Ranjona Banerji: Panama Papers makes one feel proud to be part of the media!

​By Ranjona Banerji​

Mighty congratulations to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and Suddeutsche Zeitung of Munich for the Panama Papers story. Congratulations to the Indian Express for being part of the consortium. It is not often enough that you feel proud to be part of the media and it is not often enough that the media works on such marvellous leaks and resulting stories! Whatever the outcome, we have seen the greed and iniquity of the powerful, the rich and the influential across the world.

The Guardian, which is part of the ICIJ, calls the Panama Papers “history’s biggest data leak”. That is, an “unprecedented” 11.5 million files from the world’s fourth largest offshore Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca have been made public. The German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung accessed them and then shared them with the ICIJ.

What these leaks have revealed is that the higher up the ladder you are, the greater the depths you will sink to avoid paying taxes. Politicians from across the world are indicted by these leaks. If Vladmir Putin of Russia is one of the biggest fish wiggling in mild discomfort – he wrestles bare-chested with bears after all – other smaller fish are facing political crises like in Poland. From Africa to Asia to the Middle East to Europe, tax evasion through offshore money-parking is rampant and makes real life far more exciting than a spy novel.
The next step for the media is to ensure that this information does not get buried and forgotten. Some of India’s biggest names are superstar Amitabh Bachchan and the current prime minister’s good friends, the Adanis. Given the influence that both hold, they will pull out all stops to wriggle out unscathed. It is also true that we have enough star-struck and government-struck journalists amongst us who will help.

The work done by Julian Assange and Wikileaks, by Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning (earlier Brandon) demonstrate why journalists cannot take government at face value. The Panama Papers add to that another dimension – the super-rich. As if we did not know that but we often pretend as if politicians should be our only targets. They are all mixed up, as we very well know.

​​​​It would be a shame if the work that went into revealing the Panama Papers is wasted. The onus is on all journalists to carry on.

**

Back home, a three-member team of the Editors’ Guild travelled to Chhattisgarh to investigate reports of journalists being threatened by the police and the state government. The results are frightening to say the least. The two-member team found that all journalists who work in Chhattisgarh feel that they are under the government scanner. They fear doing their jobs because they are caught in the crossfire between the government and Naxal forces.
This paragraph from the report should be an eye-opener, even to our media friends who are government toadies:

“The fact finding team came to the conclusion that the media reports of threats to journalists are true. The media in Chhattisgarh is working under tremendous pressure. In Jagdalpur and the remote tribal areas the journalists find it even more difficult to gather and disseminate news. There is pressure from the state administration, especially the police, on journalists to write what they want or not to publish reports that the administration sees as hostile. There is pressure from Maoists as well on the journalists working in the area. There is a general perception that every single journalist is under the government scanner and all their activities are under surveillance. They hesitate to discuss anything over the phone because, as they say, “the police is listening to every word we speak”.”

What is happening in Chhattisgarh needs to be exposed and discussed because it shows that both the state and the Naxals are pressurising and threatening the media to ensure only one point of view gets through.

​​The result is that we do not know what is happening in Chhattisgarh and surely that can no longer continue?

“The President of Divisional Journalists Association of Bastar, S. Karimuddin said, “I have not visited any place outside Jagdalpur for the last six years, simply because I am not supposed to write the truth and if one cannot write what one sees then there is no point going out to gather information.” He represents UNI in Bastar for more than three decades.
A similar claim was made by the Editor of a local newspaper Dilshad Niyazi who said that he had not visited the neighboring district Bijapur for the last eight years out of fear. Another senior local journalist, Hemant Kashyap, well travelled in the area said he knew Bastar like the back of his hand but that now journalists had stopped travelling. “All the journalists have now stopped going inside the forests because of the fear of police as well as Maoists,” he said. “Now we ask Maoist organizations to send photographs and press releases. We publish them as we receive them because we don’t want to explain every single line we are writing to them. Similarly the police expect us to publish its version so most of the journalists print their press releases as well without asking any questions,” Kashyap said.”

The Editors’ Guild has done the homework. The rest of the media needs to wake up to the real pressures felt by our colleagues and respond accordingly. It would also help if big city newsrooms realised that there is an India beyond their coffee machines.