Vigilant Media

BY Aloke Thakore| IN Opinion | 26/10/2007

Events that led to the chief minister of West Bengal ordering the transfer of the Kolkata Police chief and four other police officers make for a felicitous case study of how the media can play a constructive role in a democratic polity. But the conclusion that the media made it happen would be erroneous and anyone subscribing to such a view guilty of epic overestimation. And that despite the chief minister Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharya saying that he was taking action due to media pressure and the "Thank You Media" that formed part of the vote of thanks by those who suspended the vigil outside St. Xavier’s College.

Some basic facts need to be recounted. Rizwanur Rahman was found dead on the train tracks in the eastern part of Kolkata. He had married Ms. Priyanka Todi despite opposition from her family. The marriage had taken place in the presence of witnesses and was by all accounts legally tenable since both were well above marriageable age. Ms. Todi’s family tried to persuade and threaten Rahman and her to separate and annul the marriage. The threats were not just made in their private capacity. They got officers from the Kolkata Police Headquarters to cajole Rahman and subsequently to tell him to part ways with Ms. Todi. Such threats were also extended to at least one of the witnesses to the wedding who even received such a call in the presence of a senior IPS officer to whom he had gone for help regarding the threats. Rahman had also approached human rights agencies in the city and had been living in fear of his life. His body was found after Ms. Todi agreed to be with her parents for a while before returning to him. After the body was found, the Kolkata Police called it a suicide and the Police Commissioner explained the involvement of the state’s coercive arm, the police, by asking if the police would not get involved who would get involved. He asked if the PWD would intervene and added that that is how the police deal with such cases. Also, he said that after taking care of their daughter for 23 years if the family found one morning that she had left them to start a life with an unknown youth, parents could not accept it and that the reaction of the Todi family was natural and they had reacted because Rahman’s social and financial status did not match theirs. The Todi family are owners of the Lux line of undergarments. Such was the explanation offered by the police chief for their assistance in making the couple see reason, which included summoning the couple to the police headquarters and at least three police officers pressurizing Rahman to send his wife back to her parents. Seven days after the death and with such statements by the police chief, a vigil was started outside the Park Street gate of St. Xavier’s College where Rahman had been a student. The vigil was not organized or supported by a political party. Twenty days after the vigil, which included lighting of candles and signatures on boards (over a hundred thousand of which were recorded), the CM announced the transfer. Before that he had announced a CID probe and an enquiry by a retired judge. The vigil had demanded truth in the form of a CBI probe and justice in the form of action against concerned officers. The High Court had ordered the CBI probe and with the CM announcing the transfer, the vigil was suspended on its 21st night. (I have taken these from the reports appearing in the newspapers)

These facts need a gloss on what this incident means and the kind of sedimented feelings it evoked in the people. It is common knowledge that the police are a handmaiden of the ruling party in West Bengal. The Singur and Nandigram episode provided visible proof of this to those outside who may have thought otherwise. It is also common knowledge that the police are in cahoots with businessmen and those with pelf enjoy their protection. There is thus a police, party, and businessmen nexus. And there is disaffection towards them. The businessmen have a distinct ascriptive marker attached to them. They are the Marwari traders and industrialists who are now seen running the city. That there are such ethnic fault lines should never be glossed over when speaking of Kolkata as a city of culture, sweetness and light.

The Rahman incident brings to the surface all these frustrations and anger. The Todis are Marwaris and they are rich. They are seen using their money and who is seen helping them out? The police. The police that is part of the ruling party’s machinery is seen aiding the rich against the not-so-rich. Not only aiding, but actively using its coercive powers. And who among the police officers are seen to be guilty? Those closest to the party. And who is shielding these police officers? The party. The operative word here is seen. What has been known and recognized for long comes out in the open with this incident. And it does so with a person belonging to a politically crucial section of the population, a Muslim. Recall that Nandigram protests have had the active support of the Jamait and the support of Muslims is of supreme electoral significance to the ruling combine. The backdrop to the incident is an issue of personal choice, marriage, which under the laws, at least, does not admit any impediments of class, caste, religion or sect. What we have here is a case that has all the ingredients of a successful political battle. Yet, the main opposition party fails to take timely notice.

The media with all these things in place would still have played a useful role. They would have played up the stories, run interviews, and as with such things the protests and anger would have tapered to a close. It would need an opposition to take the action forward.

In this case, that oppositional role was occupied by the vigil. It became a locus around which the public anger and angst, the surfacing of those sedimented feelings, could coalesce and continue. Day after day all kinds and manner of people came to sign the boards, light candles and give donations. It is crucial to recognize that this had only partly to do with the media. It was civil society that was coming forward. Rahman’s profile and his tale of unfulfilled love was a pretext for a lot of anger with what was wrong with the state. As was the place of the vigil; right outside an old educational institute, on the main thoroughfare that leads the chief minister to work and back, and across from a police station.

The media played a steering role in reporting the vigil. They did what the media can do best, which is to provide a large, shared forum in which the concerns of the ordinary citizens are reflected and discussed. But for that to bear any fruit, there has to be a place, both physical and imagined, for the ideas to be felt and expressed. The surfacing of the thoughts could always happen, but where would the physical space be to air such a thought. The vigil provided it. Also, the fact that is was non-political meant that one could subscribe to any brand of politics, personal or party-based, and still be a participant. 

The news media could have cried themselves hoarse and not a leaf would have stirred at Writers’ Building or at Alimuddin Street. In fact, those coming to the vigil are unlikely to make any difference to the electoral fortunes of the ruling party. Also, if the brinkmanship over 123 Agreement would have led to elections, would the ruling combine want to take action against officers who are close to them and send a message down the line that they do not protect their own. If it were just a man from a politically unimportant group, things may have been different.

The reason for pointing out all these is to show that the context was propitious. The vigil was a spatial and visual manifestation of the disaffection. And the media unlike during Nandigram, especially the ABP group with the Bangla daily (Ananda Bazar Patrika), English daily (The Telegraph) and the television channel (Star Ananda), aligned itself with this oppositional force and decided to give adequate space to the concerns. Hence, the media shared the public sentiments and steered it towards the administrative powers. Mind you, this was not an activist media at work that thinks they are charged with changing governments, bringing about peace, or some such lofty or nebulous goal. This was media doing its task. In order to do the task, however, they need the public to decide, voice, and act. And it needs some spine to draw attention to that conversation, which they did at long last.