Interview by Uday Rana
Journalists in South Asia have been kidnapped, brutally beaten, charged with defamation or sedition, and blocked on social media by authoritarian regimes. The region ranks low on the World Press Freedom Index: India is at rank 142 out of 180; Pakistan at 145; and Bangladesh at 151.
In this “remote roundtable,” listen to New Delhi-based journalist Uday Rana discuss with fellow journalists Manisha Pande, Haider Kaleem, and Badiuzzaman Bay the plight of their beleaguered colleagues in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan.
Pande is the executive editor of Newslaundry, a reader-supported, independent news media company, in New Delhi, India. Newslaundry is both a news website and an effective media watchdog—so effective, in fact, that they receive defamation notices from legacy media every now and then.
Kaleem is a journalist, researcher, and organizer from Lahore, Pakistan. Bay is a senior editorial assistant at The Daily Star in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He has written about the crisis in his own media industry.
The transcript below has been edited for conciseness.
UDAY RANA:
In India, media is turning into hate media. Manisha, for non-Indian audiences, could you briefly explain how the COVID crisis was covered by the mainstream media, specifically with what happened with the Tablighi Jamaat, and how the media scapegoated a minority?
MANISHA PANDE:
Before the pandemic hit us, we in India had a sea of protests. There was already a sort of communal dog-whistling that was happening in mainstream television media and daily based television media. I’d like to make that distinction. This is mostly what I would be talking about: daily based English and Hindi television media.
When the pandemic hit, we were wondering to ourselves, how are they going to turn this into a Hindu-Muslim thing?
When the lockdown was announced, what you saw in fact was quite jarring because you had very dramatic scenes of people walking back home, but mainstream television news channels were showing musical numbers and entertainment. It was like telling the audience, you stay home, and the news will entertain you.
Then the Tablighi Jamaat incident happened, and you had things like “corona jihad” and the television channels really targeting Tablighi Jamaat. The important thing to remember is when the congregation happened, India had no clampdown on religious congregations. Temples were still open, and weddings took place.
And yet it went to the extent that the media almost blamed the Tablighi Jamaat for the spread of the virus. So you had a Muslim or a minority community member at the heart of the reason why the pandemic spread in the country.
That was really cemented because they have mainstream channels and wide reach, especially the Hindi channels. No matter what the court said eventually about the responsibility, I think the popular perception among people if you would conduct a survey would be that the Tablighi Jamaat had a role in spreading coronavirus all over the country.
This is something that I don’t think can be scientifically proven, even through investigative reporting.
RANA:
Manisha, at Newslaundry, you often say “pay to keep the news free.” What does that mean?
PANDE:
From the very beginning, we at Newslaundry decided that we won’t take advertisements from governments or corporations because the fact is, if you’re going to depend on someone for your paychecks, you can’t be questioning them and writing anything critical about them. Otherwise, they will pull their ads and your lifeline will be cut.
We’ve been really clear about the fact that if you want an independent media, the public has to pay. If the public pays, then our journalism is going to serve the public interest.
RANA:
Badiuzzaman, I’d like to quote from an excellent but terrifying article that you wrote entitled, “We must save the press before coronavirus sinks it.” As of July 2020, 254 newspapers in the city of Dhaka alone were forced to shut down.
What do these media closures mean for journalists and media freedom in Bangladesh?
BADIUZZAMAN BAY:
I’d like to say the closures didn’t happen in Dhaka only. The figure that we have is from the Department of Films and Publications of the government. It is possible that many more newspapers even in Dhaka and the other eight divisional cities were also closed. But one thing is sure—that no major newspapers were closed.
Press freedom has been in decline long before coronavirus came to our shores. During the pandemic period starting in April, closures were only one part of the problem. There have been retrenchments and various kinds of harassment that journalists had to face. All these things together have had a terrible effect on the profession of journalism here in Bangladesh.
RANA:
Haider, I heard the disturbing news that two digital journalists with the news outlet VoicePK were harassed by Lahore police. This happened in Model Town, which is a cosmopolitan area of Lahore.
There was also a report that said that 138 journalists have been killed in Pakistan in the last 30 years. During the pandemic, journalists say that it’s difficult to get information from certain regions like Baluchistan. How much has COVID-19 made things worse for the journalists in your country?
HAIDER KALEEM:
It has gotten so bad that the journalists working in mainstream media outlets have been told that “if you want to work in this particular organization, you cannot have your own YouTube channel or you cannot share news on Twitter.” This is bad news for journalists who are really committed to their work and yet whose stories don’t get published, and they just want to share it on Twitter.
The journalists that you mentioned are very good friends of mine. They went to interview the guy who provides technical support to all the political gatherings. When the police came, one of the journalists messaged the reporters’ group that “they’re going to get me, I’m not even sure if they’re going to bring me to the police station or somewhere else.” That is also another major problem. You’re not even sure where the police are going to take you.
This is actually what happened to the senior journalist Matiullah Jan. He just got lucky because there were CCTV cameras that captured how the police and the law enforcers abducted him in broad daylight.
He was lucky that the video went viral. But then so many journalists who are not as lucky sometimes lose their lives.
RANA:
Can all of you tell me what is something that we can learn from each other from the stories that we heard from your countries?
PANDE:
The journalists in Pakistan are really brave, given that they are battling serious, life-threatening circumstances while being honest to their craft.
I think one thing that all journalists can learn is that all our governments have enmity with transparency. One thing that the South Asian journalism community can learn is to stick to their guns and really come together. All of us can learn so much about resilience and I really hope there are more platforms for us to interact with each other, because we all have similar experiences. Unionizing and coming together to report what’s in the public interest is something that we could learn from each other in order to do our work despite intense threats.
BAY:
In the figures released by Reporters Without Borders, I saw that four journalists died in India in 2019. In Bangladesh, there was only one journalist. These figures do not shed much light on the kind of harassment that we have suffered and the fear and everything that we have to go through.
KALEEM:
I think we are pretty much in a similar situation with all of us facing similar challenges. I just believe that the only solution to get past the situation is to do what we have been doing more aggressively. Because if we back out or give up, it’s just going to get worse. Since what we are trying to do is for the people, the answer to bad democracy or bad press freedom is more press freedom and more democracy. That’s the only solution. We have to push back. ●
