26/11 myth making: to what purpose?
Kavita Karkare spoke of all this to the media - to print and television but she was puzzled and dismayed by the fact that it had no impact whatsoever.
If justice is all it takes to break the cycle of conflict and tragedy, when will the media begin to speak of it, asks GEETA SESHU
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Twenty days before the first anniversary of the November 26 attacks in Mumbai, the city's leading English newspaper, The Times of India, launched its anniversary special: '26/11 A year later: in Memoriam'. Others have followed suit, and every newspaper and news channel has been printing or airing their special take on the attacks. Thus, we have 'Countdown to 26/11' (The Hindustan Times), and another rather oddly titled article titled '26/11 One year later: the revamp'. The Indian Express has a series on survivors, and DNA carried '26/11 Challenge and Response'. No doubt, a host of other such permutations and combinations will be found in other publications and TV channels in the coming days.
Besides the media, even artists and designers of fashion accessories have put together their own commemorative events. Thus, thirteen well-known artists have come together for a show entitled 'Nothing Will Ever Be the Same Again'; a music video is being released; multi-faith prayers and tributes are scheduled; and many memorial plaques will be unveiled. Not to be left out, Malini Agarwalla (a designer of fashion accessories) is selling limited edition handbags and totes with sepia-tinted pictures of the
All these events are faithfully and exhaustively covered by the media, as they fill up lifestyle sections and special pages in the print media. The coverage includes photographs of the sites of the attack and photo features of the survivors. Television channels have their own special bulletins, including interviews with survivors and eye-witnesses.
No doubt Sachin Tendulkar's 20 years of cricket was systematically and exhaustively covered, but that is another story.
Conflict always provides fodder for media mills. However, the kind of coverage we get remains superficial: predictable and formulaic stories, interviews, recollections, and testimonies of eye-witnesses and victims (that is, of people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and got caught in the crossfire just by chance). In the latter, the human element is predominant, and the voices of people who lead ordinary, everyday lives suddenly come into the limelight. Their photographs illustrate news pages as their bewilderment stares back at us readers and viewers, who end up becoming voyeurs and consumers of tragedy.
In the glut of coverage, some articles illustrating our fascination for tragedy do emerge sometimes. A perfect example was a tabloid newspaper's banner story regarding the manner in which tourist guides at the Gateway of India were re-creating their own histories of the incident -- a telling comment on the way myth-making takes over the recounting of contemporary tragedies. The media coverage of this myth-making is indeed ironical and raises many questions: the media blithely covers myth-makers; however, who covers the myths the media makes up?
It has been said that the media thrives on tragedy. When there are incidents of conflict and violence in urban centres like Mumbai, there is a lot of media attention and coverage. However, there is also much criticism of the media, especially for its neglect of victims who are poor. For example, in the November 26 attacks, the media woke up to the poor victims in the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus much later.
After all these years of seeing and reading stories of successive anniversaries, one wonders if there can be another way in which conflict can be covered -- and remembered. Do people read these stories anymore? Do they flip channels as soon as another such program is aired? How long can we go on revisiting sites of tragedy, reliving old experiences, and re-opening old wounds? And, to what purpose?
Mumbai is no stranger to conflict. The two phases of communal riots in Bombay in 1992-93, and the November 26 attacks on Mumbai last year are events that have greatly impacted the contemporary history of the city -- the change in nomenclature from 'Bombay' to 'Mumbai' playing its own part in this tumultuous period.
However, between 1992 and 2008, there have been several other attacks on the people of Mumbai. Thus: 12 March 1993 -- Series of 13 bombs go off killing 257; 6 December 2002 -- bomb goes off in a bus in Ghatkopar killing 2; 27 January 2003 -- bomb goes off on a bicycle in Vile Parle killing 1; 14 March 2003 -- bomb goes off in a train in Mulund killing 10; 28 July 2003 -- bomb goes off in a bus in Ghatkopar killing 4; 25 August 2003 -- two bombs go off in cars near the Gateway of India and Zaveri Bazaar killing 50; 11 July 2006 - a series of seven bombs go off in trains killing 209; 26 November 2008 to 29 November 2008 - a coordinated series of attacks killing at least 172.
Of course, this is still a fraction of the more than 4000 attacks in
More than the numbers, it is the stories that each of these numbers represent that we are concerned with. In each attack, entire families have been destroyed, people have lost loved ones, and the survivors have lost their homes and their livelihood. Some are physically disabled and, for most, the psychological scars run deep.
No doubt, the media coverage of all these attacks has been exhaustive. Some media houses and newspaper groups have devoted a number of pages for days to document stories - accompanied by powerful visuals -- of the sorrow and courage of victims as they try to re-build their lives.
The media is a powerful tool to reach out to people, and move readers and viewers to reach out to victims less fortunate. A case in point is the story in The Indian Express about five orphans who lost their parents in the blasts at the Gateway of India in 2003. Readers came forward to help the children, and donations were collected. Several other media houses also launch their own fund collection drives. However, while this is important, money plays only one part in the healing and surviving process.
However, as each attack takes place and as media coverage of the anniversaries follow, the most recent get maximum coverage and those that have occurred earlier - the precursors to today's tragedies - are forgotten, and pushed into the back pages of our memory books. The past is revisited only if it is recent enough; history is remembered only if it neatly fits into some round commemorative figure, usually in multiples of five - so many years after the Emergency/the fall of the Berlin Wall/the Holocaust/the Mumbai riots. Perhaps the latter will have to wait a while more -another eight years for a macabre jubilee?
Sometimes journalists do get to go beyond the anniversaries. Entirely by coincidence, I interviewed two women who became victims of the Bombay riots of 1992-92 and the November 26 Mumbai attacks (for a series on 'Women as Survivors and Peace Makers' for the Women's Feature Service and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) respectively). One was Kavita Karkare, who lost her husband Hemant Karkare during the shooting in the November 26 Mumbai attacks. The other was Akhtar Wagle, who lost her 17-year old son to police firing during the
When I went to meet Akhtar Wagle, I also spoke to other members of her family - her husband , her nephew and his wife. Their grief, despite the passage of years, was palpable. While they have moved on with the business of living, time continues to stand still for them in so many other ways.
Akhtar Wagle took a while to speak.There were many silences while I waited for her to resume a sentence. However, while she wanted to speak, her daughter-in-law -- a young, bright convent-educated woman -- was angry: 'why do you media people keep coming here to speak about her son? Why must she be asked questions and be forced to remember painful things? What purpose will this serve?'
I could not have agreed more. I have often been assailed by a sense of self-doubt at the somewhat voyeuristic nature of a journalist's work and how we persist in asking people about their experiences of misery. But Akhtar Wagle who, quiet and still, nevertheless spoke up to defend me from her daughter-in-law's wrath. She shushed her daughter-in-law, and said something that seemed to make sense of all the media coverage: 'if we speak, people will remember and maybe we will get justice.'
On her part, Kavita Karkare has spoken out emphatically about the completely inadequate intelligence information, safety precautions, faulty bullet-proof jackets and has even criticised the report of the Pradhan committee, which gave a clean chit to the police in their handling of the November 26 attacks, though even basic levels of coordination and exchange of information did not seem evident. Kavita Karkare spoke of all this to the media - to print and television but she was puzzled and dismayed by the fact that it had no impact whatsoever.
"No one responded, though I spoke on national television," she said. Justice, she said, was all that she, Vinita Kamte and Smita Salaskar (the wives of IPS officer Ashok Kamte and Inspector Vijay Salaskar, who also died in the vehicle along with Hemant Karkare) asked for! The public, she says over and over again, must hold the government accountable. But the media only made a passing mention of the November 26 attacks and the failure of the state government in responding adequately to it in all the discussions and expert comments on the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in
If justice is all it takes to break the cycle of conflict and tragedy, when will the media begin to speak of it? Till it does, I shall take a break from the tyranny of morning newspapers and evening news bulletins ... at least till the next anniversary comes along.
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