...come Kashmir and objectivity bids a good bye

I appreciate Indian Media both electronic as well as print for their unbiased reporting and fair analysis. We see a lot of sting operations and a lot of Paparazzi style Journalism also in India . Politicians have been shown taking bribe and caught red handed by Indian Journalists, lot of scandals have been unearthed by the smart Indian journalists. In south Asia if any country has a free press that is India. Be it ruling party of India or opposition party, media spares none. Recent years have witnessed a tremendous spurt of private channels. There is a cut throat competition amongst channels to get a story first and report it first. Every minute we see breaking news and news alert. TV journalists have become big celebrities in India. TV journalists like Barkha Dutt, Pranay Roy, Rajdeep Sardesai Rajat Sharma etc are house hold names in India. Unfortunately all these reporters and all these channels have maintained a criminal silence when it comes to reporting Kashmir. I can think of three reasons for this cold approach of Indian Media towards Kashmir. Either conscience of Indian journalists has died or it must be written in the curriculum of Indian Journalism that Kashmir falls beyond and is not to be reported anymore. The third reason could be that Government of India has wooed them to the extent that they reciprocate their friendship by being biased about Kashmir. Even pro establishment people who have been installed and commissioned by Indian establishment themselves are not given any coverage on Indian channels. Now let us see when Indian Media is reporting on Kashmir. They report only when they find any news item in which they can show that normalcy has returned the valley, when they find stories which suit them. They find a handful of people here with statements which fall in line with their scheme of things. They feel happy in showing people praising Indian Army here. From wherever they get it, but they are very selective about the material regarding Kashmir. A man smoking on the banks of Dal means all is well with Kashmiris no matter what happens here. We never see those investigative or Sherlock Holmes style journalists coming from India to investigate why army killed teenagers in a marriage party, why they killed a handicapped shopkeeper, how Navy is responsible for the drowning of 22 kids in Wullar lake. Even when they are to discuss Kashmir, they invite they invite any non Kashmiri pseudo intellectual or some one from the establishment and whatever they say is acceptable to them. This way they can’t be objective. If they want to maintain their credibility they must step out of their bias and report very objectively on Kashmir.

Above write up was published in Greater kashmir(Leading english daily from Srinagar Kashmir ) on 25 sep 2006 also