Are NGOs from the North East suspect for the media?

Two women representative of Impulse NGO network, Shillong (Meghalaya) and Human Rights Now, a Tokyo (Japan) base  human rights group addressed the media at Press Club in Delhi on June 5, 2010. They presented their recently conducted fact finding report of child labour employed in the coal mines of Jaintia Hills in Meghalaya.

A good number of media personalities, both national and from the North East attended the press conference.  Kazuko Ito the Secretary General of Human Rights Now briefed them on the 3 day investigation visit to Jaintia Hills’ coal mine areas. She reported that children as young as 6 years of age were employed for mining. The team found that these children were working under extremely hazardous and dangerous conditions, while they were given half of what the adult labourers earn.

Sharing their experiences and work, the Impulse NGO network team leader Hasina Kharbhih said that since children were brought or trafficked from outside Meghalaya, most of them from neighbouring Nepal and Bangladesh at a very young age, they do not know where and how to find their way back home. And even if rescued for rehabilitation or for repatriation, they do not have parents or a place to call home. These children work in the risky underground round rat holes. In case of accidents, their deaths were never reported.  

She further informed that a survey conducted by the organization estimated that over 70, 000 children were employed in these coal mines. It may be noted that these coal mines were not Government registered and are on privately owned lands.  Therefore information was collected through informal interactions with the children and the employers. 

Related issues, cross border perspectives, international human rights laws etc were presented by the two addressees. Thereafter the floor was open for questions from the media. 

Pat came the question from the middle row directed to the Shillong base NGO representative, "why are you working with a ‘foreign’ NGO? Do you work with any of an ‘Indian’ organization?" To which the lady replied that Impulse NGO network collaborates and network with various national level organizations working on issues of child labour, trafficking, women and children, human rights etc, adding that the organization is a member of Bachpan Bachao Andolan.

Another young, enthusiastic reporter, probably a new recruit, asked on what the NGO does about issue like child labour in industries, slum children etc. Smiling, the NGO lady replied that they do not have the capacity to look into all issues, and that there are no such big Industries in North East India.

The grilling continued. A middle--aged journalist in the front who had been questioning the two ladies on varied topics inquired where and how do they get ‘funds’.  Most of his questions were in Hindi.  When Hasina, the representative of Impulse NGO, pulled herself together to answer, the journalist’s mobile phone rang. The call seems to be important as he moved to the back of the conference hall answering, audible to everyone in the hall. Finally after the telephone conversation, he left. 

 At the end of the press conference, one wondered had the two women been from the so called ‘ mainland India’ NGOs would  the media asked the same questions? Was it because they looked so different that the issue they address had gone in another direction? Was it because they were from the North East and that the media just did not know what to ask?  Or was suspicious of them?

Later, talking exclusively to some of the North East media persons , Hasina Kharbhih noted  that information about Impulse NGO network is available in the organization website which include accounts and finances. !

It has often been said that North East does not make ‘news’ in the national media. Definitely the June 5^th press conference of the fact finding team on child labour in the coal mines of Jaintia Hills in Meghalaya did not make it to the front pages of the Delhi newspapers. Indeed it took quite some time to browse though the major daily papers; the Times of India, Indian Express, The Hindu, or Jansatta, Nai Duniya, Dainik Bhaskar in an attempt to find the report of the trafficked children enslaved in the far eastern state of Meghalaya. A write-up from its Shillong correspondent was published in the Hindustan Times, June 6^th edition on the Variety page.  The story carried pictures and a map too, probably to indicate where Meghalaya is!

Yet there has been quite a lot of media coverage in recent years. Some of the infamous stories from the national media are as follows. On March 2, 2008, the Times of India carried the headlines "Spa with a difference" with the lines ..."walk into a spa you will meet professional doctors rather than a Linda from North East". The January 28, 2008 issue of Mail Today had a story " drug lords prey north east girls" which said ".. the next time a cocaine addict in Delhi orders for a fix, standing at the door it’ll probably be a North East girl...and for a few extra thousand she will put sex on offer ..."

As questions continue to linger in the minds of many a North Easterner, it may not be inaccurate to state that a certain amount of "otherness" remains as an important factor between the NE region and mainland India.  Resulting in the national media’s judgemental assumptions about the people of the North East,  the women in particular.