Oken Jeet Sandham
I was the only one among the dozens of top brass of the Indian Army to see off the visiting British Army Lt General Michael Rose who came all the way from Britain to pay homage to their 2nd World War heroes at Kohima War cemetery. He abruptly became attentive while knowing that I was a pressman. I can’t believe that you people from North east could become journalists? The General tapping on my back said. You know when British soldiers were around this region, we didn’t hear much about media activity.
Had there been media persons from this region during those days, things would have been quite different by now. It is true that the turmoil North east people faced since British transferred its power to Indian leaders would have been different had the media been active in this region. Although there were limited media persons and few language papers, it did not live up to the expectation of the people. Therefore it failed to give much impact to the Centre whereby this region was left unattended and neglected for decades.
This total negligence of the Government of India towards the North eastern region was responsible in giving birth of several underground outfits and with their demands ranging from a sovereign nation to a separate statehood. Some organizations like Mizo National Front which fought for a separate independent nation became overgound and joined the national mainstream. And still many underground organization including both factions of the NSCN, Bodo Liberation Tiger, etc are engaged in political negotiations with the Government of India. And Government of India is still wooing to other outfits to come forward for finding a peaceful solution across the table. To bring back the lost tracks, the Government of India has started organizing economic seminars, investing huge amount of money for various developmental activities, increasing manifold in recruiting youths to Indian army, raising number of battalions in the region, awarding number of Centrally sponsored schemes to various NGOs and whatnot, while on the other hand Security forces has also played its own cards to win the hearts of the common men especially youths. Today we have seen in many parts of this region where security forces have a good rapport with the general public unlike the past. The recent intelligence report that some militant groups in the region particularly, National Democratic Front of Bodoland is planning to target certain journalists who do not oblige the militants by publishing in their favor is a shocking development.
This definitely will give a major blow to the presspersons working in NDFB dominated areas. There were already several media-related incidents in the region. Sometimes it was more troubling to work in faction-ridden areas like Manipur and Nagaland. At the same time, security forces cannot be excluded from the purview. Several crimes have been perpetrated to the media personalities in the North east and even in Manipur we have witnessed freaky predicament being faced by the media fraternity. Some were forced to retire from the profession. Altogether 37 journalists were killed elsewhere in the globe in 2001. They either died in the line of duty or were deliberately targeted for assassination because of their reporting or their affiliation with news organizations. But there are still investigations of unconfirmed deaths of working journalists. We all know how South Asian correspondent for Wall Street Journal, Pearl was inhumanly tortured to death by his captors in Pakistan. Pearl went missing on January 23 in the Port City of Karachi and four days later, a group calling itself The National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistan Sovereignty sent an e-mail to several US and Pakistan-based news organizations claiming responsibility for kidnapping the US journalist. The outfit also attached four photographs of the journalist while sending e-mail including one in which he is held at gunpoint and another in which he is holding a copy of January 24 issue of Pakistans Dawn newspaper. The captors also disclosed in the e-mail that they treated cruelly the hostage as much the American army did to the Pakistanis and nationals of other sovereign countries in Cuba. The captors demanded the American army release those Pakistanis and nationals of other sovereign countries in exchange of Pearl. The world sees how the journalists undergo trials and tribulations in countries like Pakistan, Burma, China, Russia, Iran, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Colombia, Ukraine, Malaysia, etc. Dozens of journalists from Burma, China, Russia, etc have to live in exile to fight back against their oppressive rulers. Several journalists have been jailed for their free expressions but those who are willing to work inside these countries must contend with the bulk of regulations and censorship imposed in the name of national security. Despite of all these harsh regulations and censorship imposed many journalists manage to bring to light the dismal state of affairs in their respective countries.
The gloomy facade is that though media persons are working under atypical situation in the north east India, it cannot be denied that the face of the region has changed drastically over the years in a variety of ways because of the rapid growing media activity. But touching development is that such enormous input of the media fraternity is not counted. Instead they are always at the receiving end.
The Medias in Nagaland are also partly responsible in bridging the gap between the Government of India and the Naga underground organizations and today not only the people of this country but also the whole world witnessed how the political process is going on. But it is regrettable that sometimes media persons who were all long discharging their modest duties for the service of the people also faced the wrath of multi-corners underground organizations, Government agencies including security forces. They have to struggle series of unwanted developments hurled unnecessarily towards them. They have been even pulled up in the Court sometimes if some piece of news was published against the Government forgetting that it was done for the interest of the general public who has every right to know what the government was doing. We have seen how media persons were treated in Manipur. Editors were killed by unidentified gunmen and sometimes journalists were banned from exercising their professions by underground elements that even went up to the extent of closing down newspaper office, though between the parties must have some problems. Even Chief Minister Ibobi Singh and the Chief Secretary Rakesh could not control over their despotic bureaucrats who as usual do not pay least value for the press people. One should know how the media persons in State like Manipur where more than twenty different underground outfits are operating and ethnically very sensitive, are working. Despite all these odds, they even dared to visit highly susceptible cross section of people and tried their best to convince to maintain peace and harmony, besides highlighting chronic slackness of the State Government in the interior areas.
Today we have number of media persons from the north-east India working with various national papers and magazines. Yet we are not enjoying the privileges and perks as what our counterparts in other parts of the country do. However, these national papers and magazines have started giving adequate spaces for the North eastern region and the face of the Center towards North-east India has in fact changed a lot. Although there is lack of proper attention for the wellbeing of the media fraternity in the region by the national media organizations, the media fraternity appears to be coming closer and in real sense of term they have to fight collectively for their common goal irrespective of their caste, creed and religion, because the vestige of this region lies in their collective approach whether one likes it or not.
