Media and Dispute Resolution-The Indian Experience

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Since time immemorial, mankind has been confronted with conflicts and disputes and history is replete with instances of efforts to resolve them through dialogue and mediation. The practice of sending ‘Dootas’ or emissaries to resolve outstanding issue between warring princely states were in vogue in India for ages. One remembers how Lord Hanuman, Prince Angad and even Vibhishana were sent as envoys to Demon King Ravana to prevent a war with Lord Rama and how the Divine Cowherd Lord Krishna made a serious bid to broker peace between the Pandava and Kaurava cousins.
If Buddhism was Emperor Asoka’s way to atone for the sins of the Kalinga war, in modern times, it was the League of Nations and its successor, the United Nations, which sought to lend the healing touch to a wounded humanity in the aftermath of the First and Second World Wars.

In today’s information and communication era, when both children and adults alike spent more time with the internet, television, mobile phone and other interactive gizmos, than with their loved ones, the messenger, whether be of peace or conflict, is the media.

It was CNN International which brought war to drawing rooms across the world during the Gulf War. In India, it was the Kargil Conflict. Never before was the man on the street so intimately involved with the war. The live telecast from the war zone motivated an entire nation, with all its ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversities, into united action. Of course, there were aberrations too, such as the one where a celebrated woman reporter with a prominent English news channel (whose name also figures prominently in the recent Spectrum Scam) caused casualties among the armed forces personnel by her irresponsible actions. But from the overall perspective, the media played a constructive role and stirred up patriotic sentiments, which enabled the nation to overcome all the odds.

Another Litmus Test for the media was the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. Undoubtedly, media shook everyone including the security and intelligence apparatus out of their deep slumber but in their zest for doing so, virtually created death traps for our brave hearts who were fighting it out against the Jehadi terrorists. The live coverage of the operations not only helped in achieving the objectives of the perpetrators of the act – to instil a sense of terror among the Indians – but also enabled the terrorists to get real time information on the activities of the security personnel. Even the then Navy Chief was unsparing in his criticism of the media’s role in the entire episode. Instead of squarely and unequivocally condemning the terror strike, words such as ‘daring’ were used ad nauseum to describe the despicable act of the Pakistani mercenaries. Suggestions were also made to the effect that it could be a retaliation to the post-Godhra violence in Gujarat and the activities of the so-called ‘Saffron Terrorists’. It was even suggested (and endorsed by a Union Minister A R Antulay) that some ‘Hindu’ groups could be behind the killing of police officer Hemant Karkare, who happened to investigate the Malegaon blast case.
There could not have been anything more shameful and irresponsible in such a scenario.

Despite all round condemnation and umpteen debates on the role of media, most of the media players don’t seem to have learnt any lesson, if recent experiences in coverage of conflict situations, specifically Kashmir and Ayodhya, are taken into account.

As unruly mobs went on the rampage pelting stones at security forces personnel and seriously injuring them in the process, a sizeable section of the electronic media, went overboard, shouting from the rooftops as to how ‘innocent’ youth were being ‘killed’ by ‘trigger-happy’ police and para-military personnel. It did not matter to them that the police men at the receiving end of the stage-managed, Pakistan-backed protests were also youth, who too had parents, sibling, spouses and children back home and they were fighting the nation’s war.
But then, what one saw were channels competing with one another to show how a few stone-pelting protested could cause ‘Kashmir in turmoil’, ‘Kashmir on the Edge’, ‘Kashmir on the Boil’ and ‘Kashmir on Fire’, scenarios which even Pakistan’s own state-run channels would think twice before going on air. But then we show nothing but the truth (Kyonki Sach Dikhate Hain Hum), even if it means not going deep into the matter, not asking stone-pelters how much they were paid and who paid them and what were they protesting against, answers to which would have exposed the hollowness of the entire separatist movement. In the process, we handed out fodder to Islamabad to whip us with in the international fora.

As the separatist leadership ranted on the television channels about the human rights violations, nobody questioned them about the human rights of lakhs of Kashmiri Pandits who were forced out of their home and hearth.

Again, when the all party parliamentary delegation visited the state and made efforts to reach out to all sections of the society, including the separatists, some leading news channels lamented how the delegation confined itself to hotel rooms and did not interact with the ‘man on the street’, the ‘injured in the hospitals’, the women who were leading the protests etc. Pray, in which political peace process do you have delegations meeting the ‘aam aadmi’ during their short stay, rather than focusing on the leadership or people claiming to represent the voice of dissidence. Would meeting a woman protester in downtown Srinagar solve the vexed issue?. It was the height of the naivety of this section of the media.

As for learning lessons, the outcome was disappointing. As Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani spewed venom on the nation in the presence of known anti-Establishment voices such as novelist Arundhati Roy in the national capital and scores of Kashmiri Pandit youths stormed the venue and protested, the latter stood condemned on these channels and invoked were freedom of speech and expression and India’s democratic system, values never cherished by the likes of Geelani & Co. No channel talked about the ‘anger’ of the Kashmiri Pandit youth, no channel recalled their role in defending the freedom of speech and expression of Salman Rushdie, Taslima Nasreen or Prof Thomas of Kerala fame.

The stand of a section of English media on the Ayodhya dispute was yet another manifestation of their rank double-standards. To be honest, most were expecting a verdict from the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on the title suit in favour of the Waqf Board and all the appeals for peace were aimed at preventing any communal backlash against the minorities in the wake of a judgement against the status quo.

Not that the verdict does not suffer from flaws but it was apparent from the wordings of the judges including those whose views were divided, that their overriding concern was peace and a peaceful resolution of the issue not a water tight technical judgement, which would have far serious ramifications for the society and the polity.

Having fallen into their trap of creating a peaceful atmosphere, this ‘progressive’ section of the media found it hard to wriggle out on the first day but focused on the how the judges differed on whether the Mosque was built after destroying the temple or on its ruins centuries later.

But once the Left-leaning intelligentsia slept over it and introspected on the alleged political benefits the verdict might accrue to the right-wing, the entire perspective changed. The day after witnessed a barrage of questions ranging from the authority of courts to adjudicate on the basis of faith to the hurt sentiments of the minority community.

But what was childish and outrageous to the sentiments of both the communities were the suggestions to build toilets, hospitals, community centres and educational institutions at the disputed site. I wish to see the day when American Press would suggest construction of a huge toilet at Ground Zero as it would help people from all communities to ease themselves in complete unanimity and thus establish global harmony.

The response of a section of the media to the Ayodhya verdict was thus irresponsible at best and reprehensible at worst.

As they harangued on how India has “moved beyond” and how only bread and butter issues are relevant to the burgeoning population of young Indians, this section of the media forgot or ignored hard hitting facts including the ever growing number of pilgrims, the ever increasing following of spiritual Gurus, the massive expansion of spiritual and faith channels, the super success of children’s films based on mythological themes such as Ganesha, Hanuman and Luv-Kush et al.

It is apparent that this section of media has come to a misconstrued conclusion that an acknowledgement of India’s religiosity, which is integral to the existence of a sizeable chunk of its populace, tantamount to an endorsement of right-wing ideology and its advocates. While these ideological proponents may derive some benefits from this resurgence of religious sentiments, the fact remains that these beliefs and sentiments have a history dating centuries before the creation of these ideological platforms and as such are eternal and life sustaining.

Again, the comparison between the recent verdict and the demolition of the disputed structure in 1992 was meaningless. In the past too, there have been rare instances of violent reactions to court verdicts, including the one on Shah Bano.
As the fourth estate, the conscience keepers of the nation, the media ought to have played a far more conciliatory role to bring about the much-needed rapproachment between the two estranged communities. The media would have played a commendable role if it had projected the views of a Maulana Wahiduddin Khan as against a Salauddin Owaisi, an Arif Mohd Khan instead of a Syed Shahabuddin, a Maulana Mahmood Madani vis a vis a Shahi Imam of Delhi’s Jumma Masjid – voices of peace, reason and reconciliation.

The media is the modern day messenger and its message should bring about peace and harmony and not aggravate disputes and conflicts.

(*K G Suresh is a Delhi-based Senior Journalist and Editor of Media Critique)