INDIAN media boasts an illustrious history. Born during thefreedom struggle against the British colonial rule, it quickly mastered therules of the game, working around the stiff curbs and acute sensitivities ofcolonial masters. If the Independence movement saw popular newspapers provideintellectual leadership and direction to the country, the post-independence erasaw them really thrive, mirroring the aspirations and dreams of a young nation.Except for the dark interregnum of Indira Gandhi’s Emergency when in the wordsof Lal Krishna Advani it chose to crawl when told to bend, Indian media hasbeen fiercely independent and free-spirited. Never shying away from speakingtruth to power, it has jealously guarded its freedom under successivegovernments.
My former newspaper, Indian Express, has by far been themost fearless of them all, perpetually defying the government of the day withits brilliant reportage, incisive commentary and groundbreaking investigativestories. Celebrated for bringing down governments with some of its brilliantand famous exposes, the Express chose to defiantly print blank sheets in placeof editorial and news columns when told to submit them to government scrutinyduring Emergency years.
I wonder what happens to this celebrated independent streakof Indian media when dealing with the conundrum called Kashmir. Except for afew courageous voices, most journalists lose their mojo as it were as theyobsequiously toe the official narrative.
The broadcast or electronic media is even more hopeless.While issues of human rights violations and humanitarian suffering elsewhere inthe country are promptly reported and played out a zillion times in 24/7 media,they are swallowed up by a cold silence of indifference and apathy when similarthings happen in Kashmir. Worse still, they are portrayed as a Pakistani plotto sow seeds of strife in Kashmir and tear it away from the unwilling hands ofmother India.
If only Indian journalists were able to see Kashmir not as apiece of territory with predominantly Muslim majority, claimed and obsessedover by our pesky Western neighbor, but as a people of flesh and blood verymuch human like us, would we still be so indifferent and insensitive to theirpredicament and the appalling humanitarian tragedy that is Kashmir?
In 2011, the State Human Rights Commission of Jammu andKashmir released a report documenting more than 2,000 unidentified bodies in30-40 odd mass graves and essentially verified other similar reports from localorganizations, most notably the International People’s Tribunal of Human Rightsand Justice in Indian Administered Kashmir. DNA testing subsequently confirmedthat these bodies belonged to Kashmiris. And we are not even talking about thehundreds of rapes and thousands of routine staged encounters and humiliationthat Kashmiris go through on a daily basis at the hands of security forces atubiquitous checkpoints. Do you know that between 1989 and 2011 alone there havebeen more than 8,000 documented disappearances and at least 80,000 Kashmirideaths. Then there are those thousands of “half widows” who do not know whetherto wait for their missing husbands or mourn them.
Even through the off and on “dialogue” that New Delhi hasheld over the years with the Kashmiri separatists, these extrajudicial killingsand other methods of persuasion have never stopped. In the presence ofdraconian laws like AFSPA, which allows the security forces to get away withmurder in conflict zones, what do you expect? Even otherwise, AFSPA or noAFSPA, Kashmir is a special case and ‘occasional violations’ by troops areseemingly understandable and something that we in the media have learnt to livewith! This even after the Supreme Court in 2016 came down heavily on the abuseof AFSPA by security forces and the practice of ‘fake encounters’.
The top court blew apart the concept of immunity for thearmed forces saying there is no such thing as “absolute immunity” and that thesecurity forces could be tried by normal criminal courts for “use ofunwarranted and excessive force to kill a person even in a disturbed area.”
Wani was barely 16 when he was first apprehended in 2010along with his friend in Tral and brutally assaulted by the troops. His youngbrother was subsequently killed by the troops, giving birth to the legend ofthe man who is now being painted as the poster boy of Kashmir jihad by themedia.
Unfortunately, no lessons have been learnt from 2010 whenKashmir was last rocked by violent protests or many such repeated bouts ofviolence, unrest and mindless killings. It has been a familiar pattern over theyears. All it takes is a small incident or provocation, real or imagined, tolight the fuse and blow up the powder keg of frustration and all-pervasiveanger.
Yet few of us in and outside the media are prepared tolisten to the Kashmiri side of the story.
What will it take for all those in authority to heed the SCwarning that “the rule of law applies even in disturbed areas and even whendealing with the enemy”?
To most Indians, especially the neo-rich and upwardly-mobilemiddle classes and the self-anointed protectors of national interest in themedia, Kashmir is an integral and inalienable part of India. Period.
The Kashmiris, their angst and aspirations, long anddocumented history of a free existence and all the fine promises that were madeto them by independent India’s leadership at the time of accession be damned!It hardly matters what the Kashmiris want even if this has been their homeland.It is we who will decide what they should want and deserve.
As Jhuma Sen argues, “New Delhi has been the self-appointedarbitrator in determining Kashmiri aspirations and claims to freedom.”
And the Indian media and establishment dutifully follow thesame unwritten policy, telling Kashmiris ad nauseam what they should want andget. “The policy of denying Kashmiris the right to articulate what they wanthas been successfully carried forward by Indian media, where a prime timedebate on Kashmir after every periodic unrest usually includes everyone but aKashmiri with the anchor repeatedly thundering: “But what do they want?”
Why do you think the Kashmiris — five generations of themsince 1931, the year of the first revolt against the Maharaja — have beenfighting and dying for all these years?
All that the Kashmiris want is the same inalienable rightsthat you and I enjoy. I know this is not something that is palatable to themajority of proud and patriotic Indians, especially under the currentdispensation.
Kashmir will continue to bleed as long as we do not acceptthat the Kashmiris deserve the same rights, freedom, and dignity that we solove and cherish.