Gaurav Das 
Guwahati: Noted Assamese music composer and singer Ramen Barua has gone missing since July 22 from Guwahati. Since then, Barua’s immediate family, the illustrious household which has contributed immensely in defining the zeitgeist in the Assamese socio-cultural sphere, has been in the crosshairs of intense media scrutiny.
After his daughter Barnika Barua, filed a missing report with the nearest police station as her father did not return home on July 22 afternoon post his usual walk around the neighbourhood, the local police began looking for him. He was last seen near a market by the river Brahmaputra that flows not far from his house; a close circuit camera caught him walking towards the river. He was not seen coming back from the river.
Police suspect that he might have been swept away by the Brahmaputra, now on a spate. However, by then, the media trial of the daughter, kicked up by local electronic media, was complete; it had decided that the daughter was indirectly ‘responsible’ for the octogenarian Barua’s disappearance. Comments on her marital status, her lifestyle, her purported arguments with her father and alleged family discord – all hinged on non-stop bytes of random neighbours, also by some relatives – were broadcast to formulate a public opinion against her.
Barnika Barua. Photo: Gaurav Das.
Over the last five decades, Ramen Barua and his 12 siblings had played a significant role in invigorating Assamese cinema, music, business and sports. Their hundred-year-old family residence – a fine example of indigenous construction located in the city’s Latasil area – recently featured in an award-winning documentary that held up the family’s contribution to various aspects of Assamese life. Barua himself had lent music to as many as 29 Assamese films.
However, this time around, the iconic family is back in public discourse all thanks to a media trial.
Media trial in Assam, particularly by a considerable section of the vernacular news channels, is not new. Barua’s sudden disappearance has brought to the fore, once again, questions about selective blaming by local media, maintaining decorum, ethics, decency and responsibility while carrying out its work. Its non-stop reporting of the tragic incident took the turn of giving itself the role of a ‘judge’ on the hunt for a likely villain of the piece. It, thereby, also played with the vulnerability of an iconic family, now in distress.
The unsparing outpour over the incident via the electronic media which was then seen transported to social media platforms, resulting in public dissection of the illustrious family’s personal life, has led some prominent Assamese personalities from across different fields to stand up against it. Several of them have taken to social media to speak up against the insensitive narrative woven by a wide section of media and the distasteful invasion of the family’s privacy.
They have described such rumour-mongering and sensational coverage of the tragic incident as borderline voyeuristic and lacking empathy; also as an example of the erosion of media’s social and moral values and its impact on society.
The Wire reached out to the daughter, Barnika Barua, on the ongoing media trial. She called it “callous and utterly shameful”.
“It is meant only to garner TRPs (target rating points) devoid of human sensitivity.”
She also asked, “How much does the media know about me?”
“I am an easy target for them also because I am a woman and a divorcee. They said that I drink and entertain guests at my home. Have they really seen me drinking? They even went to the extent of locating my ex-husband and asking questions about me, my character. Do they realise that with my father’s disappearance what I am going through at the moment and how my relatives are coping with it? They are not at all worried about my father. They only care for amping up their TRPs by dishing our sensationalism to their viewers,” said Barnika.
She felt the non-stop media trial “has crossed all limits”.
“It is time certain rules and regulations to maintain media ethics be brought in in Assam to ensure that there is no sensationalism while reporting delicate issues.”
“At the moment though, I am not worried about how low they have stooped because my utmost and immediate concern is about the well-being of my father and his immediate return.”
After Barua’s disappearance on July 22, people across Assam were fixated on their television screens as news anchors discussed an “apparent constant and spiteful domestic discord” between the father and the daughter. The narrative was then amplified via social media platforms.
There were also news reports over the real estate value of the family’s property that allegedly became a bone of contention between Ramen and Barnika. A prominent television journalist on his news programme even reported that discordant exchanges between the duo were ‘loud’ and often heard by the Barua’s neighbours. The journalist claimed that after dusk, Barnika transforms herself into a different character who spews obscenities at her father, suggesting that during the daytime, her attitude towards her father was polite, but by dusk, it would be “rude” and “obscene”. He gave himself the role of the society’s moral police; told his viewers that she used to get “drunk” with her friends and that a daughter verbally abusing her father was almost “unheard” of in Assamese society.
Speaking to The Wire on such coverage of the incident, noted Assamese educationist Dinesh Baishya commented, “The basic questions that this ugly media trial is bringing to the fore are this – who is running the media in Assam today and who are the people at the helm of editorial affairs. This incident has exposed the bankruptcy of the intellectual acumen of those people who run the local media. It is a tragic incident. But it has become a voyeuristic mechanism for them to dish out to common people. Instead of showing sensitivity and decency, the media narrative is driven by market frenzy.” Baishya was one of the first few people to have taken to social media to question the ongoing media trial of the Barua family.
Noted film critic Utpal Borpujari, who directed the well-recieved documentary on the family, told this corespondent, “While voyeuristic sensationalism should be condemned, the media has the responsibility to factually tell us the reasons leading to his disappearance. Sensationalism needs someone to blame for it. It needs a target. The onus should be on media education, awareness and responsibility.”
Guwahati-based actor and theatre director Sattyakee D’com Bhuyan, a longtime close associate of the Barua family, related to The Wire that “the Barua family has always been a set of reserved people.”
“The entire incident of Ramen Barua’s disappearance has been covered in local media, in a chaotic manner. It is the time for prayers for him and his family instead of resorting to sensationalism. I have known Barnika for a long time,” he said, adding that the media ought to “counsel” society instead of being a moral police.
Echoing the same sentiment, Akhil Ranjan Dutta, professor of political science at Gauhati University and a well-known writer-commentator, told The Wire, “This is a worrying trend. The family is facing a tragedy and this kind of sensationalism has only amplified their sad predicament. What we are seeing is competition among the media houses to see who can create more sensationalism rather than understand the family’s sadness. This trend in media is dangerous and needs to be stopped.”