Protest in Bhopal

In a unique protest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday bash, scheduled for September 17 at the Narmada dam, 30 of the dam’s oustees shaved their heads in order to tell the Madhya Pradesh government that as far as they were concerned, its governance was “dead”. The birthday bash, seen as brazen by protesters,  will see Modi dedicating the “completed” Narmada dam to the nation.

Part of what they called”chunauti dharna” or challenge protest, which lasted for two hours at Neelam Park, Bhopal, speakers on the occasion said, Modi would celebrate his birthday in the presence of the chief ministers of BJP-ruled states of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, at a time when people living in the Narmada Valley — adivasis, farmers, dalits, workers, fisher people, artisans, women, children and others — would be fatally affected.

The people of valley and their supporters would challenge the unjustified submergence being brought to them without proper rehabilitation, they said, adding, the celebration was being organized by Modi for political gains.
 

Protest in Delhi

People had come from all over the valley, and, following the dharna, it was decided to hold mass protest at Barda (near Anjad, District Badwani), where many religious places are in the submergence area, something not acknowledged in government reports.
Led by the anti-dam Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) the Chetavani rally saw an intensive dialogue with a senior Narmada official, Rajneesh Vaish, principal secretary, Narmada Valley Development Authority. Vaish told the protesters that all the oustees’ issues have “already been debated and decided upon by various courts.”

When NBA leader Medha Patkar said that the rehabilitation sites were far from complete, Vaish claimed, water supply had already been provided to all the sites. However, oustees from Nisarpur and Awalda told him true. An oustee, Rameshwar Bhilala, said, the Barwani district collector was not providing true picture of the sites.
 

Protest in Mumbai

Vaish claimed, Madhya Pradesh would receive receive irrigation and drinking water from the Sardar Sarovar reservoir and there was no legal barrier for this, adding, he would ensure that the demand of getting reservoir waters to every resettlement sites were met. He admitted, some of the outstanding works would soon be completed, and tenders were in the process of being issued.

Meanwhile, reports from Nisarpur village said, the Shivling of Shiva Temple at the banks Narmada tributary, Uri-Baghni, was forcibly uprooted amidst opposition of the people. People of the village were being shifted to rehabilitation sites which were not yet equipped with adequate water, proper house plots, roads and basic amenities.

In a parallel development, a group of prominent citizens protested in front of the Ministry of Water Resources and submitted memorandum to the Secretary in New Delhi. Those were in the delegation included Hannan Mollah (former Member of Parliament, CPM); Richa Singh (National Alliance of People’s Movements), Krishna Prasad (All-India Kisan Sabha), Vimal Bhai (Matu Jansangathan), and others.

Madhya Pradesh protesters dialogue in Bhopal

In their representation, they said, the Government of India’s response to the oustees’ problems was “apathetic, shameless and completely undemocratic.” They added, “In Gujarat, canals are incomplete, and the government has reduced the planned irrigation command area from 18 lakh hectares to mere 12 lakh hectares last year.”

“Even then they are only able to irrigate mere 3 lakh hectares”, they said, adding, “Meanwhile, The length of Narmada canal was reduced consistently and silently. From earlier planned 90,389 km, it has been reduced to approximately 71000 km, of which still they need to construct 42,000 km of canal network.”

They wondered, “By closing gates of the Sardar Sarovar dam, and submerging people of the Narmada valley, whom are they providing water without canals? Modi’s Narmada mahotsav has been planned only to highlight the  government’s lies. It is merely a campaign for votebank politics.”

In a simultaneous development, Maharashtra tribals protested in Mumbai, asking chief minister Devendra Fadnavis not to participate in Modi’s birthday bash at the Narmada dam on September 17, submitting a memorandum, which said the state’s oustees’ rehabilitation issues had still not been settled.

The post MP Dam Oustees Shave Their Heads, Tell Modi:Your Governance is ‘Dead’ appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Its been a year, harsh, hard and long since the killing of 22-year-old Hizbul Mujahideen Commander Burhan Wani on July 8, 2016 which sparked a massive uprising in Kashmir. The protestors, angry and disillusioned with the way India and its mechanisms have responded, are once again demanding the right to self-determination. At this crucial juncture for Kashmir, we interview Irfan Mehraj, a human rights worker who has witnessed the year-long protests unfold, first hand. Irfan Mehraj is a researcher at Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society.The interview was conducted by Rishabh Bajoria. [Internet services were 'officially' suspended on July 6-7. Any attempts to re-connect to Kashmit, today, July 8, have proven to be difficult: Sabrangindia)
 
Q. How would you look back at this one year in the context of Kashmir and the conflict within and without, particularly in the context of human rights?
The State’s (Indian) response towards people’s movement/ protests, many of whom aspire to the right to self-determination is getting increasingly violent. In the past year (from July 8, 2016), 170 civilians have lost their lives in the course of firing (by Indian security forces). People’s expressions of solidarity towards these expressions by the militants are being criminalised by the State. This does not leave people space to peacefully voice their grievances (with the State). The situation in Kashmir is getting more violent. The State is hand in glove with this because the State’s policy has been to crush rebellions with brute force. The State has been behaving this way in Kashmir for many years, but since 2016 it has become more brutal. Maybe the one difference was that Burhan Wani evoked such response from Kashmiris, that lakhs of people came out for his funeral. The State did not, or could not, pre-empt that this kind of response to Burhan’s death.

Q. What was it about Burhan Wani that his death caused such an outpouring of emotion?
There are multiple reasons. One of the reasons for his adored following was his obvious charm, visible through his presence on social media. He was very young, only 22 when he died. He had joined the militancy when he was only 16, but he had shown a maturity which I believe is often missing, especially in the rungs of the leadership of the present militancy. A lot of Kashmiris were attracted to it, because they saw him as a man who was challenging the Indian State with a narrative that was as clear as the ground reality within the Valley. He was therefore not only well known, but respected and loved by the people. He was successfully raising awareness about the movement. His success is evidenced by the number of people who attended his funeral, the number going into lakhs. His funeral was conducted 40 times in Tral alone. Imagine the rest of the valley! Also the collective expression for azadi or the right to self-determination in Kashmir had not seen much activity between 2001-2010. But since 2008 with the emergence of widespread people’s protests, it is this demand that has returned to the forefront.

I was travelling in a Sumo (the often used form of public transport in Kashmir) just this morning (Friday July 7) and the conversation among the passengers was how in the 1990s (widely considered the peak of Kashmiri militancy), the battle lines were not so clear. People were unclear about how to react when there is an encounter (extra judicial killing). Today it is like an all out, open war. Militants are engaging with the Indian State in an open battle, and ordinary people are coming out in support for them (militants). So, some of the Indian State’s façade, at least, over the Kashmiris being happy with the State is being wiped away because of the people’s response to the death of militants like Burhan Wani and Bashir Lashkari (LeT Commander). At least 20 people (ordinary civilians) have died because they were at the sites where they were killed, something which would not occur earlier.

Q. (cutting him off) Could you briefly explain to an Indian audience what a militant means to a Kashmiri?We increasingly see that ordinary, unarmed civilians are actively going to encounter sites to help militants escape. Is this a new phenomenon in Kashmir? If so, then what explains this?
The atrocities by the Indian State have been so rampant that the fear psychosis within the Kashmiri people has gone. That’s the main reason why people, especially in rural belts, come in droves to encounter sites and pelt stones at the Indian security forces to help militants escape. People are now ready to die with bullets at these ‘encounter sites’ rather than suffer silently.

One of the reasons such support is being shown to militants is because militants are now out in the open. In the early 1990s, conversations about militants were “hush-hush”. Now Kashmiri militants are out on social media and are constantly interacting with the people through audio/ video statements. Their faces are in the public space, and people know them. In the 1990s, while the numbers (of militants) was huge, they would live in hiding. People did not even know who the militant was. Now, if anybody becomes a militant, his whole village, and even the neighbouring village knows about it. For instance, before his killing, Burhan was an active militant for 6 long years. For the entire time, people were protecting him/ giving him shelter. This shows that Burhan’s presence among the people was completely accepted. Obviously, these are our own people. These are people who are coming from our ranks.

Another difference (between the current stage of militancy and 1990s) is that in the 1990s, the militancy was started purely as a political movement. It was not driven at the time by the large-scale human rights violations conducted by the Indian State against Kashmiris. Younger militants joining now are motivated by the brutalities of the State. For instance, people have joined militancy right after Burhan Wani was killed feeling that they cannot let the atrocities of the Indian State go without some response. The militants today are of the same1990s generation, like me. We have all seen the atrocities of Indian securities first hand. When you witness so much daily violence on such a large scale, the predominant, lasting feeling/conclusion is that there is no atmosphere for dialogue in Kashmir, even as far as the State Government is concerned. No breakthrough for politics in Kashmir.

Look at the Hurriyat — most of the time they are behind bars. These people (youth who join militancy) feel a deep sense of insecurity that the abuses against them are going unnoticed. Hence, they take up guns and announce to the world that Kashmir is experiencing a war-and that Kashmiris want an end to the Indian occupation, and you will have to listen to us. Since the 2016 uprising, there has been an exponential increase in the number of local militants. That tells you the kind of appeal Burhan Wani had among Kashmiris, and what influence his death had on a generation of Kashmiris.

Q. On political dialogue, do you think the All Party Delegation that went to Kashmir in September 2016 had a positive impact?
No, I do not think the delegation had any kind of impact. The first problem with the delegation is that the only people they (delegation) talk to are those who have no problem with the present status quo. The delegations have to talk to Hurriyat, but Hurriyat will not talk to them unless they have a certain kind of, discussed and accepted, agenda. Whenever there are tensions in Kashmir, when there is an uprising and people are demanding azadi, these all party delegations are sent to Kashmir to try and douse Kashmiri anger. By now, Hurriyat has understood that there is no use talking to such delegations.

On the 2016 Uprising and its impact
In my view, the 2016 uprising has not ended. I don’t know why journalists and political pundits are saying that it has ended. The only evidence to suggest that the uprising has ended is that Hurriyat has stopped giving calendars (which it issued since the beginning of the uprising).

However, the daily occurrence of violence has grown. Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society released a statement that the first few months of 2017, between January and March, have been the most violent in the last decade. Even in the holy month of Ramzan, the number of casualties was very high. We have not seen a Ramzan like that ever before.
I believe the 2016 uprising shook the Indian State to its core, and their response to it has been increasingly brutal, going all out-even their operation is called “All Out”!Another example of the increase in the brutality of violence since the 1990s is that in the 1990s, violence was perpetrated against Kashmiris in the form of extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances, rapes and so on. Now, violence is being committed within the realm of the law.So, now there are a lot of administrative detentions, at least 15, 000 people were arrested in the course of 5-6 months.

Then, the post December-January student protest erupted. We have not seen this kind of student protests in Kashmir since the early 1990s. This wave of student protests was unprecedented. The reason for this protest erupting is that in the 6 months of brutality, these are students who have seen their classmates injured, blinded by pellets. A lot of people were injured/ arrested in these protests. So, nothing has changed in Kashmir since Burhan Wani’s killing. Daily violence continues. A whopping number of encounters have taken place in the last 6-7 months. In this atmosphere, the State machinery is not responding to the people’s just demands for freedom which Kashmiris have been articulating for a long time. Instead, the State is criminalising the articulation of this demand, and robbing the people of the space for voicing their claims. Unless the State provides this space, I think that the movement will get more violent. People will not cower down to State pressure. The 2016 uprising has led to a further increase in awareness, which was already high, about the need for resistance.

Q. On state brutality, pellet guns were introduced in Kashmir in 2010, but they came into focus during the 2016 uprising when around 1200 people were blinded as a result of pellet injuries. Do you see this as an increase in State brutality? What is the general sense of Kashmiris towards pellet guns?
Pellet guns are brutal. Even in 2010, a significant number of people lost their eyesight owing to pellet injuries. In 2016, pellet guns became the face of State violence against Kashmiris. Pellet guns represent the complete disregard for and dehumanisationof Kashmiri bodies, unapologetically blinding them, maiming and torturing them. In Kashmir, pellet guns are seen as symbol for the State being able to dehumanise and maim you with impunity. Therefore, there is a lot of anger towards pellet guns.

Q. How do we then understand the Indian State’s characterisation of the pellet gun as a non-lethal weapon despite the pellet gun causing so many injuries above waist height?
I don’t see the Indian State revising this characterisation. This is because, as the Army General of India admitted, the Indian State is at war in Kashmir. Both sides know that this is war. There is just a façade over it at the official level by painting protestors as misguided elements who must be dealt with accordingly. I think the categorisation of the pellet gun as a non-lethal weapon is just to confuse the international community and its own people (Indians). I think the war in Kashmir is also directed at people in India, to bolster support for Right-Wing Hindutva politics. That’s why the response of the State to the violence against minorities in India (Muslims, Dalits) is not very different.

Q. You earlier mentioned the personal touch militants are now able to have with the people through social media. Do you think social media has had a massive impact on the nature of the resistance movement?
No, I would say its tertiary. The resistance movement in Kashmir is not run by social media. In fact, social media is a representation of the sentiments of Kashmiris on the ground. For instance, after Burhan Wani was killed, the State snapped internet very soon after. Despite that, there were large processions consisting lakhs of people. So, how did they come on the road? They did not need social media to mobilise. Mobilisation in Kashmir can happen quickly through word of mouth. However, social media has helped change the nature of the militancy in Kashmir by facilitating the presence of militants in Kashmiri homes and helping make militancy increasingly acceptable in the public space. At best, it is a server of information and communication. People don’t need social media to mobilise, they are already doing it. Since last year, social media in Kashmir has been snapped 14 times. It has been cut off during encounters. However, people still come in hordes to encounter sites because people know where the militants are.

Q. The night before last(July 6) again internet services were cut off in Kashmir. What do you see this as symptomatic of? Why does the Indian State keep doing this if the presence/ absence of internet does not make a significant difference?
I think the Indian State is trying to experiment to see whether internet ban will work or not. So, last night while they cut off internet services, they have been back up since the morning. That could also be because today (July 7) is not as crucial as tomorrow. My sense is that later tonight they will shut all internet services. The order of the Government was to ban social media. But everybody knows that a couple of months ago when the State banned social media, the ban was unsuccessful because people used VPNs (Virtual Private Networks)/ proxies to circumvent the ban.

Q. Could you give us a brief account, from the ground, about what happened in the Valley post the news of Burhan’s killing?
As soon as news spread that Burhan had been murdered, people spontaneously mobilised. They came out onto the streets in anger. For instance, I think that in Srinagar alone there must have been 15-20 funerals for Burhan Wani. The protests started out as being relatively peaceful. On July 9, when the State imposed a curfew, people came out in droves to protest. Especially southern parts of Kashmir saw massive protests with widespread stone-pelting. This was met with violence by the State, at least 20 people were injured, out of which 12 died on the spot, while 8 died later on.  In the first 5 days of the protest, nearly 50 people were killed in protests. This shows the brutality with which the State treats protestors. After such a violent State response, the uprising was inevitable. Nothing the State did could have prevented it. In Kashmir, you can’t come back from that. The initial shutdown call (by Hurriyat) was given for 3 days, but in those 3 days more people died. Then another shutdown call was given for 5 days, and in those 5 days more people died. Therefore, the violence becomes a cycle and that’s how the uprising snowballs.

Q. What happened after that for the next 6 months during the Hartal?
Right after Burhan Wani’s killing, Hurriyat gave a shutdown call for 3 days. In those days, more people were killed. So the call for shutdown was extended further. As more people kept getting killed, Hurriyat repeatedly kept extending its calls weekly. Then, after the first month, Hurriyat started giving calendars about the daily plans/ strategies about how to protest with the larger goal of achieving the right to self-determination. Between August-December 2016, there were close to 400 rallies held demanding Kashmir’s right to self-determination. Despite those rallies being peaceful, violence was used against those rallies as well killing 7-8 people. Often, even when people are trying to come out for peaceful rallies, the Police does not allow them. When the Police tries to stop them, the people respond with force, often as an expression of political dissent against State violence. Hundreds of people were blinded and arrested at these rallies. If the State would have allowed the peaceful rallies to proceed, the rallies would not have turned violent.

Q. Would you characterise the 6-month long shutdown/ Hartal as a success in making the Indian State listen to Kashmiris?
I would say that it was a success in making the Indian State listen. However, a complete shutdown for 6 months where all economic activity has ground to a halt does take an economic toll on people. I think Hurriyat’s call (post December to stop the official shutdown) was to try and ease this economic pain, to allow people to go back to their economic lives and try to recover what we can, while continuing the resistance through protests. For instance, student protests erupted after January 2017.

Q. On a social level, how do Kashmiris cope with such extended shutdowns? For instance, how do they manage food, supplies, etc.?
Something that baffles both the Indian State and Indians is that because Kashmiris have known so much tragedy, for instance, we have been experiencing long curfews since the 1970s, Kashmiris have a tradition of stocking up on food supplies such as rice, lentils, etc. for 3-6 months. Due to the harsh winters in Kashmir, they are used to stocking up. But gradually this habit has extended to the summers as well because Kashmiris never know haalat ka kya hoga (what will happen, when the situation may worsen). So, the reason for stocking up has changed from a climatic one to a political and cultural one.

Q. Going back to a political level, how do you read Mr Khurram Parvez’s detention by the Indian State?
I think Khurram was detained to deter Kashmiris from daring to criticise the State. Khurram is a global figure who has worked tirelessly in the field of human rights activism. When the State arrests somebody like that, it is sending out a signal to all those people who are willing to be critical of the State that we are coming after you, and nobody is off limits, so we can do anything. Khurram’s detention was also an attack on his work as a civil rights activist, because JKCCS (of which Khurram Parvez is the program Coordinator) is still doing human rights work from the ground level despite there being an active uprising in Kashmir. So, when you arrest Khurram, a lot of the energies of the organisation goes in getting Khurram released.

The State, in addition to arresting Khurram, also arrested several lawyers and academicians to deter people from daring to criticise the State. The most important reason was that the State wants to raise the cost of dissenting against it. That is also why we see a rise in State brutality against protests, because such brutality raises the cost of protesting. But, instead of deterring people, this tactic is backfiring because Kashmiris have lost all sense of fear (of even death).

Q. In the backdrop of what you just described, how do you see things unfolding from July 8 in the Valley?
I fear for Kashmiri lives, and hope that more lives are not lost. My sense is that there will be a complete crackdown in the public space to ensure that the 2016 uprising does not repeat itself. People will want to come out and protest. The next two or three days are crucial, especially areas south of Srinagar such as Phulgama, Anantanag, Sopore, and so on because I think that people will want to head towards Burhan Wani’s ancestral home in Tral. Already the State has blocked all routes to Tral. So, the State has already taken preventive to prevent people from going to Tral. Again the State is dealing with these situations how it always does, with an iron hand through the military by preventing people from expressing solidarity with the militant’s family. That is precisely the kind of action that prompts ordinary people to resort to violence, because you are not allowing people to mourn.

(The person conducting the interview is a student of the Jindal Global Law School)
 

The post With Battle Lines Drawn & No Efforts at Dialogue, Kashmir, One Year after Burhan Wani’s Killing appeared first on SabrangIndia.

As attacks on journalists rise, so does impunity owing to the politician-police nexus letting the culprits off. Exposing wrongdoing is now very risky.

Etv  Journalist Nagarjuna Reddy assaulted by brother of local MLA Amanchi Krishnamohan and his supporters,  February 11, Chirala, AP

 

May 3^rd  2017 was World Press Freedom Day.   A HOOT study finds that 54 attacks, and 25 cases of threatening journalists took place in the past 16 months. Though 7 journalists were killed, reasonable evidence of their journalism being the motive for the murder is available only in one case.

Over the last 16 months 54 attacks on journalists in India were reported in the media, according to the Hoot’s compilation.  The actual number will certainly be bigger, because last week Minister of State for Home Affairs Hansraj Ahir said during question hour in the Lok Sabha that 142 attacks on journalists took place between 2014-15.

The government will take its own time to disclose the figures for 2015-16. Meanwhile the data reveals a disturbing pattern of impunity. In the 114 incidents of attacks on journalists in 2014, only 32 people were arrested and in relation to the 28 incidents in 2015, 41 people were arrested.
Journalists are increasingly under fire for their reporting. They are killed, attacked, threatened. Barely three days into 2017 came news of the killing of yet another journalist from Bihar. Predictably, the details that followed adhered to the same pattern: a gang of unidentified shooters; motive not known; police suspect a family dispute or a business rivalry, anything but a killing caused by the professional work of the deceased.
 

 
In 2016, the deaths of journalists – six in all – made headlines but preliminary police investigations could indicate professional reasons in only three cases.
There were 17 instances in 2016 of threats to journalists – serious cases of death threats, rape threats and intimidation – and two in 2017 till now.

A clear and consistent pattern
The stories behind each of these cases reveal a clear and persistent pattern. Investigative reporting is becoming increasingly dangerous. Journalists who venture out into the field to investigate any story, be it sand mining, stone quarrying, illegal construction, police brutality, medical negligence, an eviction drive, election campaigns, civic administration corruption, are under attack.

Leave alone going out into the field, those who host chat shows in the relative safety of a television studio or voice opinions on social media networks are also subjected to menacing threats, stalking and doxing.

 
The perpetuators, as the narratives of these cases clearly indicate, are politicians, vigilante groups, police and security forces, lawyers (apart from the Patiala House court incident in Delhi in the wake of the JNU protests, just take a look at the spate of attacks by lawyers in Kerala), jittery Bollywood heroes and, increasingly, mafias or criminal gangs that operate in illegal trades and mining, often under the protection of local politicians and with the knowledge of local law enforcing agencies. Hence, even with clear accusations of the identities of the perpetuators, they get away scot-free.

The data with The Hoot shows that law-makers and law-enforcers are the prime culprits in the attacks and threats on the media. We need to call out the complicity of the political party leaders and politicians’ supporters who beat up journalists, the role of vigilante groups and of emboldened student groups who target journalists and systematically hound them and seek to muzzle them.
 

 
The efforts to censor and silence these journalists and writers is relentless, sometimes taking on absurd dimensions. In one case filed against Skoch group chairman Sameer Kochhar for allegedly writing a “misleading” article targeting Aadhaar, the complaint filed by an official of the UIDAI said his actions violated the Aadhaar Act. But according to reports,  the FIR has been registered manually as the term ‘Aadhaar Act’ is not updated in their system yet!
Thus far, our focus has been, and quite rightly so, on the brutal killings of journalists. Each death is a permanent silencing of the work of the journalist, the eternal censorship that simply cannot be broken. We have continuously campaigned – as media watchers, journalists’ organisations, editors’ guilds and even the Press Council – about the impunity that shrouds each killing.
 
Muddying the motives
We have seen family members and immediate colleagues of the deceased valiantly argue that the journalist did indeed die for professional reasons, not due to personal rivalries or disputes or any other non-professional motive that investigating police officers point towards. Often, as in three of the six deaths  last year, there are doubts about the motives of the killings.

Zee news report on the Rajdeo Ranjan case in Siwan.
 
But when journalists are threatened or attacked, that does testify that the motive for the targeting was clearly professional. That it is their stories, their investigative work and their bearing witness to all manner of wrongdoings that are under fire.

It is time to examine the threats and the attacks much more seriously than we have thus far. The journalists who have survived gruesome attacks – from immolation bids, acid attacks, strangling attempts and brutal beatings – need to be heard and the perpetrators need to be brought to book. These survivors tell tales and we need to hear them. But do we?

Take a look at this account of an assault in Andhra Pradesh:
Nagarjuna Reddy, a freelance journalist based in Chirala in the district, was assaulted by the brother of local TDP MLA Amanchi Krishnamohan and his supporters over a magazine article and false cases were filed against him. The write up of the journalist highlighted alleged corrupt activities that were undertaken by the MLA. The journalist was thrashed with sticks, other weapons and he cried for help as passer-by watched helplessly. According to News 18 reports, the MLA defended the  beating and said, “This is not a goonda raj, he used abusive language. Nagarjuna is not a journalist, he is sudo Naxal (sic).”
 
That was the report that appeared in the Financial Express.  There’s also a video for those who can stomach watching it. The report says only a five-year-old came to the rescue of the journalist. A five year old! What kind of rescue could a five year old have managed?

You would think that, with the obsession we have with violence porn, this video would get some crazy number of views. Till last week, it had garnered only 4291 views. Why didn’t it make more of an impact? Why were we in the media all silent?
 
Reporting, not being, the news
Perhaps the reason is because journalists hate to be the focus of news, despite the public’s impressions to the contrary, bolstered no doubt by some television anchors who are currently on a huge outreach to promote themselves and their channels. For one thing, drawing undue attention to themselves definitely hampers their news-gathering.
Some journalists, especially those from the electronic media who are increasingly targeted as they are so much more visible with their cameras and other equipment, have taken the beatings as a matter of routine. They curse the police or the mob when they are beaten and their cameras are smashed and then reassemble for the next story, often borrowing equipment from friends.

In the race to feed the beast, some of them are willing to ignore or bypass other beasts. They also know that filing complaints and pursing legal mechanisms to bring culprits to book are time-consuming and dangerous, bringing them more into the spotlight and vulnerable to further targeting. They know the threats and the attacks are a warning that their lives have been spared, this time.
 
Slow justice or no justice?
Yet, more and more journalists are being forced to file complaints before the police. Last year, an unprecedented number of prominent women journalists  had to file complaints about the death and rape threats that they got on social media networks. They are diligently following up on the cases with the police to identify the accused (usually anonymous or using false identities) and get the police to effect arrests.

In other cases, journalists run from pillar to post to get the police to lodge complaints. Take a look at this report from Assam:
14.09.2016, Margherita, Assam: Six journalists went to the Margherita area to gather the facts related to the alleged illegal smuggling of coal from Coal India when they were attacked by more than 40 people suspected to be involved with the coal mafia.
India Today journalist Manoj Dutta was among those assaulted by the mafia men. The journalists alleged that they had to request the Superintendent of Police M J Mahanta for intervention as both the Ledo and Tinsukia police station refused to take any action.
The six journalists were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.
 
Why did local police fail in their duty? The journalists were injured, as the picture of the bloodied journalist clearly shows. Why did they have to go from one police station to another just to file a complaint? Why did they get the attention the incident deserved only on approaching a senior officer?

The reasons are hardly a state secret. As the report disclosed, the coal mafia in the area is ‘conducted under the supervision of  BJP MLA Bhaskar Sharma’s right arm men, Kuldeep Singh and Sandeep Sethia’. Coal worth crores, the report added, is smuggled each night by the mafia from the mines and exported to  Punjab, Haryana and Delhi.
The nexus, in almost every case, is there to see.  Not merely in cases of corruption and illegal trades, but in the coordinated intimidation between local police and vigilante groups like the Samajik Ekta Manch, which hounded journalist Malini Subramaniam out of Bastar in February last year. 

The police, under the guise of investigating her complaint of threats and attacks, intimidated her landlord and neighbours. As her statement said:
“It became clear that in the guise of investigating my complaint, the police was going after those associated with me. The last straw came when my landlord served me an eviction notice on Thursday afternoon. By evening, the Samajik Ekta Manch was staging another protest outside the house of my lawyer….At a time when the nation is outraged about attacks on journalists, one would expect the police to do its utmost to protect citizens and members of the press no matter where they are. Instead of offering this protection, the Jagdalpur police has contributed to a situation where I was so fearful that I felt compelled to uproot my family and leave my home”.
Leave or die. The options are limited. In both situations, justice is still elusive. In cases of deaths of journalists, it is the pain-staking efforts by family members that push the case forward. On May 14 last year, the killing of Rajdeo Ranjan shook the media and the administration in Bihar. Ranjan was a well-known journalist of Siwan and the needle of suspicion pointed to the jailed RJD MP Mohammad Shahabuddin.

Amidst intense political pressure and media scrutiny, besides petitions to the Supreme Court by the wife of the deceased, the case was handed over to the CBI for investigation and the accused arrested and put behind bars.

While justice takes years and the process itself is punishing, media scrutiny helps.  Last year, the trial in the murder of Mumbai journalist J. Dey began and there was some progress in the investigation of the death of journalist Umesh Rajput with the arrest of two persons. But there’s little detail and even less media attention over the CBI’s closure report on the suspicious circumstances surrounding the sudden death of Aaj Taj journalist Akshay Singh who was covering the Vyapam scam.
 
Can the law fix impunity?
Interestingly, even as Minister Ahir told the Lok Sabha that ‘existing laws are adequate for protection of citizens, including journalists’, the Maharashtra government acceded to the demands of a journalists’ organization, the Patrakar Halla Virodhi Samiti, to pass a law making attacks on journalists and the destruction of property of media persons and media houses a cognizable offence.

Will this help? The jury’s still out on this but if the focus returns to relentless follow ups in each case at the ground level, the strengthening of journalists’ and their working conditions at the professional level, more networking with media rights organisations and more baring of teeth by bodies like the Press Council, the Editors’ Guild and the News Broadcasters Association, perhaps we’ll get there.
 
 Details of attacks and threats
 

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