Casteism in Media

(TheHoot.Org, 04/09/2006)

Lack of diversity in media employment did not prevent diversity of versions on the Gujarat events nor did it fail to reflect the perceptions of OBCs in the quota debate.

-- Dasu Krishnamoorty

Last week, The Hoot carried an article by Prof B. P. Sanjay that called for factoring the background of applicants and their media aspirations into the curricular and pedagogical framework of J schools with a view to ensuring social justice. The CSDS survey, Chandra Bhan Prasad’s views and B. N. Uniyal’s embarrassment formed the greater part of the context for his article, discounting the all-inclusive nature of social justice. It tends to lend strength to groups demanding social change on the basis of caste or religion, evident from the mention of Dalits, Brahmins and Muslims. The article should have explored alternative avenues to achieve social justice, alternatives other than the apartheid of caste/religion.

Prof. Sanjay has referred to Dalits, Muslims and women as groups whose visibility in the media is poor. I have seen the report of Yogendra Yadav and do not dispute its findings. But suggesting that newsrooms should be populated on the basis of caste composition of population is not a solution. It has the inescapable logic of partitioning every facet of public life on caste/religion basis. The whole idea that informs Prof. Sanjay’s article, the idea that the education system, its admissions, its syllabi and its philosophy should reconstitute so as to reorder the caste equations of the society, clashes with inclusive approach to social reform.

The professor says women, non-upper castes and Muslims are grossly underrepresented. This is not true about women, first. Being a male, I may have a bias, unknown to me. When I came to Delhi in 1969, there were Razia Ismail as chief reporter in the Indian Express, Sunanda Roy as chief sub-editor in the Motherland, Promila Kalhan and Prabha Dutt in Hindustan Times and the affable Amita Malik, Rami Chabra and Shanta Sarabjeet Singh as well-known columnists. That was only the beginning. Today, the same number of women can be found in the media as one can find in media educational institutions like IIMC. As a person who taught at IIMC, universities of Hyderabad and Osmania for fifteen years, I can say that women are well represented in media and media educational institutions. I remember an occasion when 24 of the 25 students of Punjab University journalism department visiting IIMC were girls.

About Muslims, now. Before I refer to the print sector, let me mention films since they are part of media. The Khan tribe dominates filmdom though the producers and directors are Non-Muslims. How? Coming to newspapers, have you heard of M.J.Akbar, Sayeed Naqvi or Seema Mustafa? How are they there? They are there because they deserved to be there. Or, how do Christians, whose representation in the media is more than their share in population, manage to get there? Discrimination? If Brahmins are in the media in numbers that some people do not like, who are we to blame? We also forget that for every Brahmin in the media, there could be at least ten other Brahmins who failed to get in. Some argue that the Brahmins have the advantage of means and learning. This is not true at all. This is a device to evade argument.

Dalits need help. Such help must start at the bottom by educating every impecunious Dalit that needs schooling. Let Dalits be inspired by the example of K.R.Narayanan or Ambedkar himself or many other Dalits who are not Narayanans but who succeeded in life without demanding untenable concessions. I am sure fifty years of reservations must have produced at least two generations of creamy layer capable of competing in the general category. Proud Dalits have demolished the myth of backwardness if you look at the following statistics:

"A total of 425 candidates have been recommended for the Indian Administrative Service; Indian Foreign Service; Indian Police Service; and Central Services, Group ‘A’ and Group ‘B’. Of these, 210 are from the general category, including six physically challenged candidates, 117 Other Backward Classes, including three physically challenged candidates, 57 Scheduled Castes, including two physically challenged candidates, and 41 Scheduled Tribes, including one physically challenged candidate." If they could do well at civil services, they could excel at media skills too. If it is argued that they had succeeded because they competed with peers in the reserved category, I may assert that their children will compete and succeed in the general category.

True, institutions in the public domain and funded by the State have admission policies that reflect social justice parameters. These policies are valid if social justice means inducting casteism into every public activity. Media really deserve condemnation if a Dalit or Muslim had applied for a job and was rejected though he had the requisite qualification. However, to discriminate against Dalits the employer or the editor needs to know that the applicant is from backward classes. How does he know? Even when his name indicated that he was a Muslim, Mohammed Vazeeruddin was appointed as a copy editor in the Indian Express, ignoring other applicants because he turned out brilliant copy. This is just to show that editors everywhere look for competent journalists and not Brahmins or other upper caste persons.

Lack of diversity in the newsrooms of Indian media may deprive us of certain perspectives and lead to disconnect, says Prof. Sanjay. Lack of diversity in media employment did not prevent diversity of versions on the Gujarat events nor did it fail to reflect the perceptions of OBCs in the quota debate. If Mandal II coverage suffered loss of objectivity at the hands of non-Dalit journalists, would Dalits reporting Mandal II be more objective? Diversity also means that diverse groups in media will take charge of the interests of diverse groups in the society. But first, news events do not happen on the basis of diversity. Second, acceptance of this logic would justify the allocation of space and time in the media on the basis of diversity in social structures: 3 per cent space for Brahmins, 13 per cent for Muslims and so on. Is this the way to eliminate discrimination?

As for decision making, it is the publisher who controls the process. If he is pro-quota, no upper caste reporter can take a line different from his. Somehow, there is something very humiliating in accepting that some castes are superior and some others are not. Casteism is a conspiracy against humanity and no amount of tautology can hide its hideous face.

Whoever complained of the Hindu allocating disproportionate space to music must answer the question: In proportion to what? Has music any caste? They also forget that the Hindu provides voice to writers like Kancha Iliah, Gail Omvedt and Andre Beteille, all friends of Dalits. I agree with Prof. Sanjay that representation alone is perhaps not the solution. Dalits must be encouraged to think about their future and stop recalling past injustices and listening to the likes of Chandra Bhan Prasad. That is what upper castes of Tamil Nadu did. Karunanidhi is not very happy about it.

As far as I know, being a Muslim is not a media handicap unless he wants a job in the Organizer. It is motivation that helped the success of every successful Indian. To encourage groups to seek crutches eternally is to condemn them to that state eternally. Critics have failed to ask themselves simple questions like how did successful persons succeed. Media or no media, job entitlement is linked to a person’s ability to deliver goods. Irfan Patel or Mohammed Kaif got into Team India not because they are Muslims.

Skills are not the monopoly of any one community. This monopoly is a myth fabricated to refute argument. This implies the superiority of one community over the other in terms of intelligence, a theory no self-respecting person will endorse.