Reprinted from Mint
As the crisis over the Amarnath shrine pilgrimage snowballed in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) over the last few weeks, thousands of young men in both parts of the state, armed with little more than a mobile phone with a camera, have shot pictures and videos of both demonstrations and curfew and uploaded them on the Internet.
J&K has always been a reporter¿s paradise, but the use of new media such as the Internet, blogs and SMS (short messaging system), besides news broadcasts on local cable networks, have been imaginatively used by people on both sides of the communal divide to get their message on the recent crisis out to the rest of the world.
YouTube and Google videos have become a favourite space for hundreds of videos, whether it is about the 11 August march across the Line of Control to Muzaffarabad, large gatherings such as the one at the Idgah grounds in
Meanwhile, local cable networks, both in
Site Entertainment Network (SEN), a cable operator in the
According to
SEN retaliated by taking all national and international news channels, including BBC, Al Jazeera and CNN, which go through its cable network, off the air. SEN executive director Mir Amjad said his channel was being discriminated against by the state authorities, which had not acted similarly against networks in
JK, owned by land dealer Subhash Chowdhury, has been instrumental in pushing the cause of Leela Karan Sharma and his Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti, which is demanding control over the use of land for Hindu pilgrims to the Shaivite Amarnath shrine in the
Chowdhury denied his channel broadcasts news, although this reporter watched several bulletins in
Anuradha Bhasin, executive editor of Jammu-based Kashmir Times, said the saturation coverage given by JK to the Amarnath agitation was "so venomous that it had a huge impact on the religious-minded population, especially in the rural areas, which had not even protested over issues related to the international border nearby... The subtle message repeatedly broadcast was that the Muslims have taken away the land belonging to the Hindus."
Vicious SMSs did the rounds in
The state authorities quickly banned SMSes within the state. The ban was
extended by the Supreme Court last week.By now, in the
"It is so easy to post on YouTube these days," said Aijaz, shooting a moving video of the Idgah rally. "This is a part of our history and nobody else seems to be interested." It is common to hear Kashmirissay mainstream journalists no longer report
"Although there is a lot of coverage about
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