Those Ishrat Jahan headlines
Headlines can be damaging but can they be part of a conspiracy?
JYOTI PUNWANI on why the media needs to pay attention even to conspiracy theories about its routine functioning.
HERE’S LOOKING AT US
Jyoti Punwani
The recent campaign against the media for its portrayal of Ishrat Jahan has some important lessons for us, as well as for those readers who feel aggrieved by us. One: it shows the damage journalists can do through something as simple as a headline. That’s something we refuse to accept. Two, it shows that such damage can be rectified swiftly by prompt legal action.
Third, it shows the low credibility we enjoy at least when the issue concerns our security agencies and terrorism. Finally, it shows the extent to which conspiracy theories can hold sway. What we as journalists may take for granted as routine production process of a newspaper, can appear sinister and diabolical to those affected by what appears in the paper. No doubt, our conduct over the years, our cynical resort to sensationalism as well as our blind belief in our security agencies, has contributed to this situation.
It’s time to acknowledge the role that the press has played in the Ishrat Jahan case. As it does in all cases involving alleged terrorists, the press has, from the time the encounter took place, given undue prominence to the police version. The press has always plugged the Intelligence Bureau (IB) line or the Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) line or the Crime Branch line or the Special Cell line, and continues to do so even after these cops have been proved to be framing innocents time and again. Ishrat Jahan has received the same treatment Sohrabuddin did or Simranjit Singh Mann did in the 80s (accused of conspiring to assassinate Indira Gandhi, let off by Rajiv Gandhi after spending five years in prison). What’s made the treatment worse is the fact that she was a young girl.
From the start, the dominant narrative in this case has been that a Muslim girl, her companion, and two other men, all terrorists, were killed in an encounter when on a mission to kill Narendra Modi. The facts as presented by the police – and the Home Ministry - were sensational; the reportage worse, following the pattern whenever a young woman has been at the centre of a controversial violent crime. Remember Shivani Bhatnagar? Arushi Talwar? Vibha Sharma? Phoolan Devi? (She was a dacoit, but the press also made her out to be a nymphomaniac. Their source? The police.)
The CBI’s assertion that the encounter was fake, and that the IB – or at least one of its joint directors – had a role in it, has created a furore not only in the IB but also in the media. Reports obviously sourced from both agencies have been appearing everyday in the press. So have opinion pieces, both in support of the CBI’s right to scrutinise the IB’s functioning, and against it.
Apart from these opinion pieces, what has drawn flak is the Hindustan Times’ coverage of the case. The two letters to the paper written by well-known human rights lawyer Vrinda Grover, who is representing Ishrat Jahan’s mother, and a statement by the ‘Justice for Ishrat Jahan campaign’ on an HT report, are being circulated on the Net. The thrust of the letters is that the Hindustan Times and specially its reporter Abhishek Sharan, are bent upon defaming Ishrat Jahan as a terrorist, and plugging the IB line on her.
The complaints may be against one newspaper, but the issues raised are of vital concern to all journalists. The wide support they have received should jolt us out of our normal indifference to criticism of the destructive power we wield unthinkingly, often deliberately.
At the heart of the complaint is the use of headlines while reporting the case. The first letter by Vrinda Grover complained about the headline: “Ishrat Jahan had links with Kashmiri separatists: CBI” in the HT issue dated July 2. Her letter pointed out that not only was it defamatory to Ishrat Jahan, it did not match the contents of the report at all. The day after she sent her objection, the paper published a note regretting the “erroneous and misleading’’’ headline. That was some achievement!
But just nine days later, the paper did it again. A story on one of the men killed in the encounter referred to him thus in the headlines: “Ishrat’s friend’’ and “Ishrat companion’’. The story itself simply described him as “One of the three men killed with Ishrat Jahan’’. Ascribing the headline to the reporter whose story it was, the lawyer wrote to the paper accusing him of “trying to manufacture public opinion against Ishrat Jahan.’’ His “malicious stories were an incitement to violence against Ishrat’s family,’’ said the letter. The story in question described how the man had received treatment for a gunshot wound from a Delhi doctor.
It is possible that Ishrat’s family, having taken on the most powerful security apparatus in the country, is in danger. In fact, a mysterious incident occurred in June when the family was returning to Mumbra from Mumbai airport. They allege that their car was attacked by two armed men. Last week, the family held a press conference claiming that men claiming to be policemen had knocked on their door at 2.30 am. There must be people who want to frighten the family into giving up their fight for their daughter. But would they be provoked by HT’s headlines?
Three words in another headline were found objectionable by the ‘Justice for Ishrat Jahan campaign’, which issued a statement blaming reporter Abhishek Sharan for the “false, baseless and misleading headline’’. (It appears that the statement was based on Vrinda Grover’s second letter to HT.) The objectionable words? “IB’s Ishrat tapes’’.
This fuss over headlines is not unwarranted. Anyone who has worked in a newspaper office knows that the headline determines whether the reader will read a story or not, specially so for Page One. Often, attention-grabbing headlines exaggerate the accompanying text. Sometimes, they do worse than that – they convey something that is simply not there in the report. This is what happened twice in HT, and for one of them, the paper apologised.
But reporters have no control over the headlines given to their stories. Sometimes- but not always - the final version that’s ready to go to print, edited by the sub-editor and given a headline, is shown to the reporter.
When this columnist worked in a daily newspaper (21 years ago!), the desk, comprising sub-editors who handle all matter appearing in the paper, looked upon reporters with contempt. Reporters filed stories, but it was the desk’s job to make their stories ready for printing – or even carry them (unless there were express instructions by the editor to do so). Any interference by the reporter was fiercely resented by the sub-editors. No reporter could dare suggest a headline for his/her story. Nor could she/he, seeing the edited version in the next morning’s edition, object vociferously to the way the copy had been changed or to the headline, unless it was blatantly wrong. Space constraints, print deadlines, overworked subs – every reporter knew these reasons would be thrown at them if they did object. Besides, they had to keep submitting their copy to the same desk; antagonising them wasn’t worth it. The situation has not changed today, to the best of my knowledge.
So, reporters are pretty helpless when it comes to giving headlines. What then explains the offending HT headlines?
Sub-editors work on different shifts, and the same story is normally handled by different subs on different days. Are all HT’s subs out to defame Ishrat? Or are they all convinced that she was a terrorist? Is the entire desk under the IB”s pressure? Or the entire newspaper? How then would one explain reports in the same paper that go against the IB and the Gujarat police, some of them filed by the same reporter, Abhishek Sharan? In one issue, dated July 5, he says that Javed Shaikh, Ishrat’s employer, might have been working for the IB in Gujarat, implying that the IB got its own man killed. In another, dated May 29, he reports that forensic reports have proved that none of the four persons gunned down had fired a single bullet, thereby contradicting the Gujarat police’s version of the “encounter’’. Two reports, dated July 6 and 7, say that IB Jt. Director Rajidner Kumar had personally supervised the detention of one of the four men killed; and also that the entire “encounter’’ could have been staged by the Ahmedabad police either for promotions or to eliminate eye-witnesses to a crime.
Could it be that the subs are simply spicing up headlines with the use of Ishrat Jahan’s name?
Whatever the reason, the fact that many people believe that these headlines are part of an agenda to malign and vilify a dead Muslim girl as a terrorist, shows us how discerning readers view us. It’s not a very flattering reflection.
However, the objection to the words: “IB’s Ishrat tapes’’ is puzzling. It is an axiom that in an ongoing story, the headline must enable the reader to immediately identify the story. This particular “encounter’’ stood out from other similar “encounters’’ in Gujarat only because of the presence of a young girl among those killed. How many readers remember the Sadiq Jamal encounter? (The young man – not a terrorist it has turned out, was also killed as a “terrorist-out-to-kill-Modi’’). Apart from those following the story, which journalist remembers the names of the two Pakistanis shot dead with Ishrat? Even Javed Shaikh or Pranesh Pillai, the third male victim of the encounter, remains etched in readers’ memories only because he and Ishrat were travelling together, and both their lives were dissected by the press after the “encounter’’.
From the time it took place, this has been the “Ishrat Jahan encounter’’. It continues to be the Ishrat Jahan case. Calling the tapes in possession of the IB, of conversations that allegedly took place between those killed and their handler in Pakistan, the “IB Ishrat tapes’’, is in no way slanderous of the girl. They could be called “The IB’s encounter tapes’’, but the strapline would have to mention this was the Ishrat encounter.
To describe one of the men killed in the encounter, as “Ishrat’s friend’’, knowing that the CBI has found out that Ishrat had nothing to do with him, is wrong. The headline could have described him as “Gujarat ‘encounter’ victim.’’ But which encounter? Gujarat has seen so many! A wary Times of India gave this headline in its July 13 edition: “IB ‘tapes’ on ‘target Modi’ fake: CBI.’’ But there was a strapline: “Ishrat probe shows bureau’s modus operandi.’’ An Indian Express headline on the same day described the police witnesses as “Ishrat witnesses’’.
A cardinal principle in reporting rape cases is that the victim should not be named. But in two famous cases, this rule has been broken: the Mathura Rape case and the Bhanwari Devi rape case. Mention either, and everyone knows exactly which historic case one is talking about. The image of Mathura or Bhanwari Devi does not flash into mind – indeed, few know what they looked like or what happened to them after the rape. What does flash across are the identities of the rapists – policemen and so-called high caste men. In Mumbai, the R D Tyagi case involved 18 cops accused of killing innocent Muslims during the ‘92-‘93 riots. Tyagi (along with nine co-accused) was discharged at the very beginning, and his discharge was upheld right till the Supreme Court. Eight cops remain charged with murder. But the case has always been referred to as the R D Tyagi case, and the news focus has always been on him. The Srikrishna Commission held Tyagi responsible for the killings; the Mumbai police dragged its feet but was ultimately forced to charge him. Many, including this columnist, believe the former police commissioner should have been held responsible for the actions of his juniors during a raid ordered and supervised by him. But for Tyagi, and for the entire police force of Mumbai (except the eight who were not let off), every time the case was referred to as the RD Tyagi case, it must have amounted to defamation of a tough cop, who they felt had only done his duty.
The dominant narrative in the Ishrat Jahan ‘encounter’ was shattered in 2009, when Magistrate S P Tamang absolved Ishrat of all taint and said she and the three killed with her had been killed by the police for promotions. This created another sensation. But matters got confounded when the Gujarat government displayed an affidavit filed by the Ministry of Home Affairs that made her out to be a terrorist. After Tamang’s report, the MHA filed another affidavit contradicting the first.
Eventually, as happens with even the most sensational stories, this one too faded away, till now, when the CBI exposed this encounter as a cold-blooded killing. Surprisingly, one of the first reports that said that the four killed had not fired a single shot, that 17 kg explosives were suspected to have been planted on them, that they were suspected to have been killed a day earlier – in short, that this was a staged encounter of unarmed persons - appeared in the Hindustan Times in January 2012. The reporter? Abhishek Sharan.
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