Backstory: Dispatches From the Frontline, or Can Journalism Prevent Brutal Military Aggression?

Ukraine sears the consciousness, with skies rent by missile fire and towering columns of dense smoke; its cities and towns torn down to their foundations as the brutality of tank metal scrunches its way into the pores of the country. The very fabric of life is torn to shreds with an estimated two million citizens turned into refugees, scrambling to leave the places they call home, desperately seeking safer spaces for themselves and their children if at all they exist. Making sense of multi-dimensional catastrophes like wars -- as journalists at the frontline are expected to do -- requires at least four attributes.

First, it requires limitless reservoirs of physical and mental energy to carry on in the face of oceanic devastation, human suffering and desolation.

Second, it requires the capacity to understand the geo-political underpinnings of the war as well as the circuitous histories that have created it.  Informed war reportage has strong epistemological foundations. Russia’s unmitigated and unforgivable invasion of Ukraine may have begun on February 24, but the extended and bitter entanglements between the two countries have taken place long before that fateful Thursday (for a good summary of this history, read Rohini Hensman’s ‘The Historical Background to Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine’). Without the benefit of a deeper understanding of the realities of this war or driven by a blind adherence to the Government of India’s stance, reportage and analyses could end up as unintended comedy shows.  The long rant that a Times Now anchor delivered to an unfortunate “Mr McAdams” provided comic relief but it was also a warning that even newsroom scripts need surer foundations than a superficial regurgitation of the GOI’s official position on the war.

Third, there is an urgent requirement for networks and connections in order to capture the voices of both those who make wars and those who flee them. These are not built in a day, but once they are at hand, they provide the journalist with an invaluable edge.

Fourth, and most important, the ability to capture the horrors playing out, and doing so in a way that resonates with readers and viewers. Some of the great litterateurs of the world have been war correspondents. Orwell, Hemingway, Gellhorn, all, honed their literary genius in theatres of conflict and some of the world’s most moving poetry was incubated in battlefields by eye-witnesses: “There watched I for the Dead; but no ghost woke./Each one whom Life exiled I named and called.”

So what were the major shortcomings of the Indian media’s coverage of the Ukraine-Russia war thus far? First of all was its lack of independent reporting and an overt dependence on western media sources. Ukraine brought back memories of the Iraq war delivered to us 19 years ago this March through satellite television. Our understanding of that war was made by television feed sourced from journalists embedded in the US army.  The White House promised regime change, and CNN with its sales pitch “Be the first to know”, brought it in real time to our screens. So overwhelming was the shock and awe of that media operation that we could have been forgiven for believing that this was a display of Diwali fireworks on the banks of the Tigris.

Today, even the few media outlets, including India Today and NDTV, which (all credit to them) did send reporters to Ukraine, have had to greatly buttress their coverage with large wedges of programming from international news agencies marked by their sharply etched ideological binaries – pro-Ukraine-pro-West/anti-Russia, or vice versa.

In my mail box was a comment (see the Letters section of this column) from a disappointed reader about The Wire’s failure to provide independent reportage and analysis of this war. It got me to look a little closer at the coverage. At the outset, let me state unequivocally that I believe that the invasion and devastation of Ukraine should be seen as the most important story of the present times, one that has already changed the contours of the world as we know it. Since February 15, The Wire put out over 70 reports, analyses, comments and interviews, and the frequency of these pieces increased significantly once Russia formally announced its assault on Ukraine on February 24, terming it a "special military operation" (which the western media immediately countered by labelling it quite rightly as “Putin’s war” although that should have read “Putin’s imperial war”). The most significant reporting from actual theatres of conflict for The Wire came from Reuters and, to a tiny degree, the Press Trust of India, supplemented by desk rewrites.

A great deal of the pieces were inevitably India centric – Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s responses, the tragedy of Indian medical students trapped in war zones, the impacts the war was having, and could have, on the Indian economy, and so on. There were analyses on the geo-political ramifications seen largely through the prism of Indian “national interest”, including in terms of its military hardware. The nuclear threat that the war entailed, a prime concern for a nuclear weaponised region like ours, was an important element in the mix.

The effort made by The Wire team to compensate for the lack of boots on the ground was patent and needs to be acknowledged, but I cannot disagree with the reader’s observation that the coverage was inadequate. Various extenuating circumstances can be cited for the gap. This was a period of active election campaigning with five states – including Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most politically significant one – going to the polls. It was therefore only inevitable that Ukraine got nudged out of the frame every now and then. Editorial attention also needed to be paid to one of the biggest humanitarian challenges for India that was thrown up in this war – the evacuation of approximately 18,000 students, besides other Indians trapped in the Ukraine under terrifying conditions. The death of one of them, 21-year-old Naveen Shekharappa Gyanagoudar from Karnataka only underlined this.

But by far the most obvious reason for the inadequate coverage is that even while The Wire has always tried to punch above its weight, providing consistent, independent, eye-witness reportage of the Ukraine-Russia conflict which could stretch out for weeks if not months, is a prohibitively expensive proposition that an organisation with as modest a financial base as this one would not be able to support.

The question then is could The Wire have done better despite these obvious challenges? A little bit of enterprise can sometimes go some way. A good example of this was the way a staffer was able to get Romanian Mayor Anghel Mihai to talk on his confrontation with India’s Union Minister for Aviation, Jyotiraditya Scindia, over the evacuation of Indian students (‘Watch: Romanian Mayor Calls Scindia's Conduct Rude, 'Presence Made No Difference in Rescue Process', March 9). Mihai appears to be a quirky sort of character, especially when he observed that Scindia “had made a bad PR speech and if the minister would have spoken to him in advance, he (Mihai) could have helped Scindia make a good PR speech” – a right royal snub that was!

Tapping into the community of commentators and politicians based in Ukraine and Russia could perhaps be an important way to understand this complicated and devastating conflict without straining the bottom line. Forging networks of alternative media platforms and sharing news reports can also be very useful proposition.

Today, Julian Assange is facing deportation because he lifted the veil of secrecy over the Iraq War. As he once observed, “The Iraq War …was also the clearest case, in my living memory, of media manipulation and creation of war through ignorance.” If journalism resists manipulation and provides the necessary information to help dispel the fog of ignorance that created this unacceptable, unnecessary war, the media need to get to work.

Important compilation

One of the pieces that jumped out of the page for me this time was The Wire’s ‘100+ Instances of Hate Speech, Religious Polarisation, Hindutva Supremacy in Adityanath’s Poll Speeches’ (March 3), a compilation of 34 publicly available speeches over three months (best read along with ‘89 Instances of Hate Crimes, Hate Speech Across Six North Indian States in Four Months’). Now that we will have another five years of this figure towering over India’s largest state, it becomes even more important to remember just how deeply he drank from communal wells during his electioneering. His dogwhistle formulations were many – from the 80:20 formulation to references to Akhilesh as ‘Babua’ who has been “on the path of his Abbajaan”.

If his speeches were liberally sprinkled with the word ‘danga’ – the piece notes that across 32 speeches, “Yogi Adityanath mentions riots and rioteers (words related to ‘danga’) 133 times” – another much favoured term was “atank” (terror). “Atank” was used at least 28 times and what was striking about their use was their indiscriminate nature. It was used to damn Kashmiris as well as those who “shot Ram Bhakts” (a reference to Mulayam Singh’s use of police force to quell those threatening to attack the Babri Masjid in 1990), as well as those committing rape and ‘dacoity’. Another way in which anti-Muslim attacks were ratcheted up in these speeches was the loose way in which the word “Taliban” figured in them.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi being received by UP CM Yogi Adityanath on his arrival at athe airport in Kanpur, Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2021. Photo: PTI

These keywords of the Adityanath lexicon are not going nowhere. They will continue to fertilise his ideological imaginary and political practice in the days ahead. As this ambitious politician in loose flowing saffron garments eyes the highest post in the country’s political pyramid, we would need to keep a close track of the alphabets of hate spewing from him.

Punishing MediaOne

Once again those institutions that are meant to provide checks and balances to State overreach are failing the Indian media. The manner in which the Malayalam channel, MediaOne, has had its licence to operate revoked in a completely opaque manner is alarming. Look at the sequence of developments here. First the Union Ministry of Information of Information and Broadcasting refuses to renew the channel’s licence to operate after the Union Ministry of Home Affairs does not grant the necessary security clearance. When the channel demands to know the grounds on which its licence is not being extended, it gets no clear answer.

In the end of January, the channel put out the following statement: “Dear audience, the telecast of MediaOne channel has once again been disallowed by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, citing security reasons. The Government has not been forthcoming with the details... For the time being, we are suspending our telecast, confident that justice will prevail” (‘Kerala HC Temporarily Defers I&B Ministry’s Ban on News Channel MediaOne’, January 31). Justice, however, has not prevailed thus far. Both the single-judge bench of the high court followed by the division bench of the same court has endorsed the stand of the Union government without the aggrieved party being told the reason for the suspension. Evidence of the supposed threat to national security that the channel supposedly poses was not made public with the state taking recourse to the notorious “sealed cover” route.

The respective judges have evidently found nothing wrong with the procedure. The case has rightly raised the hackles of concerned lawyers and civil society representatives. A statement signed by 42 eminent people, including the chairperson of the The Hindu  N. Ram, former judge of Bombay high court B.G. Kolse Patil, and noted author Tushar Gandhi, termed the suspension as “arbitrary” and “represents a clamp down on broader press freedom in India.” Lawyers Kaleeswaram Raj and Thusasi K. Raj, in a recent editorial piece in The Hindu noted that the “jurisprudence of the ‘sealed cover’ route is appalling and “is an emulation of the tenor in the judgement in ADM Jabalpur (1976)” – the notorious verdict that held that fundamental rights could be suspended in an emergency and is now considered a blot on Indian jurisprudence.

That this suspension of the licence is politically motivated was made clear by a public declaration of the leaders of the BJP’s Mahila Morcha in Thiruvanthapuram some time ago. They revealed that three more Malayalam news channels won't get their licences renewed.

Readers write in…

Inadequate coverage of Ukraine invasion

K. Subramaniam, a professor at the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, TIFR, Mumbai, expresses his disappointment: “I am a supporter and well-wisher of The Wire, but I am disappointed with how little coverage of the Ukraine invasion I see in The Wire. While recognising the US’s imperialist aggression across the globe, one cannot do whataboutery and not call the Russian aggression for what it is. I hope that there will be balanced coverage in your news channel.”

Comparing Malaysia and India

Dr S. Munirah Alatas, who is at the Strategic Studies and International Relations Center for Research in History, Politics and International Affairs (SPHEA), Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, National University of Malaysia, writes in… “I am an academic based in Malaysia and recently had the opportunity to listen to Karan Thapar's recent interview with Farooq Abdullah (‘Full Text | ‘Kashmiris Feel Rejected by the Nation, Nobody Feels Our Pain’: Farooq Abdullah’, December 27). Malaysians are currently bogged down with so much chaos, politically, socially, (and recently, the effects of Typhoon Rai). Our biggest challenge (as it is in India), is corruption and ethnocentrism among our leadership. Our society remains divided and it is fraying at the seams. Other problems in Malaysia are the gross lack of freedom of the media, and possibly a lack of knowledge (or interest?) that Malaysians have for political and social developments in neighbouring countries. As you know, issues of race and religion in Malaysia are very precarious and highly politicised. Nevertheless, I wanted to see how many would draw a parallel between what Farooq Abdullah expressed, and his tearful reaction (politician or not, "a drama king" or not, his reaction was a brief moment of frustration, grief and desperation). Similarly, in Malaysia I feel millions of non-Muslims harbor such feelings, on account of how they are ill-treated by the majority race. With Covid-19, the situation has gotten worse, what with the political chaos that emerged at the same time. As you may also know, we are currently under a government that was not elected. The ethnic divisions are largely imagined by a leadership bent on "dividing and ruling". Malaysians as a people, on the whole, do get along. However, there are changes slowly taking place at the ground level, as well, which worry me. I am hoping to draw your attention to a possible story or a series of newsworthy items for The Wire to consider at some point. You could discuss the crumbling of our two nations, and how our leaders are deliberately dividing their people.”

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What about Hinduphobia?

Jyotsna Gupta has some questions for The Wire: “You comment every time a Muslim is shown as a villain (Rocket Boys, Suryavanshi), question the treatment accorded to Rohingya but never that of Kashmiri Hindus.You never ask who burnt the entire train compartment occupied by Hindus (men, women, elderly & children) but left no stone unturned to make PM Modi a “Maut Ka Saudagar”. Why only talk about "Islamophobia" what about "Hinduphobia"?...

“I know you will label me as Sanghi, Modi Bhakt, Saffron Terror, but I don't care. I only care about my country. What did you see in Karnataka by Hindu students? It gives me immense pride and honour that our younger generation is fully equipped to take care of itself, keeping our Hindus and the nation safe.”

No to NATO

Musician Mistahi Corkill sent across another link that is of contemporary interest: “I link below my new anti-war music video, No to NATO. At this time NATO warmongers feign concern for Ukrainians and repeat high ideals of ‘peace and security’. They are trying to manipulate the anti-war sentiment of people into supporting their agenda for worldwide hegemony while covering up their own crimes, as well as their role in the instigation of this current crisis in Europe. It is the height of cynicism and opportunism, and it is extremely dangerous for people of all countries to fall victim to this ploy.

I hope my new song is useful for the anti-war movement…

No to NATO

Sam Rajappa’s investigation

Senior journalist and author Sumanta Banerjee sent in these observations: “Your tribute to Sam Rajappa touched a deep emotional  chord in me (‘Backstory: The Media Contributed to Hijab Face-off Spiraling Out of Control’, February 12). Sam and I were colleagues in The Statesman in Delhi from 1967 till 1973 – sharing journalistic experiences, fun and adventures. I met him for the last time in Chennai (perhaps some time in the late 1980s), where he was still working as a journalist. He never shared this story of how he exposed the killing of P. Rajan while in police custody in 1976. It was only through your column that I learnt about how my friend Sam went as a prisoner to get smuggled into jail and gain access to Rajan’s jail mate and hear an eye-witness account of what really happened to him. He broke the story in The Statesman. What a great instance of investigative journalism!”

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