Is there another way to handle anniversaries?

Second Take

Kalpana Sharma

 

 

There is a predictability about the way anniversaries are handled by the Indian media.  And the anniversary of the terror attack on Mumbai on November 26, 2008 was not that different.  While the electronic media had a mixture of talking heads - and many of them the usual suspects - mixed with recaps of those 60 hours of terror, the print media went through the ritual of seeking out victims or people who had lost someone in the attack and getting them to recount the experience. Or raising the question about whether Mumbai was"safe" from such attacks a year later.

 

A couple of issues emerge from the coverage of the 26/11 anniversary.  On November 26, 2009, the four Mumbai editions of newspapers that this writer looked at were an interesting study in similarity and contrasts.  Times of India announced on its front page that it had decided to shed all colour to honour those who died last year. Even the masthead was black and the entire issue was in black and white, taking you back to the days when colour in the main newspaper was unheard of.  It lead with a banner headline"It has cost Rs. 31 Cr to keep Kasab alive".  Yet, the story on which this headline was based made no effort to explain how that figure was arrived at and instead acknowledged that it was"strictly unofficial since the government is chary of letting out any information on Kasab."  Did readers not have the right to know how the paper had arrived at such a specific figure - no qualifications such as"about" or"approximately" or"estimated" appended to that amount?  And what was the intention of playing this up above all else?

 

If you watched the programmes on the television channel owned by the group, Times Now, you could get a sense of why this headline.  Times Now, and its anchor Arnab Goswami, appeared determined to convey to viewers that people in Mumbai were angry.  And to support him were the predictable high profile studio guests like Shobha De and actor Anupam Kher, who spoke at length about their anger and interrupted anyone who tried to say something to the contrary.  In fact, the one person who had reason for anger, the brother of journalist Sabina Sehgal Saikia who died at the Taj, pointed out that anger was not the appropriate emotion and that people had to consider what they should do in the light of events such as 26/11.  He was given little chance to explain himself as the anchor kept prompting the"we are angry and fed-up" theme. 

 

So emphasizing the amount of money the state is"wasting" on Kasab appears to be an extension of an editorial line that wants to enrage an already angry public.  It also plays into the typical middle class disengagement with larger issues.  This was exemplified by the kind of reactions one saw after 26/11.  Anger, revenge, and scorn for politics, politicians and the political system were the over-riding sentiments.  The fact that such an attitude of disengagement cannot result in any improvement in the situation is a point that is simply ignored by some in the media 

 

Hindustan Times, on the other hand, took a different line.  While its front page had the iconic picture of the burning dome of the Taj Mahal hotel, and the question:"What really has changed in our city?" -- the page behind it had an interesting piece by Vir Sanghvi, the paper's editorial adviser.  It was a virtual mea culpa about the role of the media, particularly the electronic media, during the 26/11 terror attack.  Sanghvi said there was no doubt that the media had been irresponsible.  He argued, however, that since then steps had been taken to correct this and that the media had done considerable introspection.  He pointed out that at equal fault was the inability of the government and its various arms to put in a place a proper system of information management during a time of such a crisis.  For instance, he asked, once the intelligence agencies had gathered that the handlers of the terrorists, sitting in Pakistan, were passing on information based on what was telecast on Indian news channels, could the government not have acted to prevent live broadcast?  Why were such steps not taken and a free-for-all permitted?  That is a question that the government has yet to answer.

 

DNA's front page had the names of all the 165 people who died in alphabetical order and features inside.  The exception to the rule was Indian Express, which had a"normal" page one with a four column picture of President Pratibha Patil after she had completed her 30-minute sortie in a Sukhoi-30 MKI, and a story from Islamabad below that on the Pakistan court charging 'mastermind' Lakhvi and six others for planning and executing the Mumbai attacks.  But like the other papers it carried features inside.

 

Sanghvi also raised the point whether the media were insensitive to the grief of those who had either lost someone in the attack or were held hostage and managed to get out alive?  He countered this by saying that many of these individuals spoke to the media without any hesitation.  But it would be fair to say that there were also many who did not wish to speak to the media either on that day, or a year later.  Indeed, Saira Menezes, editor of"People" magazine made this point during a discussion on Times Now.  She said that her publication had been working on stories of survivors for three months but finally abandoned the project when they realised that repeatedly people they approached told them that they were just getting over the trauma and did not wish to relive it by recounting it yet again to the media.  Do journalists really pause to consider whether their persistence in trying to get a story out of victims and survivors is like scratching open a scar that is just beginning to heal? Whatever the compulsions of the news business, they cannot override sensitivity that should be extended to people living through personal trauma. 

 

We may not have another 26/11 but there are bound to be other tragedies and disasters, both natural and man-made.  While the government must get its act together on the issue of information management, the media must also introspect further.  How do we deal with anniversaries?  Do we use them to rake up the past or are there different ways of addressing the issue without hurting those who are already hurt? 

 

An example of this was Mint's Saturday paper, Lounge that once again stood out for well-written and different features.  Devoting the entire issue of November 21 to 26/11, Lounge featured individuals who were on the periphery - people who had witnessed or helped during those terrible 60 hours.  People like Mohammed Taufiq, a chaiwallah outside CST, who saved lives by warning people when he heard the first shots.  The next morning he went back to his stall, and was available to serve tea to police and other people who were stranded or had kin at the nearby St. George's hospital. Taufiq was promised a job in return for his efforts but so far he is still selling tea. "I didn't ask them for anything. They shouldn't have made me (feel) hopeful," he told the reporter.