information gap on where to find a relevant film on a certain issue. It may also be an end to a film maker’s perennial worry of how to distribute a film once it has been made with a lot of sweat and blood.

Netwaves is an initiative that has grown out of an increasing need for systematic distribution of films

which reflect issues and concerns of social movements. This need has been felt both by film makers as well as activists and groups who working in the grassroots. While many film makers have made efforts to widen their reach, they have faced difficulties in managing both production as well as distribution. Social action groups on the other hand often do not receive any information on films that can be of relevance to their work. This has resulted in the failure of many important films to reach their intended audience. At another level, this gap has restricted the immense potential of the audio visual medium in social action.

Netwaves has brought together over 70 films by various film makers, documentaries as well as docu-dramas and fiction, that are relevant to the grassroots. It has published a catalogue that lists all the films along with a synopsis and other details. The catalogue also has a price list of VHS copies and an order form.

Although presently based in Bangalore, Netwaves is also planning to have sub-centres in other areas of India in order to decentralise the entire process. With a view to initiate many other activities aimed at popularising the use of films, such as festivals, workshops etc., Netwaves also plans to grow out of being solely a distribution agency to a platform that will strengthen communication on various social issues, a platform that will create space for socially meaningful action.

for catalogue, contact
Netwaves
74, 10th Cross, I Phase, JP Nagar, Bangalore 560078
fax (080) 6647316

Resources

After the Gold

English, 60 min,1997

More than a century ago, large scale gold mining was begun at Kolar Gold fields,Mysore. At its peak, the mines employed 36,000 workers who braved the dangers and built a new life in the mining camp. Today, many third and fourth generation gold miners face the threat of not just employment but displacement from the area

they have made their own. This film is a tribute to the ‘labouring lions’ of Kolar Gold fields, a historical reconstruction of their work, culture and rich political traditions.

Film by: Janaki Nair
Source: Janaki Nair. 422. 3rd cross. Indira Nagar 1st Stage, Bangalore 560038,
E-mail: jnair@cscsban.org
VHS Price: Rs 500 (Individuals), Rs 1000 (Institutions)

A Journey Together

Ek Saath, Ek Rah)
English (with subtitles), Hindi, 70 mins, 1998

Action India is a group working in the resettlement colonies of Delhi since 1975. In the two decades it has seen numerous upheavals, both political and social, that have continuously posed challenges in their struggle to build an egalitarian society. Some of these challenges Action India confronted, while many have changed forms and taken overwhelming dimensions. The film presents Action India’s historv. Experience and perspective on a few issues that are central to this struggle. The film also weaves together the personal stories of 4 women who have been with Action India for most of the time,their experiences , collective efforts, inner struggles,failures and successes.

Film by: Gargi Sen,Sujit Ghosh, Ranjan De
Source: Magic Lantern Foundation
J 1881,Chittaranjan Park, New Delhi,110019
VHS Price:Rs 400 (Grassroot groups),
Rs 800 (NGOs and foreign groups)

Of Hosts and Hostages

English (with subtitles), 81 mins, 1998

The film investigates the impact of the development of large-scale tourism on the hosts: on their ecology, economy and culture. The film presents the case study of Goa, a tourism hot-spot in India. It elaborates on the different kinds of tourists who visit Goa, and the consequence of their visit. Further on, the film investigates specific incidences and case studies of violations. The film also presents the point of view of the Government and their rationale for promoting the development of tourism. It attempts to understand the specific class interests of those who are interested to develop tourism in Goa towards a certain direction. Finally, the film presents protest by citizens of Goa and attempts to understand the rationale and perspective of protest.

Film by: Gargi Sen,Sujit Ghosh, Ranjan De
Source: Magic Lantern Foundation
J 1881,Chittaranjan Park, New Delhi,110019
VHS Price: Indian Grassroot groups: Rs 400, Indian NGO’s: Rs 1000, Institutions/Foreign Groups: Rs 3000 (US$ 75)

Bhadrer Parab

English, 25 mins,1998

Bhadrer Parab captures one of the oldest inhabitants of this country in their original splendour, not profaned by the so called civilisation. The tribals – Santhals, Oraon, Kurmi – of Chhotanagpur Plateau express their age old custom in this ritual symbolising the fertility cult in the act of cultivation. The tribals also take part in the coronation of their chief also known as Raja or king. This documentary catches the ‘mirth and laughter’ of these festivities showing the vigour of life, they carry with them as they live, even in privation. When things are falling apart everywhere, what lies for these tribes in the future? And this burning question concerns us, ‘the civilised ones.’

Film by: Aarooni
Source: 47D, Seelampur lane, Calcutta 700031
Fax:(033)4733282
VHS Price: Rs 5000

Hamari Batein

(An Ordinary Woman)
Hindi (Subtitled in English), 60min, 1998

This film is about a group of women in the urban slums,ordinary women who came to work with Action India and over the years chose a way of life that changed their position and status at home within the family. These are ordinary women whose commitment to change oppressive patriarchal structures is directed towards building collective strength. They are ordinary women who in the process of their day to day work have gained confidence in their ability to deal with problems and have found alternative ways of coping with a system that is anti people, anti women and anti nature. The film also reflects that though community workers are self confident they are not individualistic. In their personal lives too, they are striving to interpret a new man woman relationshi that is based on faith, respect,understanding and equality.

Film by: Nandini Bedi
Source: Action India, 5/24, Jangpura- B,
New Delhi 110014.
Tel: (011) 4647470
VHS Price: Rs. 400 (Grassroot groups),
Rs 800 (NGO’s and foreign groups)

Ek Khoobsurat Jahaz

Hindi, 20 min, 1998

Ek Khoobsurat Jahaz tells us about the forty akhs of life forms that exist on this Jahaz (our planet) we live in. In the past few millions of years, they have all boarded the Jahaz one by one. Human beings were the last to board it. If one sees the life of earth as one year, the presence of human beings has been only for 48 minutes and our civilisation is only 28 seconds old. In this backdrop, the film examines how human beings, who boarded the Jahaz last, is threatening the existence of Jahaz itself. The film was made after India and Pakistan conducted the nuclear tests. It also shows how war and arsenal have become the greatest threat to humanity and the planet. In this context it elaborates the holocaust that a nuclear war can create. The films deals at length about the Hiroshima and Nagasaki massacre along with scientific informations about the bomb.

Film by: Gauhar Raza
Source: Youth for Nuclear Disarmament
F-93, Katwaria Sarai, New Delhi 110016, Tel: (011) 6968121
VHS Price: Rs 150/-

Dear Readers,

Due to unavoidable reasons, this issue is reaching you rather late.

Meanwhile we received many enquiries about the status of this issue and are encouraged by your concern.

We thank all those who have contributed to this effort. However,we. still feel isolated as we are not hearing from most of you.Please see this as a joint effort. We strongly feel that without your active participation this effort will not be successful. Once again, we request you to send us information, news, articles as well as your feedback and suggestions to make Media Mail a success.

- Editors