Last week, India dropped two places to rank 140 out of 180 countries on the Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index. The report says that the lead up to the ongoing Lok Sabha election was a particularly dangerous time for journalists in India. It observes that violence against journalists — police violence, attacks by Maoist fighters, and reprisals by criminal groups or corrupt politicians — is one of the most striking characteristics of the current state of press freedom in India. It points out how criminal prosecutions are often used to gag journalists critical of the authorities, with some prosecutors invoking Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code under which sedition is punishable by life imprisonment. It rightly concludes that the mere threat of such a prosecution encourages self-censorship.
The spirit of reporters
The external environment is definitely hostile to free speech and good journalism. But journalists seem to be defiant of this hostility, as seen in the rush to seek admission to journalism schools and in the number of software professionals who switch careers to journalism. The idea of a public sphere and engagement with the common good has never wavered within the profession. Discussions among journalists are often about how to improve the quality of investigations, make methodologies more rigorous, and improve the style of communication. The external ecology fails to dampen the spirit of many reporters. What propels journalists to carry on with their mission?
Among the various tasks of being a journalist, the act of bearing witness brings in an element of empathy to the profession. Poet and journalist Kwame Dawes has documented for the Nieman Reports the interwoven roles he experienced as a witness — as a poet and as a journalist. Reflecting on his extensive work in Haiti, Mr. Dawes says his poems came from “grace moments”— moments of silence and seeming insignificance. He sees a difference between trying to understand intellectually and witnessing emotionally events unfolding before one’s eye. “I stand as a witness to the silences— to what goes unspoken and ignored — to the things that float away as if insubstantial but that are filled with the simple breaths of people trying to make sense of their existence. This act of witnessing allows us to reach to other levels of meaning that can only be reached through the poem,” he writes.
Reyhan Harmanci, editor at First Look Media, poses an important question: “Bear witness — but then what?” She argues for a framework where there are possibilities for calls to action, or at least discussion, that give meaning to the reams of primary documents. Roger Cohen of The New York Times asserts that “to bear witness means being there — and that’s not free.” He writes: “No search engine gives you the smell of a crime, the tremor in the air, the eyes that smolder, or the cadence of a scream. No news aggregator tells of the ravaged city exhaling in the dusk, nor summons the defiant cries that rise into the night. No miracle of technology renders the lip-drying taste of fear. No algorithm captures the hush of dignity, nor evokes the adrenalin rush of courage coalescing, nor traces the fresh raw line of a welt.”
Bearing witness
P.V. Srividya’s investigation into booth capturing, multiple voting and threats in a Pattali Makkal Katchi-dominated area called Nathamedu in Tamil Nadu vindicates all that is written about journalists being effective witnesses. The report, “Nathamedu makes a mockery of democracy” (April 19), captured the underbelly of the election process: deliberate fixing of the camera to avoid the voting compartment; capturing of the voting compartment; multiple voting; voting with no voter IDs and only booth slips; and open threats to the polling staff. The report had its effect. The Election Commission has sought a report on electoral malpractices, including booth capturing, in Nathamedu, which falls under the Dharmapuri parliamentary constituency, which incidentally recorded the highest turnout in the Lok Sabha election in the State. As long as journalism helps empower the general public with facts, no amount of external threat will rob its inherent agency to be an active witness.
readerseditor@thehindu.co.in
