The Hindu : `Intolerance against media growing in India'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 02, 2003

National

National

`Intolerance against media growing in India'

NEW YORK APRIL 1. Though India is the world's largest democracy, the Central Government actions in 2002 to curb the press indicate a growing intolerance among the country's leadership, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Many journalists say the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seems to target its critics in the media as a matter of policy — and largely gets away with it.

In Gujarat, police and political activists were responsible for a series of physical assaults on journalists covering the violence that swept the State after a Muslim mob attacked a train carrying Hindu activists in late February. The ensuing reprisal attacks left more than 1,000 Muslims dead and tens of thousands homeless. When journalists reported that much of the violence against Muslims was organised and sponsored by police and activists associated with Hindu nationalist groups, including the BJP, Gujarat's Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, lashed out. A BJP leader, he accused the press of "making attempts to project Gujarat as a violent and disturbed State'' and conspiring "to remove people's faith from the elected Government.''Journalists who covered the violence were vulnerable not only to the rage of unruly mobs but also to harassment and assault by police who did not want evidence of their complicity in the attacks publicised. Police in Rajkot, beat up Sudhir Vyas, a reporter of The Times of India, while he attempted to cover the unrest. They said: "Why are you here? Have you come to report on what we are doing?'' Mr. Vyas told CPJ. ``They knew I was seeing what they allowed others to do.''

In June, the Union Government threatened to expel Time magazine's New Delhi bureau chief, Alex Perry, after he wrote an article questioning the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee's fitness to lead the country during heightened tension on the subcontinent. Though officials interrogated Mr. Perry about alleged visa infractions, they took no further action.

Less than a month later, the Government forced the Al-Jazeera correspondent, Nasir Shadid, to leave India. "Al-Jazeera is replacing its correspondent,'' the External Affairs Ministry spokeswoman, Nirupama Rao, said, according to The Associated Press. "This is a decision the Government of India makes.''

Mr. Shadid's colleagues in New Delhi said the journalist had angered officials with his reporting, particularly on attacks against Muslims in Gujarat and on the conflict in Kashmir. Iftikhar Gilani, the New Delhi bureau chief for the Jammu-based newspaper Kashmir Times, suffered harassment. The Government accused him of possessing classified documents and jailed him for seven months under the Official Secrets Act. Journalists working in Kashmir continue to endure physical assault, threats and harassment, and in 2002 the number of attacks against the press increased there. Militant groups were believed to have carried out the most serious of these assaults, including three incidents in which journalists were shot and one in which a grenade hit a reporter's home.

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