By Patricia Mukhim
Garo Hills is a free for all battle-ground. The latest death of three cops should have created a public outcry but it did not. The deaths caused by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) that blew the life out of the three police constables portend of human rights violation of the most grievous kind. But the public seem to believe that human rights are exclusive rights of non-state actors and their over-ground allies. Then there are daily incidents of kidnappings, extortion and gunfights. There are attempts to target a particular community and turn the fight into an ethno-nationalistic war. Despite all these acts of terror, there are ministers in the present MUA Government who are heard saying that militancy in Garo Hills is hugely exaggerated by the media. If all the crimes committed in Garo Hills on a daily basis appear like a media creation then the ministers are living in denial and lack the human sensitivity to feel for the many victims who have lost their lives, are abducted, extorted, intimidated and tortured. But this denial is rooted in selfish motives of defending the Government at all costs so they can stay in power.
Indeed the desire to remain in power is so compelling that the ministers of this Government are unwilling to admit the stark reality that things are no longer ‘normal’ in Garo Hills. People cannot live normal lives if they live in constant fear. So lawless has Garo Hills become that beyond the district headquarters offices don’t function because the officers too are under constant threat of being abducted for ransom or are mercilessly extorted. The ban on coal mining has only exacerbated the situation because the militants’ sources of income have dried up. Yet everyday a new group announces its birth. Each of these groups is led by someone who has broken away from one of the existing outfits. Each one wants to be a leader and to take control of the income from extortion. Policing is in a mess. Basic life saving equipments such as bullet proof jackets and bullet proof vehicles for covert operations are not there. Constables in the field confide that the bullet proof jackets they have to wear weight almost half their own weight. To traverse the treacherous jungles of Garo Hills in that sort of heavy gear in soaring temperatures is a human challenge. But who cares? The top shots of the Police Department sit in Shillong and address press conferences when they should, at this time, be in the thick of things – at the scene of action – with their foot soldiers in Garo Hills. For the short time that Mr N Ramchandran headed the police force here, he travelled extensively in Garo Hills and has even drawn up an action plan on how to tackle the situation there. That plan of action must have been discarded or not acted upon. A senior field operative, Rajiv Mehta is currently heading the Narcotics Bureau in Delhi. The vacuum created by his departure is so evident from the losses suffered by the State Police in recent times. Mehta was a hands-on cop who led from the front. There are very few like him today.
Then there is the allegation that media practitioners have long had to battle and that is that we allow militants to use us to fire their salvos from. It is a fact that militants/terrorists/extremists of all persuasions to draw attention to their activities by using the media. For them media is the oxygen that keep them alive. For the media, reporting acts of terror committed on innocent citizens is part of their brief. Unwittingly we give free publicity to militants whose objective always is to sell fear and they can only do that through the media. The more fear they spread the easier it is to extort money because people pay up to avoid being killed. Also the problem with media is that most of us are untrained on how to report from militancy afflicted zones. What do we report and what do we leave out? Recently someone who identified himself as Savio ( and who I later learnt was a former constable in the Meghalaya Police) called up this writer to ask why press releases sent by the GNLA are not carried by The Shillong Times. In other words he is implying that the paper carries releases by other armed outfits. In fact, rival militant outfits have been carrying out their war of words through the media. Sometimes, the outfits unwittingly give out information that can become actionable intelligence. The situation today is so precarious for some of the militant outfits that they have started singing like canaries about which politician/s is supporting them. If police can mount pressure on them we will very soon get to know the political alignments of these militant outfits.
What we have in Meghalaya is not really terrorism as defined by international law but crimes of opportunities like armed robberies, kidnapping, murder etc which are acts of terror in their own right. Since these outfits announce their birth and existence through the media, we have to now consider whether it is incumbent upon us to carry such releases. Media needs to be more circumspect about what is news and what is a militant plant. With so many groups trying to exert their spheres of influence in a limited resource pool the media is bound to be confused. But confusion is one thing and being in league with one or the other militant group is another. Media cannot take sides in this war of attrition. For a media person to be accused of favouring one militant outfit against the other is certainly bad news. But media persons have often been known to have their sources within the militant outfits and to tap those sources for news. So in a sense there is a sort of quid-pro-quo here. Now I am not sure that we are doing the right thing to get our scoops.
Things are murky at this point in Garo Hills. The cadres of the ANVC (B) – a militant outfit whose cadres have been terrorising a particular religious community were rounded up by the police recently. They don’t like the idea of being arrested for their acts of terror. The modus operandi of these groups is to flag the issue of Garo nationalism and to label those who stop them in their tracks as enemies of the Garo people. These are familiar games and we cannot take what the militants say too seriously. They will say anything to establish their eroding credibility. Media persons would need to do more independent research on the ground realities in Garo Hills instead of depending on the claims and counter-claims of militant outfits. There are far too many players here each with their vested interests. Unless the media rises above pedantic reportage and tries to understand the politics of militancy, we are going to get consumed and perhaps get our fingers burnt too. But having said that, it is wrong, to allege that the media has exaggerated the exploits of militants in Garo Hills. Surely the killing of Josbina is not an exaggeration. Nor is the reportage on the killing of three police constables and of other victims. If anyone says the media is playing up these instances they should be specific and point out those incidents of journalistic misdemeanours.
One of the things that the media seeks to do is to also create public outrage against militancy/terrorism by reporting the heinous crimes committed by militant outfits. If media ignores these inhuman acts, it would be accused of dereliction of public duty. The media also reports of efforts at peace building initiatives by civil society groups because these are positive stories. But if the public and those in Government believe that media is about reporting “good news” and blacking out “bad news” of killings, corruption in governance and dereliction of duties by politicians and public servants then what they are looking for is a public relations agency. Journalism is not public relations peddling good news in a situation that is far from normal.
The media and journalists need honest critique but please don’t tell us to turn into PR machines churning the achievements of government when those are not visible. And certainly it is a cardinal sin for media persons to be aligned with any militant group for any reason at all. Journalists cannot also be mediators or interlocutors. We can be one or the other and we should leave one if we want to choose the other.