Historicising Media in India and Northeast
- Part 2 -

Khorjei Laang *

Northeast: The Terrain

The dawn of modern nation states necessitated a "rationale" for their existence and the "means" to consolidate formation of state structures. The first half of the 20th century was marked by nation states' attempts to use print and electronic media as means to reinforce the idea of an established order. Like most post-colonial states, India's experience with print and broadcasting media narrates a similar quest for creating an established order amidst the rumbles of frenzied social and political configurations that emerged after the country became independent in 1947.

The celebration of "independence" was also marred by bloodied partition of the country into Indian and Pakistan leaving untold misery amidst the palpable under-development. Given the backdrop of homogenizing the colossal economic and social heterogeneity thrust upon by the compulsions of sustaining a "rationale" for a post-colonial democratic nation in the making, no stones were left unturned by the state in its attempt to impose an ideal frame. Much of this attempt was made visible via the mass media and its interface with different ethnic groups and identity assertions in India.

This process has generated the formation of "images" which run parallel to the state's own attempt to forge ahead with the idea of a "composite" India. In continuity, the state and the popular media's attempt to enjoy monopoly over "imagery" have been both consistent and persistent despite the challenges from within and the world wide surge in "text and image" industry aided by global capital. However consistent this attempt may be, a post-colonial democratic welfare state like India is still struggling to produce and construct a symbolic or mythical pan-Indian nationalist vision.

Media observers and analysts have already noted the "modern impossibility" of maintaining this monopoly by the state. India has been struggling to overcome communal/ethnic polarization much before its independence. The issue has been further accentuated with the state's failure to halt the trend. This failure is rooted in a tendency on the part of competing political elites to pursue the politics of dominance and subservience. This political culture also has an overbearing impact on the nature of modern India's engagement with the classical vision of democratic polity.

The state's engagement with this vision should have rested on a model of communication based on democratic consensus. Communication has a key role by framing and directing public issues in contemporary world and has been described as vital to informed citizenship and accountability of a liberal democratic order. There are numerous faultlines due to "the contestations of meanings, the repression of certain possibilities and the realization of some others." Amongst many, some of these faultlines include the politics of representation, construction and production of perceptions of different communities/ethnic groups in the country via the mass media.

The "Absence" and Durable Images

In recent years, it has become a trend for established TV news channels or newspapers to either launch sister channels or start regional editions. TV production houses have launched language and regional channels and the same for major national newspapers. Despite the trend, most of these dailies with multi-editions and news channels have only a handful (most of the time just one) journalist to cover the entire Northeast region. Newspapers like The Times of India, Hindustan Times have a couple of full time journalists and stringers. The Times of India and The Telegraph have established their own editions at Guwahati. Hindustan Times had also launched its edition in Guwahati but had to close shop later.

Of the many newspapers administered from the metros, only a couple have a dedicated Northeast page in their editions. Despite the wider and expanding reach of both the print and electronic media, the representation of the Northeast has become more or less frozen with images of gun-wielding insurgents, security rings over protestors on the streets, inter-community and tribal feuds, kidnappings, extortion, corpses and also the "China fetish." Why do these images have more enduring value than pictures that capture the ethnic mosaic and the natural beauty of the region? The reasons probably hinge on the fact that there is the unconscious "absence" of the region from the dominant imagination of the Indian national "Self".

The "everyday construction" of the Northeast by the mainstream media is linked to the nation-state's conception of the region. The Indian nation-state's obsession with the national agenda of territorial "frontiers" and "sovereignty" is all too palpable. The coverage of news from states like Arunachal Pradesh eventually gets a treatment more close to the national agenda than local issues.

On reporting conflict in the region, the mainstream media follows a pattern that creates distance between realities and desired realities with consequences of producing and reproducing inaccuracies, hyperbolic stories in the absence of context and perspective.

The "gaps and silences" of the mainstream media over key issues confronting the region seem to suggest that most often than not, the content is determined by the primary concerns of the government of India over controlling if not resolving armed rebellion or militancy-related violence. The media content has been constrained not only by the dominant ideology of the nation-state or the local ruling elites but also the day-to-day experiences of the media persons that affect the coverage as well as content generation. This practice has not been able to disseminate a wholesome picture of the people and their worldview. This however, does not mean that media in the Northeast is able to capture the whole picture of region. Each of the state is burdened with numerous location specific issues that rarely have an impact on neighbouring states

The growing prominence of circulation and readership for newspapers and target rating points (TRP) for television, despite criticisms over the limitations of methods over collecting data, points to the fact that there is an accepted logic of getting a bigger share in revenue generation. The resultant impact of this drive is that "news" that we consume are meant for those having the purchasing power of not only news as products but also other products possessing utilitarian values. Hence, increasing advertisement slots for big consumer/luxury items. The nexus between ownership/control and market/profit, seem to have often influenced content of media products. Perhaps, it is due to this phenomenon that the metropolitan based mainstream media in India have not been able to eliminate the information deficit, especially on marginalised regions and people in India.

While it has not been very difficult to scan the media terrain in mainland India, particularly those stationed in metropolitan cities, the opposite is true for Northeast. There is an immense difficulty in assessing the actual budgetary allocation for the media or the market worth of the entire region. This has been even made worse due to lack of details on investments and actual financial worth of the media industry in the Northeast.

Concluded...