Image: NDTV

A hallmark of the Fourth Estate should be its exemplary professionalism; this breed of media person delves into facts, treating the transmission of news, first and foremost as a transfer of hard and real news. That is how a good news report is born. Such media conditions the citizens’ mind in the right direction and with the right intent. An inquisitive, diligent and no-nonsense media men as they are, they also turn out to be good authors and commentators on public issues.

Pradip Phanjaobam, the editor of Imphal Free Press (The North East Question: Conflicts and Frontiers) is one such contemporary among Manipur’s illustrious media persons.

Unfortunately, however, in Manipur, the cause of concern is the growing tendency of other brand of media persons who, in their exuberance, dish out utterly baseless, shocking and thoroughly ill-intentioned stories which are tantamount to character assassination of the person/community who is brought under their scanner. To this brand of media persons, moral principles and professional ethics are the relics of the dinosaurian age, quite out of tune with the Machiavellian world that they so meticulously create for themselves.

This is clearly evident from the recent communal incident at Lilong Nungei of Thoubal district, Manipur where the media houses have shamelessly reported news with a bias, often quite brazenly taking sides of one community against another.

The incident in question is not from too far back. On December 13, 2016 at around 3.30 pm, a person named Irungbam Dinesh from Pisumthong who married a girl from Lilong Nungei and lives with his wife’s family shot at a bird (to kill it) using his double-barrel gun. A stray bullet hit at a young boy, who happened to be Muslim from the neighbourhood of Pangal. Eight year old Aslam (8 years) had been enjoying the sun in front of his house.

Angry elders from the family of the young boy rushed the home of Dinesh. The ensuing melee resulted in torching of some homes leading to Dinesh and his friends retaliating with gunfire led to injure 9 more Muslims who have been hospitalised at Noor Hospital, Lilong.[1]  Some reports from the spot indicate that Dinesh has a history of committing petty and more serious crimes, which s is the reason he has been ‘evicted’ from his native place and is not allowed to live in his village, Pisumthong.

The situation turned more serious when the original incident was ignored in the reporting that followed. Sections of the media launched a determined attack on Muslims of Lilong Nungei and whipped up a communal frenzy in the area which eventually led to the burning down of two Muslim houses and six more Muslims being injured.

For example, Poknapham, a Manipuri daily and The People’s Chronicle, a sister publication of ‘Poknapham’ reported that “some residents of Nungei Muslim village used loudspeakers to assemble people at around 4pm Wednesday and started attacking nearby Nungei village inhabited by another community using licensed double-barrel guns. The gun attack compelled Nungei villagers to flee their homes while the attacking party torched five houses and looted a grocery shop located at the intersection of the two villages”.

[2] Naharolgi Thoudang, a Manipuri daily on December 14 carried a story with the headline, “Gun fired at Nungei injured several, Meitei villagers flee their homes”. It further reported that the gun was also used to attack the house of Meitei which caused injury to some animals and led to violence.

[3] Another Manipuri daily, Sanaleipak, contrarily writes that the injured person is a Meitei boy and attacks and firing were committed by Muslims.[4]

Unfortunately this kind of sensational and unsubstantiated reporting has succeeded in suppressing facts that could otherwise have given readers unbiased news about the incident that had occured.

These newspapers clearly give an impression that the community to which Dinesh belonged is the victimised one that was also assaulted. This fashion of reporting also gives a communal tinge to the incident from the outset and portrays it as an unprovoked assault from the neighbouring community. If this had been the nature of the attacks by Muslims, logically, there should have been some causality to neighbouring Meiteis too. However logic does not play a part in this kind of journalism that is not trained to be professional and questioning.

Such instances of ‘framed up news’ to ‘blame’ Muslims when such incidents take place serve as propaganda to increase communal tensions and, as consequence, often lead to loss of lives. Such a bias had prevented staff reporters from honest reporting on issues related to the Muslim minority in the state.

Since mid December when this incident took place, this kind of propaganda has spread so fast that conflicts have been brewing in the neighbouring Meitei localities: the feeling that Lilong Muslim have ill-treated Nungei Meiteis made some Meities assemble the day after the incident. This was followed by an incident when on the next day, some 30 unidentified people have beaten three Muslim youths who came back to their home in a Honda Activa (MN-01L-1855). Police and law enforcement personnel simply did not intervene. As a result, 148 Muslims have been compelled to vacate their homes (about 49 houses) over the past ten days and have taken refuge at Lilong Haoreibi College, some 10 kms away from the spot area.[5]   A combination of media inspired crimes and complicity by security personnel’s allowed such an organised crime to take place.

This is not the first time that sections of the Manipur media have been attacking Muslims directly. Such reports have been published time and again to mobilise the majority community and spread hatred against minority community. In a similar incident on April 16, 2016, Poknapham reported that ‘Muslims have attacked Nungei Meitei and injured some Meira Paibis’. Naharolgi Thoudang on April 15, 2016 reported that ‘gunshots fired by 3 Muslim youth at a Meira Paibi office had injured 14 people’.  Pressures from communal organisations compelled the government to arrest the 3 Muslim youth.[6] Again, on July 17, 2014, Imphal Free Press (IFP) published, “Report points at Al Qaeda targeting youth from the state” in which 23 Muslim youths from Lilong area of Manipur were accused of joining the Al-Qaeda.[7] This report quoted from a Delhi-based magazine called ‘First Word’ who’s source has not been verified.

How has this come to pass? All This obvious bias in news coverage about Manipuri Muslims arises from the excessive control of media and other affairs of the state by only the majority Meitei with their legacy of hatred against Muslims. There are about 35 daily newspapers and 4 local television channels in Manipur. With a total population of just over 27 lakh and a literacy rate that is about 76.94%, it should be obvious that 35 daily newspapers and the large number of weeklies would have to struggle very hard to be viable. This is the very fact that many of these newspapers survive solely on government advertisements or funded by some banned outfits takes away their precious independence and their sense of responsibility to the people and to their hopes and aspirations.

Unfortunately when this happens, a newspaper abdicates its responsibilities to society and the people. Many of these newspapers have very poor readership or sometimes none at all. In an electoral democracy like ours, they are seen as no more than extensions of the government or banned outfits out to promote their sectarian objectives.

It is this situation that has pushed the weakest community of Manipur society—Muslims—into virtual political oblivion. An increasingly anti-Muslim stance also exposes as hypocritical claims of pluralism and diversity within government or governance. Any objective study or analysis –and there is a dire need for such—would show an abject absence of impartiality and the active use of inflammatory techniques during small and larger conflicts that have the effect of provoking one side to retaliatory action against the other. These extremes are routinely visible within Manipur media. No conscious effort has ever been made by the media, barring a few notable exceptions, to bring the two prominent communities together. On the contrary, conflicts have always been highlighted and worse, projected in a one-sided fashion. The presentation of news and views by these newspapers is creating a sharp division between the Meiteis and the Muslim leading to a situation where accusations are flung at each other in everyday day life. So long as the media plays on and perpetuates this hostility, it will be very difficult to bridge the growing gulf between the two communities.

Besides the control of large sections of the media by the majority Meitei community, in Manipur, the depressing state of affairs urgently calls for the government, the media and the civil society to come together and assert their inclusive roles. The electronic media in particular need to have a relook at its recruitment policy. The services of the media persons who have respect for professional ethics should be utilised for the selection of the reporters and cameramen. A comprehensive code of conduct for these media persons should be formulated and vetted by the Press Council of India (PCI). Any media person who does not feel the prick of conscience while dishing out false, fabricated, motivated news item cannot be a member of the Fourth Estate. Television channels or newspapers with a hidden, communal newspapers agenda need to be admonished by the PCI. Instead of observing the universally accepted journalistic ethics, these newspapers have been engaging for decades in writing ‘in blood and vitriol’. It spewed ‘venom every morning’ during the months in 1993 when the Meitei was killing Muslims. Their role in society is a blot on journalism.  It is about time that professional bodies call them to account.

(The author is a doctoral scholar, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, JNU)
 

1. Mob Violence in Manipur: An Aberration or an Erosion of Syncretism?

The post How Manipur’s Media helps Trigger Violence against Muslims appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Cover Image Credits : E-PAO

The brutal mob lynching of six Muslims (locally known as Pangals) in Manipur on March 25, 2016 who went to watch Thabal Chongba (Moonlight Dance) in connection to Yaoshang (Holi) festival, deserves the severest condemnation because of the very nature of the act.Barely a fortnight later, again, on April 7, 2016, three Muslim youths were brutally beaten up at Mayang Imphal Yangbi Garden of Imphal West district. Two of them were died in the lynching and a third has been critically injured. He is currently fighting for his life in ICU.
 
The state, guardian of our constitutional rights and liberties was absent. Its visible arm the police was complicit in inaction.
 
Days later, on Tuesday, April 12, there were clashes between two communities in Manipur on Monday in the wake of the bandh called by the Joint Action Committee (JAC)(see document) against the death of two youths who succumbed to their injuries in hospital after being mauled by a mob on April 7.
 
Are these attacks the result of an insidious communalisation of Manipuri society, as it succumbs to mainstreaming stigmatisation of the Muslim minority or would that be an over-simplistic generalisation?
 
Are Muslims, then, now not allowed to watch Thabal Chongba (Holi celebrations)? If the answer is affirmative, then why do organisers of such event (forcibly) collect contributions in the form of money from all citizens in markets and residential areas in Manipur, irrespective of religious affiliation? 

The young men were set upon for allegedly trying to steal a vehicle parked at Sagaisabi under Mayang Imphal Police station–the ensuing violence left seven houses gutted and more than 30 injured. The incident is an extremely ugly one and involved predominantly Hindu Meiteis and the Pangals (Manipuri Muslims). These assaults on these young Muslims were not just ordinary crimes. They showcase rising issues of mob incited hate crimes in Manipuri society.
 
There have been an increasing number of incidents in recent years, where Muslims have been the target of communally incited mob/mob groups, fired up by allegations of ‘stealing vehicles’ from nearby localities by majority Meitei community. The allegations by local Meiteis against Muslims being ‘thieves’ (because they indulge in stealing vehicles) is not new. This allegation has become so much part of a generalised discourse against the whole of the Muslim/Pangal community over the years, that, in general many Meiteis have internalised it. This internalisation has led to the widespread stigmatisation of the whole community to the extent that every Muslim youth is seen as ‘thief’ or ‘drug addict’ which is simply not true.
 
The police, also consumers and participants of this over-generalised stigmatising discourse, have, to a large extent bought into the narrative. The March 25 public beating also followed rumours of an attempt by the young Muslim boys –who had simply gone to watch Holi celebrations –to ‘steal a bike’!
 
Let us examine the police version for a moment. Even the local Station House Officer (SHO) who is believed to have briefed his senior officers, refused to lodge an FIR against those Muslim youths who were alleged to have been ‘caught while trying to steal a bike(s).’ Thus, my assessment based on local inputs from the spot is that they were brutally beaten up just because they belong to a marginalised and stigmatised community who ‘dared’ to join the local Thabal Chongba. Thabal Chongba, Holi celebrations in Manipur, are a charming and beautiful occasion, celebrations where local boys and girls find a space to interact and even fall in love.  
 
Are Muslims, then, now not allowed to watch Thabal Chongba? If the answer is affirmative, then why do organisers of such event (forcibly) collect contributions in the form of money from all citizens in markets and residential areas in Manipur, irrespective of religious affiliation?
 
Pernicious propaganda unchecked by the state or the law enforcement authorities, has labelled the Muslim community as a ‘community of vehicle thieves and anti-social elements’. Today, Manipur has fallen prey to the discourse of religious intolerance and is now part and parcel of the RSS-led and BJP enforced persistent witch-hunt of the minority Muslim community in mainland India.
 
[[Communalism Combat had, in 1993 briefly analysed the impact of this during the LK Advani-led rath yatra. That article can be read here.]]
 
Over 100 Muslims have been killed in the state in the 1993 violence. The riot started on May 2, 1993 when three Meitei youths who belong to an insurgent group called the People’s Republican Army (PRA) were beaten up by some Muslim villagers of Lilong in Thoubal district where they had allegedly gone to purchase illicit arms from an illegal arms dealer. After the incident, some Meiteis spread the rumour of molestation and assault of some Meitei college-students and other Meiteis by Muslims.
 
The localised scuffle related to the transaction of arms in a small local area fuelled a rumour that ‘Muslims had started attacking Meiteis’. That rumour, as rumours of this kind are want to do, was allowed to spread like wild fire within a few hours in Manipur. The authorities did nothing to step in or to quell its impact.
 
It eventually led to systematic killings and murders of innocent rickshaw pullers, pedestrians, bus passengers, etc., belonging to the Muslim community, many of whom were returning from their work places, located in Meitei-dominated localities. This was the starting point of the riot which had, at the time, the implicit support of the police and the state.
 
In the riot, the official figures of deaths were 103 Muslims as against 4 Meiteis. In actuality these figures would have been as high as 500 if the body count had included the bodies of non-Manipuri Muslims who had also been killed in the incidents. The victims were compensated with a meagre twenty-five thousand rupees given to the next of the kin. Of the 343 people arrested none have been convicted so far, for these mass crimes that had marked a first in the history of Manipur.
 
This clash, in the early 1990s marked a significant break from a fairly harmonious co-existence between the different religious communities within Manipur. A 1980s popular song "Ho Iril Turel' was sung by Laishram Birendrakumar  a Meitei Brahmin, symbolises this co-existence in lyrics and melody.

The song is a paean to the beauty of the Iril River which silently meanders past many different settlements; in one of the stanzas the singer nostalgically recalls the sweet sound of pre-dawn prayer from a distant Masjid floating on the simmering river surface and drifting towards him.
 
The history of the Pangals (Manipuri Muslims) is interesting. They first came to Manipur as part of an invading army from a feudal lord of East Bengal. The year was 1606 and it was, as is typical of this period, an invasion by invitation, at the behest of a Manipuri prince working with a neighbor to usurp the Manipuri throne.
 
King Khagemba of Manipur at the time was powerful enough to rebuff the attack; the participating Muslims agreed on a truce without a fight. They earnestly argued their case, saying that they did not come as invaders but were brought by a prince of the kingdom. Eventually, they were pardoned and allowed to settle in the kingdom, given local wives (as the army had come without their women) given Meitei surnames, even properties. Pangals are their descendants. King Khagemba’s decision to pardon was governed by a sharp pragmatism. These Pangals brought in new skills, especially in the areas of agriculture, fishing and horse tending.
 
The sudden spurt of incidents of brute public violence over the past few months is a matter of serious concern; already large sections of the Muslim community in the state are victims of both discrimination and ghettoisation. [1]
 
This is not the first time that this kind of structural violence set up by sections of Meitei fanatics has been faced by minority communities in the state. During the recent Inner Line Permit (ILP) movement, some self-appointed Meitei groups had been found, forcibly checking identity of the commuters in the Imphal West district and during this ‘checking’ one Muslim student had been assaulted mercilessly under the pretext of being a Bangladeshi migrant.
 
Certain extremist elements among the Meiteis have been increasingly marginalising and stigmatising Muslims. During the ILP movement, in September 2015, a Muslim Manipuri student who was travelling to Bangaluru (Bangalore) was killed in Andhra Pradesh before he reached Bangaluru. This killing was after the Bihar Member of Parliament(MP), Pappu Yadav threatened to attack Manipur people travelling on train and the reaction of the ILP movement to regulate migrant workers in Manipur to protect the indigenous population of Manipur. However, this young Manipuri has not been recognised as a victim of the movement. His name was not duly acknowledged by any major newspaper in Imphal; had the student belonged to the Meitei community, the boy would have been named a ‘martyr’ and his name would have found a place among those killed earlier, in the June Uprising of 2001.
 
In another similar incident, an engineering Muslim student was killed in the Thoubal district of the state, allegedly by some Meitei fanatics in 2014 on the pretext of having a relationship with a Meitei girl. Or take the case of the high-profile broad day-light murder of Professor Md. Islamuddin, a lone Muslim professor and the then Registrar of Manipur University, on May 25, 2009 inside the campus. This incident signalled the culture of intolerance against the minority. It was a deliberate and well-planned murder of a professional academic; whose only fault was that he had rose to the top of the University’s administrative hierarchy through his hard work – an area which had been, until then, dominated by the Meiteis. This was an act of racism wrapped within a core of communal sentiments.
 
There has been not enough vociferous condemnation of these communally incited incidents by political leaders, civil society group, human rights activists, the intellectual class or student organisations who otherwise express a strong sense of injustice on acts that violate fundamental freedoms, by the Indian state or any other group(s). Imphal-based active civil society organisations have either been silent or, even on occasion, come out in the strong defence of Meiteis who were involved in such attacks.
 
One such organisation calling itself the Meitei Youth Front South East Asia (MYFSEA), recently actually propagated (falsely), in the Manipuri edition of the popular local daily, The Sangai Express falsehoods like ‘all those youths(attacked) were thieves possessing guns who dared to threaten Meiteis’. [[attached is the statement published in The Sangai Express on April 14,2016. The second is a video link of the recording of Meira Paibi Lup against the arrest of the culprits guilty of the crime.]] Comparing the Muslims of Manipur with ‘terrorists’, the organisation blamed the entire Muslim community, for its inability to rein in such anti-social elements. There has been no unequivocal condemnation of such stigmatising so far.
 
Muslims are facing segregation and being increasingly ghettoised in almost all parts of the state today. There are spoken and unspoken restrictions of where Muslims are allowed or not allowed to buy property, and live.
 
The politics of intimidation that is practised in and around the Mantripukhri area (a prime residential colony in central Imphal area inhabited by various government officials and rich locals) is a clear example for this. In this instance, the state has directly asked Muslims not to construct any building on land-plots owned by them.

These assaults on these young Muslims were not just ordinary crimes. They showcase rising issues of mob incited hate crimes in Manipuri society. 
 
Another such instance is an attempt by the state government to acquire eco-sensitive land –that comprises of mainly paddy fields in the foothills, of Shora, to establish a national sports university. The ‘development’ was planned made without consulting the villagers who also include a sizeable population of Maring (tribal) community residing in the foothills adjoining the Shora village and the Shora village, 80 per cent of who’s residents are Muslims. The Shora village is 30 kilometres from Imphal. The acquisition of agricultural and homestead land will cause widespread displacement for the Muslim villagers and the tribal community, left without either homes or land.
 
The exclusion of Muslims from the wider development process in the state and administrative decisions has been alleviated slightly over the past few years, owing to a reservation policy in the recruitment process of various government posts. Muslim representation in administration has been gradually increased, though it still remains proportionate to the population, low.
 
There is not a single Muslim shop allotted to women from the community in the famous Ima Keithel or Nupi Keithel (Mothers’ market) in Imphal. If one strolls through the market for 15 minutes, one would realise that around 90 percent of those women (Imas in Manipuri) belong to the Meitei community. Muslims demanded 9 percent of the total allotments in three newly constructed complexes but have got, so far, nothing. Denial of such reasonable demands has only dis-enfranchised Muslims further.
 
Should or should not the onus of maintaining the strong roots of Manipuri syncretism lie with the Meities and other Manipuris too?

The systemic influence of sections of Meiteis who are more hardened and opinionated on the larger Meitei community seems to have overshadowed the otherwise benign and harmonious attitude of Meiteis which had been responsible for maintaining communal harmony for centuries. More than slightly disturbing has been the silence on the part of the larger moderate sections among the Meiteis who have not spoken out and condemned this violent chain of events that has targeted their brothers and sisters, Manipuri Muslims.
 
I am sure that many sections of the highly aware and intelligent Meitei community are conscious of these ills that are corroding Manipuri society. Few of the voices that have been raised in protest against the communal frenzy unleashed against the minorities have been silenced by the more strident Meitei leaders who have even justified both recent assault(s) and killings saying that the victims were ‘stealing’.
 
For example, Naorem Brajakumar, Secretary of the Joint Action Committee (JAC) justified the lynching. Another Meira Paibi Lup (Women torch bearer organisation) of the Mayang Imphal protested against the arrest of the culprits. There is also a video of the same. They threatened to agitate against the government if the police did not release those arrested for the crimes.
 
Given this marginalisation and ongoing ghettoisation of Manipuri Muslims, victims from the religious minority are just paying the price of the social stigma attached to the Muslim community as a ‘community of vehicle thieves and anti-social elements’.
 
Such an overwhelmingly biased and resultant double­speak by large sections of the majority, when a violent incident targeting Muslims occurs, has caused deep schisms within Manipur, particularly between the two communities. This is not a healthy sign.
 
Should or should not the onus of maintaining the strong roots of Manipuri syncretism lie with the Meities and other Manipuris too? To remain silent in the face of such targeted violence and the obvious erosion of traditional harmony would be to consent to a silent, and dangerous rupturing; ruptures that will eventually affect us all.

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