Ranjona Banerji: Stop being sanguine, Old Lady!

​By Ranjona Banerji​

This is from a Times of India editorial, dated January 4, on the Dalit protests across Maharashtra and parts of India after violence broke out at the 200-year commemoration of a Mahar Dalit victory against the Peshwas: “The clashes between Dalits and right-wing groups at Koregaon Bhima on Monday and then the violent protests by Dalits across Maharashtra the day after singularly point to failure of state intelligence and police. Around 10 lakh Dalits had turned up at Koregaon Bhima on January 1 to mark 200 years of the British battle with Peshwas in which Mahar Dalits sided with the Raj. With such a large number of people assembling, the Maharashtra government should have done a better job of ensuring law and order. Over three days, a man was killed, numerous vehicles torched, property damaged, roads and railways blocked, and normal life crippled in Mumbai and beyond.”

Times Now obviously skirted over the issue of the involvement of right-wing Hindutva forces and focused instead on the presence of Jignesh Mevani and Umer Khalid as being the trigger for the violence. The lies being forwarded as news by Times Now is one thing. But the disconnect between the various outlets of Bennett and Coleman can no longer be treated as “federalism” and is indeed becoming dangerous. Someone at the Old Lady needs to stop being sanguine now.

Times Now is only an example. None of the other news channels were much better. But worse than anything else in the media coverage of the Dalit protests is indeed the lack of understanding of caste issues by journalists and the lack of Dalit presence in newsrooms. The fault-lines of Indian society are very clear in the media as well. Therefore, news is presented from an upper caste perspective where the twin bogeys of “reservations” and “merit” are raised almost immediately. Following that comes the argument that economic help will allay all anger.

Rather than making the situation any better, both these arguments conveniently ignore the millennia of persecution, subjugation, oppression and suppression against Dalits and those deemed outside the caste categories laid down in Hinduism. They ignore the biases which continue till today. Newsrooms will cover atrocities like Dalits being lynched by upper castes or killed or raped or humiliated but will refuse to factor these in when Dalits speak out or lash out in anger.

This is ultimately a massive failure for all of us journalists. We become on par with those elsewhere in the world who accused African Americans speaking out against racism for being racist themselves. Because we wilfully misunderstand the Constitution which prohibits discrimination on the basis of caste, we pretend as if caste discrimination does not exist. I say “wilful” deliberately. It allows us to work on our own caste prejudices and pretend that we are being Constitutional.

All of us who work in newsrooms or have worked in newsrooms have seen this prejudice in action. A protest can be presented as a loss of revenue or the whole focus can be on inconvenience to others. These deflections are aimed to put the voices raised by the aggrieved on the defensive and thus the cracks can be papered over. Even worse is when the voices of the oppressed are drowned out by the oppressor. A few years ago, at a newspaper where I worked, there was an allegation that Dalit students were discriminated against at IIT, Mumbai. The divisions within the newsroom were immediate, with all those upper caste biases immediately blaming Dalits for misusing the quota system and concentrating on the woes of non-Dalit students.

Again, in American terms, this is like most of the media today being openly and unashamedly pro-white supremacy.

I use the American example because many of these journalists who are unmoved by atrocities against Dalits are “shocked” by racism by white Americans. (Although they are not shocked when Indians themselves are racist.)

What we need urgently is inclusion not exclusion. We need more diverse voices in newsrooms, from all castes, communities and regions. We need less factory-produced media students and more independent thinkers. We need more in-house training to battle inbuilt prejudices. Women have made some breakthroughs as have Muslims to some small extent. But Dalits, other oppressed communities and minority groups are largely outside.

However, there is a clear rot at the top. How do we battle that?

​Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She is also Consulting Editor, MxMIndia. The views here are her own​