Urban press glosses over rural protests

BY SHILPA KRISHNAN| IN Books | 07/07/2012

Major English newspapers are disinclined to present rural protests to urban readers.

Coverage given to anti-nuclear protests at Kudankulam is an example, says SHILPA KRISHNAN.

Are urban newspaper readers well-informed about resistance in rural India to energy projects that generate power for urban consumers? Do Indian newspapers inform urban readers of the nature and scale of protests in rural India to controversial energy projects? The anti-nuclear protests at Kudankulam present an opportunity to examine if urban readers are kept informed of protests in rural India. This paper analyses the coverage of a 14-day protest in the four most widely read English newspapers in the biggest metro cities in India.

Background

The Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project in southern Tamil Nadu was initiated in 1989. Ever since, there have been protests demanding that the plant be shut down. As the plant neared commissioning, the protests increased in scale. The most dramatic protests were in the first fortnight of May 2012 when about 300 women and 25 men went on an indefinite fast at Idinthakarai village, adjacent to the nuclear plant. Over 9,000 people supported the protest, assembling daily on the protest grounds. With each passing day, the health of the protesters deteriorated. The government refused to negotiate with the protesting villagers. On May 10,the government declared curfew in all the villages surrounding the plant and deployed over 2,000 policemen around the protest site. On May 14, the protesters finally called off the fast as they felt it was futile to continue the protests in the face of government apathy. This agitation in rural Idinthakarai did not win massive support in urban India.

It is in this context that this paper analyses if urban newspaper readers are kept informed of the nature and scale of protests in rural India. This is significant since the electricity generated from these energy projects in rural India is primarily for urban consumption.

Major newspapers

Four major English newspapers--The Hindu, The Times of India, Hindustan Times and The Telegraph—have been analysed for this research. They represent the leading English newspapers in Chennai, Mumbai, New Delhi, and Kolkata.

All articles that mentioned the word Kudankulam between May 1 and May 15 were read closely. The author counted the number of articles where the fast was mentioned, the number of photographs showing the fast and the number of times the size of the crowd of supporters was mentioned.

The table below summarises the frequencies.

	*The Hindu*	*The Times of India*	*Hindustan* *Times*	*The Telegraph*
# Articles which mentioned Kudankulam	34	9	6	0
# Articles which mentioned the fast	5	3	3	0
# Photographs of the fast	0	0	0	0
# No. of times the size of the crowd was mentioned	1	2	1	0

Findings

1. Urban readers had very few opportunities to read about the fast at Idinthakarai:

While The Hindu gave widespread coverage to the Kudankulam Nuclear Plant, less than 15% of the articles mentioned that there was a protest fast at Idinthakarai. The Times of India and Hindustan Times had very few articles on Kudankulam; they had even fewer articles that mentioned the fast. The Telegraph mentioned neither Kudankulam nor the protests during that fortnight. That is striking, as West Bengal had called off the nuclear power plant at Haripur owing to protests there.

2. Urban readers did not get a visual sense of the protests at Idinthakarai:

Photographs of protests provide a visual sense of the protests: how big are these protests really? Who are the people protesting? Is this really believable?

None of the newspapers studied showed photographs of those on fast or the crowds that assembled daily in their support. Meanwhile, photographs from the protest grounds were circulating on social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter. However, urban readers dependent on their English newspaper for their daily news did not get to see these pictures.

3. Urban readers did not get a sense of the scale of the protests:

Although none of the newspapers presented photographs of the protest, they could still inform the readers of the scale of protests by mentioning the likely size of the crowds. This study showed that even that information was sparingly given to readers--twice in The Times of India and once each in The Hindu and Hindustan Times.

(Shilpa Krishnan is an independent researcher.)