Source: thehoot | Author: ARITRA BHATTACHARYA | seamusmurphy
Over the course of four days (11-14 January 2016) that the patrol party spent at Nendra village in left wing extremism-affected Basaguda block of Chhattisgarh, they gang-raped 13 women, stripped several others naked, fondled their breasts and genitals, berated and abused them physically and verbally and threatened to thrust chillies up their rectum (‘g**d mein mirchi daalnege’ were their exact words, say villagers).
In normal circumstances, the media may have been expected to report on, at the very least, the rather serious allegations of the rape of vulnerable tribal women by the security forces. Thirteen women raped over four days by those supposed to protect ‘the country’ isn’t a mere statistic. Studies in India and abroad have shown repeatedly how violence in any conflict is gendered, and 13 isn’t a number any women’s rights organisation would want to paper over. Not in normal circumstances.
Except that the circumstances in Bastar aren’t normal. This ‘allegation’ of rape and gangrape, if you will, came barely two months after the registration of an FIR in the same district alleging rape by the security forces. Over 40 women had complained, on that occasion in full media glare, about men from the ‘force’ molesting them routinely. The November FIR – the first ever instance of one detailing rape by the security forces in conflict-torn Bastar – was the first acknowledgement by the state machinery in these parts that such crimes may have been committed by its own functionaries.
When the allegations of rape and loot in Nendra first surfaced this time on 17 January, the media had adequate reason to accord them some importance, given that they were coming from the same block as the ones in November 2015. Yet, not a word of the allegations made it to the national media at a time when 16 tribals, including eight rape survivors, kept trying to reason unsuccessfully with the bureaucracy and police machinery to at least register an FIR.
The villagers were helped in this task by a fact-finding team from Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS) which was in the area.
What is reported and what isn’t
If pursuing a story is still a basic tenet of journalism in the digital age, national newspapers and web outlets should have turned their focus to the allegations in Bastar, more so because most of them had reported the lodging of the FIR on similar grounds just two months earlier. Yet, only The Hindu among the English dailies ran a story on 22 January, a day after the FIR was registered.
No media house, including those powerful enough to buy off governments, has since sent in its correspondents into these villages to investigate the grave allegations. This failure exposes, once again, how coverage of the Maoist conflict is incident-based and fact-based. The lodging of an FIR is an incident, a fact; allegations of rape aren’t. So the former is often news and the latter mere hearsay not worthy of investment or coverage.
Incidentally, this is exactly how the security establishment, the accused in this case, views the matter. In a conversation with members of WSS regarding the need to register an FIR, Anti-Naxal Operations (ANO) ASP Elsela reportedly said, “Allegations (of rape) will keep coming. Does it mean we will lodge an FIR every time?”
In subscribing to the establishment’s viewpoint on a matter as grave as sexual violence and rape by the security forces, the media inadvertently becomes party to the crime, perhaps also a co-conspirator. And despite our thriving democracy, those journalists who refuse to toe this line, such as Scroll.in contributor Malini Subramaniam, expose themselves to immense risk, threats and violence.
Government sources dictate the coverage
That the media sides with the establishment when it comes to covering the Maoist conflict isn’t a revelation for those who have followed it. As a recent piece on this site examining coverage of the Naxal issue pointed out, media coverage of the Maoist conflict is represented “in terms of what the government [is] actively doing to address the crisis through its police interventions and pro-social work.”
One look at newspapers across the board in Bastar will tell you that the police and government functionaries are the only regular sources of information for ‘local news’. Most journalists working for the local media or providing content to the national media don’t dare to venture into villages inside the jungle to bring out aspects of the conflict and provide analysis and understanding that go beyond staged incidents like encounters, arrests, and official statements.
For those who do, like Santosh Yadav (a freelance journalist who has been in police detention since September 2015), the price is high as yet another recent piece here showed: illegal detention, beatings, imprisonment, and false cases.
Reporters working for local channels and newspapers in Bastar are at the…
