Nobel prizewinner: er, who?
When Kailash Satyarthi won the Nobel peace prize, people should have asked: Why did I not know of Kailash Satyarthi?
The next question is, why did the media ignore him, asks ASHUTOSH NAYAK (PIX: The Times of India Blogs).
“Why did the media ignore Kailash Satyarthi?” A few hours after the news about the child labour activist winning the Nobel prize broke, I stumbled upon this post by none other than Kingshuk Nag, The Times of India's Hyderabad editor, on a popular social media portal. Nag went on to explain it further in his blog which was carried prominently by TOI: “I have a confession to make. I had not heard of Kailash Satyarthi till the news broke about him...”. This first line explains it all about media, especially the elite English media. The irony is, you hardly expect such a story under the banner of TOI. Thanks to Nag, it created quite a flutter.
Interestingly, many voices on social media were quite vocal about their ignorance. One person said: “I too had not heard or read about him. Isn't it sad how our media spend all their time discussing politicians and completely ignore the good things people are doing!” Another remarked: “We are late-lateef: Gandhi first got recognition in South Africa, Vivekananda in the US...so the Government of India’s turn to do a serious think about it”.
A quick glance at the news channels will show you how our media fraternity is good at making up for lost time. A series of stories on Satyarthigot off the ground and there was no end to them. As if, all of a sudden, the reporting on child rights became so fashionable on Indian soil - except for Times Now which was still discovering the mystery behind Sunanda Pushkar's death on the same evening.
Most of the stories, in print and on TV, were merely reporting the event or talking about “Bachpan Bachao Andolan” but there was hardly astory explaining why the media had failed to cover Satyarthiall these years.
The following update from a little bird on Facebook suggests an exclusive yet to come. “I had tried to help his (apparently Kailash Satyarthi's) media person, a friend of mine about ten years back…very few journalists wrote on NGOs…however I was very politely told that, as Satyarthi had broken from Swami Agnivesh who had lots of friends in the media...he may not be covered......this may answer many questions?”
Prominent Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar mentioned that Satyarthi used to write for the newspaper. Social media, like any other day, had quite a few interesting updates on the man. He was recognized by the US State Department in 2007 as a "Hero Acting to End Modern Day Slavery", said one post by Ch Sushil Rao, a media professional based in Hyderabad. Another Facebook post had information about Satyarthi sharing the stage with former environment minister Jairam Ramesh and the likes for a programme in the same city a couple of years back.
An insight into Satyarthi came from an IT engineer who came from the same home town of Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh and the same school. “He was one of us doing his job, caring little for any tangible and quick benefits including media coverage,” wrote Vijaya Shrivastava.
So it was truly ironical that Kailash won the Nobel prize without most of us knowing him, never mind the local and international media. It was also ironical that he shared it with a Pakistani when firing was on along the LoC.
For many, Malala has been the western media's blue-eyed girl whose story fits well into the western narrative of oriental oppression, in which the context underlying the creation of the oppression is left out. “The Western world can feel good about itself as they save the native woman from the savage men of her home nation. It is a historic racist narrative that has been institutionalised,” wrote Assed Baig, the Pakistan-origin journalist based in the UK on Huffington Post, adding “the actions of the West, the bombings, the occupations, the wars all seem justified now. See, we told you, this is why we intervene to save the natives.”
Another person, one Mr Ranji, wrote on Facebook: “Another reality is the story of Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, who was gang-raped by five U.S. Army soldiers and killed in her house in Yusufiyah (Iraq) in 2006. She was raped and murdered after her parents and six-year-old sister Hadeel Qasim Hamza were killed. Also not irrelevant to mention is that Abeer was going to school before the US invasion but had to stop going because of her father’s concerns for her safety.
“And while the West applauds Malala (as they should), I am afraid it might be for the wrong reasons, or with a wrong perspective. It feels like the West wants to gain an agenda that suits them or the policies they want. That is also why Malala’s views on Islam are rarely presented. She uses her faith as a framework to argue for the importance of education rather than making Islam a justification for oppression, but that is rarely mentioned.”
All of us are habituated to a free and fair media that asks questions of almost everybody with the goal of upholding the basic principles of democracy. We are often used to extensive coverage of certain issues in the media, and at times the trivialisation of news. But who is out there to point finger at the media when it is caught on the wrong foot or misses something?
At the end of it all, my question largely remains the same. Why didn't I know about Kailash Satyarthi earlier? Why did I learn about him from Reuters the other day, not from TOI or HT or Bhaskar or Rediff.com before he was awarded the Nobel?
(Ashutosh Nayak works as a PR professional with NTPC Limited and can be contacted at nayak.ashutosh@gmail.com.)
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