Some dos and don’ts: Media needs new rules to cover political violence in Bengal

So it only took one day for images of political violence in Bengal to disappear from our television screens and front pages of newspapers. But while it lasted, news channels thought they had invited all the stakeholders to the evening debates. That means one representative each from the TMC, the BJP, the Congress and the CPM. Seems fair enough, doesn’t it? Not at all. Because the TMC, the CPM and the Congress are on the same side, united against the BJP. So it is really three liberal parties against one. This is just the beginning of what the media gets wrong when reporting on Bengal. Perhaps deliberately. Also, the debate panels typically included at least one senior journalist from Bengal. That means one more leftist. So it is four versus one, which leaves the BJP all alone. Smooth sailing for the TMC. First, the ruling party gives its view. Then it gets soft questions from two supposed opposition parties and one supposedly neutral journalist. Life is easy when you have liberal privilege. On election day, we are supposed to get updates about voter turnout. We talk about opinion polls and exit polls. If you are more serious, you talk about the issues. But what do you do when you need a ticker on the screen to count the number of dead and injured since last night? Most TV channels use the language of old style battle when discussing elections. Words like bastion or stronghold. They show animations of political leaders in battle armor, wearing a helmet and carrying a sword. But that is supposed to be just a figure of speech. It was supposed to be in good humor. What do you do in Bengal where the bloodshed is real? So let me suggest some new rules for the media. So that we can understand the gravity of the situation in Bengal. And ask the right questions. Stop saying that political violence is a ‘tradition’ in Bengal You are getting it wrong. Rosogolla is a tradition in Bengal. So is Rabindra Sangeet. So is Durgapujo with the sound of dhaak in the background. In Cooch Behar district, voters arrived at the polling station in the morning to find the BJP representative murdered. His body lay on the doorstep. His head was all smashed up in a pool of blood. Whose ‘tradition’ is that? Not mine. Not of any other community. Do not make excuses for the failure of the ruling government to maintain law and order. Yes, there is a history of deadly political violence in the state. The media should inform people about that. Bengal has been ruled by a number of political parties. And each successive government has made a conscious choice to use political violence for its benefit. Incidentally, all of these parties that have ruled Bengal are on the same side today: Congress, CPM and TMC. The media should question them, not the culture of innocent Bengalis. Acknowledge the role of media in covering up political violence in Bengal In 1997, the Left Front government presented official data on the floor of the West Bengal Assembly. By official count, there had been 28,000 political murders since Jyoti Basu came to power in 1977. That works out to an average of 1400 political murders a year. That is over 116 political murders a month, or just under 4 political murders a day. Every day, for twenty years running. These are horrifying numbers. Then why are so few people aware of them? We all know the answer. Because the vast majority of people in media and intellectual circles are sympathetic to the left. They see left liberal dominance in West Bengal as a bulwark against the BJP. That is why they have covered up the facts about Bengal for 75 years. So much so that the same Jyoti Basu was offered the chair of prime minister several times in the 1990s. Imagine what would have happened to India if four decades of Nehruvian socialism had been followed by a decade or more of Jyoti Basu’s Communism! And now, the media is doing it again. The media stopped covering the panchayat poll violence in Bengal after just one day. Inform people that “Central forces” in Bengal elections are not under the control of the Center By order of the Calcutta High Court, Central forces were deployed in Bengal for the period of the panchayat polls. But this also creates confusion in the minds of people about who is responsible for the failure to maintain law and order. When people hear names like CRPF, CAPF or CISF, they think that the Central government was in charge. At least one unscrupulous newspaper seems to be using this confusion to pass the blame to the Centre. Many other news outlets have done the same, whether deliberately or otherwise. But this is wrong. As per the Constitution, law and order is purely a state subject. When “central forces” are sent to a state, they only take orders from state authorities. During the panchayat polls, Central forces in Bengal were taking orders from the West Bengal State Election Commission (WBSEC), appointed by the TMC government. It was up to the WBSEC to decide where the central forces would be deployed and what they could do. The center had no role in the matter. In fact, the state government is even supposed to pay for using the services of Central forces. In this case however, the high court ordered the center to provide the services for free. This means that the nation as a whole is literally paying the price for the collapse of law and order in Bengal. Question the judiciary about the appointment of the State Election Commissioner Remember this? A few months ago, the Supreme Court took away the power of the government to appoint election commissioners. The power was transferred to a panel on which the government, the opposition and senior judges would all be represented. They said this would make elections more free and fair. But then, how did the TMC government manage to unilaterally appoint the state election commissioner in Bengal? Because that Supreme Court ruling applied only to the Election Commission of India. Every state has its own state election commission, which oversees local body polls. In effect, the Supreme Court took away the power of the prime minister to appoint the Chief Election Commissioner. But it did not touch the power of Chief Ministers to appoint State Election Commissioners. First of all, why this imbalance? Second, does this mean that the Supreme Court is not concerned about local body polls being free and fair? In fact, the state election commissioner in Bengal announced panchayat polls just one day after being appointed. Against all sane advice, he decided that the polls would be conducted in a single phase. This means that central forces were stretched thin, even where he allowed them to be deployed. And the ruling party had the best chance to use strong arm tactics everywhere. Why did the Supreme Court not apply the same logic to state election commissioners as it did to the Chief Election Commissioner? Who will take responsibility for this failure? Ask what is the real motive of those who want ballot papers back A man arrives at a voting booth. He grabs as many ballot papers as he wants, stamps them and stuffs them into the ballot box. Feel like you might lose the election? Open the box, pour a glass of water and destroy the paper ballots. Or you could just run away with the box, take it outside to be kicked around, or burned, or thrown into a pond. Are you behind while the votes are being counted? Just pick up a bunch of your opponent’s votes, chew them up and eat them. Don’t mind the cameras, because nobody cares. Such were the scenes from the panchayat polls in Bengal the other day. Should the media not ask what is the real motive of those who want to get rid of EVMs? Why would anyone want to see general elections in Bengal next year conducted with ballot papers? In the last few years, opposition parties and their intellectual fellow travelers have chased every wild goose theory about the Election Commission favoring the BJP. But when ballots are plundered openly in Bengal, they choose to be silent. And the media chooses not to question them about it. Humanise the victims of political violence in Bengal Ever seen those fashionable status updates? 100 days or 1000 days since so and so was put in jail. These are usually accompanied with a sepia tinged photo of some five-star activist raising their fist. But have you ever seen a status update about it being two years since someone died in political violence in Bengal? In any case, there is always another round of political violence happening in Bengal. The last one was in 2021 during the Assembly elections. Now it is happening during the panchayat elections. Like clockwork, we all know it will happen again during the general elections next year. Have you noticed? We only hear of the victims of poll violence in Bengal in terms of numbers. Their deaths are reported by ticker tape running at the bottom of the screen, if at all. Nobody gives out their names. Nobody goes to their villages to interview their relatives, their girlfriends or boyfriends. Soft words like “dog lover” or “college student” are reserved for privileged liberals who may have had to go down to the police station for a day or two. The media understands the power of images. A headline like “20 killed in violence in Bengal” will not bring out the same emotion as a front page photo accompanied with “College student, dog lover, 21, arrested.” Here is a challenge. Could you name even one person who has been murdered in political violence in Bengal? Let me at least name one. He was Trilochan Mahato. He was 18. They hanged him from a tree and wrote on his shirt that this is his punishment for joining BJP. That was five years ago, during the last round of panchayat polls in Bengal. What if the media had shown just a little bit more conscience back then? Perhaps the state government could have been shamed into taking responsibility. Maybe there would have been less violence this time around. Do not let off the state government with mild issues Several years ago, the TMC government arrested a professor because he forwarded a silly cartoon of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The case got some media attention back then, because of which most people remember it even today. Ironically, this actually works in favor of the TMC government now. Because liberals now use it as a convenient fig leaf. Look, we criticised Mamata Banerjee when she arrested that professor, they say. What more do you want from us? How can you say that we are not fair and balanced? Yes, I can say that. Because you do not want to talk about the hundreds of people who died in political violence in Bengal since that day. That is the only reason you keep bringing up that professor and the cartoon. It is a simple trick. And really quite perverse. Do not go to ridiculous lengths to cover for the TMC This should be obvious. But somehow it is not. The media needs to get a grip on their members who are getting carried away by their ideological need to defend the liberal TMC. I will give you an example from the 2021 Assembly election. One organisation said they had received an alert from the TMC that innocent TMC supporters were being stopped from voting in Bengal. Yes, you read that correctly. On receiving this alert, the media organization said they drove for three hours to go and report on this supposed incident. It is okay to be a liberal. But it is not okay to make a complete fool of yourselves. The author is an author and columnist. He tweets @AbhishBanerj. Views expressed are personal. Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.