Where are the dalit journalists?</headline>
Why is
it that from a population of over 205 million Dalits, roughly equivalent to the
combined population of France, UK, and Germany, there is not a single Dalit
with a press card in the main stream media?
Some
five years back, on November 16, 1996 to be precise, BN Uniyal published his
"In Search Of a Dalit Journalist", in The Pioneer. Mr. Uniyal was
confronted with a ¿strange¿ query from a foreign correspondent who wanted to
meet a Dalit journalist. The foreign journalist wanted to seek the opinion of a
Dalit journalist over the reported dispute between Kansi Ram and few
journalists. Mr. Uniyal wanted to help his foreign counterpart, and thus begun
his hunt for a Dalit journalist.
He
spoke to a number of editors, media personalities, social activists, but could
not find one. He wrote, "Suddenly I realized that in all the 30 years I
had worked as a journalist, I had never met a fellow journalist who was a
Dalit; no, not one. And worse still, was the thought that during all those
years it had never occurred to me that there was something so seriously amiss
in the profession, something which I should have noticed as a journalist. In
all these years I have traveled almost every district of the country in the
company of numerous journalists and met hundreds of others in different in
different cities and towns and yet do not remember having met any Dalit
journalist".
His
queries at Delhi¿s Press Club too turned futile, and finally he examined the
Accreditation Index, 1996, of the Press Information Bureau. The Index contained
686 journalists, in which, 454 bore their Caste surnames, but of those none was
a Dalit. Of the remaining 232 names, Mr. Uniyal checked out 47 names at random
basis, and none of them turned out to be a Dalit.
I
myself have studied in JNU, know a lot many people in Delhi, but barring one
Dalit who worked for Observer of Business & Politics [now closed] I am yet
to meet a Dalit who is a journalist in Delhi. But I believe there could still
be one or two Dalit journalists in Delhi, who may have camouflaged their
identities for the sake of survival.
I
still remember that memorable day when The Pioneer had carried Mr. Uniyal¿s
piece, and expected a heated debate in media. But nothing of that sort
happened. In January last year, when The Pioneer had given its eight-page
Millennium supplement to us bring out a special Dalit Millennium supplement, we
approached Mr. Uniyal to write a piece. He requested us to repeat his November 16
article with following note: " The article reproduced above first appeared
in The Pioneer in November 1996, but was totally ignored by our journalistic
establishment. No editor, columnist or commentator, no professional association
like The Editors Guild and no public organization like Press Council took any
notice of it. None felt aghast or alarmed at the situation described in the
article.
It
did not provoke a debate. No one felt there was a need for making special
efforts to draw qualified Dalits into the media".
The Pioneer¿s Dalit Millenium Supplement, which contained Uniyal¿s November 1996 article with his note, was published on January 30, 2001, but till date no editor, columnist, or any other non-Dalit public organization has reflected upon Uniyal¿s quest. We, as a small group of Dalit activists, took upon ourselves to draft a memorandum, where we quoted extensively the American experience of affirmative actions in media, and posted a copy to each major media establishment in Delhi. But, barring The Pioneer, no one responded.