Killing a leopard, killing Adivasis

BY Pramodini pradhan| IN Media Practice | 30/01/2011

Media reporting of the killings of a Scheduled-1 animal (a Leopard) and Scheduled Adivasis (Maoists) in Odisha: there is a marked difference in the way the media as a whole covered the killing of the leopard and that of the Adivasis,

says PRAMODINI PRADHAN

First published on Countermedia

In a series of ‘encounters’, in the first two weeks of 2011, over 15 people, allegedly Maoists, have been killed in police firing in Odisha. Except a couple of them, all the people killed are reported to be Adivasis, 10 of them are women including one minor girl.

During this period, a leopard was beaten to death by the people of a locality near the capital city, Bhubaneswar.

Both the killings got front page prominence in all the vernacular and English dailies of Bhubaneswar edition. However, there is a marked difference in the way the media as a whole covered the killing of the leopard and that of the Adivasis. While the reporting of the killing of the leopard is marked by professionalism as well as an overflow of sympathy for the victim and anger at the barbarity of the people who killed it, the reporting of the killings of the Adivasis is marked by a sense of jubilation, praise for the killers, and the victims simply as mere numbers – 2, 1, 5, 9, 2 – adding up each time as the reports of ‘successful encounters’ kept coming in quick succession.

Let’s see in some detail, first the coverage of the killing of the leopard, although the encounter killings preceded this incident.

A leopard was killed by people in a locality near the capital city. The leopard had strayed into the locality from the nearby forest. Reportedly, it attacked two men from the village and the villagers in their attempt to rescue the men beat the leopard to death. This version of ‘first attack by the leopard’ is contested by some saying that the leopard was actually hiding behind a bush and the villagers provoked it to come out. And when it had no choice but to come out it attacked two men and then only the angry villagers killed the leopard.

The incident got front page coverage in all the newspapers, vernacular as well as English. The local TV news channels too made it headlines. One English newspaper caption read, "Straying leopard ‘lynched’ by city mob". ‘Beaten to Death’ were the key words in most of the captions. Some papers and TV channels asked, ‘Who is a beast – the man or the tiger?’ In reporting the circumstances that led to the killing of the animal, almost all newspapers and the electronic media asked all the relevant questions. These include: Who attacked first – the leopard or the villagers? Did the villagers inform the concerned authorities before pouncing upon the leopard? Did the wildlife rescue team reach on time? And when the team came, were they well equipped to catch the big cat alive? And even if the rescue team were late by 15/20 minutes shouldn’t the villagers have patience to wait a while? How could the villagers become so insensitive to kill an innocent leopard? Some reporters took the trouble to do a bit of research to find out whether leopards ever attack human beings. Quoting the wild life experts they reported that it was not a ‘man eater type’, which means there must have been sufficient provocation that made him attack the two villagers.

The media also interviewed all the relevant authorities – the wildlife lovers, the forest department officials and other experts in the field. It even managed to get the reactions of the Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who expressed shock over the brutal manner in which the animal was done to death and ordered an investigation into the circumstances that led to the killing of the leopard.

While reporting the circumstances that led to the killing, most of the newspapers took care to report the views of both sides – for balanced reporting! Here is one sample from the ToI. It quoted the DFO, "The male adult leopard did not enter the village. It hid in the bushes in the river bank. The animal got irritated only after some villagers shouted and threw stones at it, forcing it to run for life. In the process, the leopard came face to face with the villagers who barred its flight and were wounded. The villagers finally overpowered it and beat it to death." It reported one of the villagers’ views, "It was only after we heard the screams that we rushed to the spot. On reaching the location, I found my son and another person, both badly wounded, trying to fight the animal in self-defense. Had we not reached there in time, the animal would have mauled them….Those alleging that we killed the animal on purpose are not aware of what happened on location. We had no option but to kill the animal."

Let’s see the coverage, by the same media, of the killings of the Maoists. To begin with, the news of each ‘encounter’ was reported as ‘a big success’ for the police. As the news of the ‘successful encounters’ started coming in one after another the media began to cheer the police. After the Kashipur encounter, in which nine people, including five young women were killed, the ToI made ‘Reason for Cheer’ a caption for this news.

None of the reporters bothered to investigate as to under what circumstances these ‘encounters’ took place. Whatever the police told, it was faithfully reported. Nobody investigated as to: who were these Maoists, who attacked first, if the Maoists attacked the police then was there any policeman injured, whether the police made any attempt to capture the Maoists alive, how were the bullets fired, what about the postmortem reports, has anybody seen the postmortem reports? None of these questions was asked by any of the newspapers or TV channels.

In these encounters, many bodies of the deceased were not even identified by the family or community members, even though the police claimed that the people killed belonged to the local area. But the media had no intention of finding out who these people were and why none of the families came to claim the bodies.

When it was found that one of the girls killed in the encounters was a minor girl, some reporters expressed concern as to how the Maoists are recruiting child soldiers. But very few tried to question why these young girls have joined the Maoists. Nobody asked whether these young girls were going to school before they joined the Maoists? One reporter made an analysis of the ‘femme fatales’. It began, "They are young. And they are lethal too. The two strong traits required to be snapped up from the inhospitable regions of Orissa by Maoists". It quoted a security analyst, "It’s empowerment for them when they are taken into the fold and they want to perform. They want to prove that they are as good as their male counterparts. That drives them to be ruthless and even cold-blooded." For a change, the reporter in this analysis commented, "Historically, the tribal population in Orissa has lived with malnutrition and malnourishment and the statistics for their women is even more bizarre." But what are those bizarre statistics about the tribal women? The only statistics that we find in this analysis, quoting sources, is that most of the women cadres who have been captured or gunned down weigh around 45 kg! But what about the average weight of tribal women in Orissa who have not joined the cadres? What are the statistics about their health and nutrition? The analysis didn’t carry any of these statistics. Why? Is it because the statistics are too scary? Or, is it because brand ‘Maoist’ is enough – once somebody is branded as ‘Maoist’, there is no need to know anything more about him/her?

The encounter of 9^th January in which 9 people, including 5 young adivasi women, were killed, took place in an area which has been known for recurrence of cholera and starvation. Only a few months ago, over a hundred people died in Kashipur and the adjacent Blocks due to cholera. This is also the area where the local community relentlessly fought for many years against an alumina company and had lost three lives in police firing. But none of this was considered relevant for the media while cheering the police for its success. So, whether it is history or current statistics, when poor adivasis are killed as ‘Maoists’, these are irrelevant for the media.

Every time a tiger or an elephant gets killed, the media come up with statistics of how many tigers and elephants are left in this planet and what we need to do to save them. The adivasis are not that lucky.

pramodinip@gmail.com