By Amar Yumnam
In recent decades, the power of the print media in Manipur has undergone a great leap forward. Until up to the 1970s and the early 1980s it was a regular sight to experience the law enforcing agencies raiding the office of the then most radical and powerful daily – the Manipuri edition of Hueiyen Lanpao – and going away with the materials for printing. It was the time of traditional printing and not the present one with computers. The zeal and commitment to social cause of the then Hueiyen Lanpao is not seen in any of the dailies today. This is happening in a context wherein the media have acquired new powers to influence and accumulate. This disconnect between the social cause and the power has led to an emergence of a situation in which the strength is applied rather in pushing for personal agenda and as weapon in the hands of some for what is called character assassination of rivals. While the public are at the receiving end of the contents of the print media all along, time is now for subjecting them to strict social scrutiny and thus make them also feel the pressure of attack for not living up to the role and expectations. They cannot remain as more like powerful notice-boards of the people and groups they have good or obligatory relationships for their role does not imply this at all.
While performing this I must spell out the context and the proximate arousal to reflect. While doing this I have the editions of the last few days of the most widely circulated daily having editions in both English and Manipuri. I take up the headlines on two days. A few days earlier there was a report of a woman found dead near the Zoological Garden and the reporting stopped at only the injuries suffered by the dead body. A few days later there was a report on the authority concerned with the control of pollution in the province. This second report was accompanied by a photograph on autorickshaws with a very negative caption on their services. The content and orientation of these two reports display by default the character and driving spirit of the print media in Manipur in full bloom, and it is not enjoyable.
It is incumbent on my part to elaborate on this. The first is a case which needs detailed application of social mind, mobilisation of the social articulation for shunting out such acts, and rekindling the social rethink. This is because of the social history, contextual culture, social norms and taboos of Manipur. The land does not have a background to rationalise such crimes on any social basis. Ours is a kind of society very different from the one, for instance in Haryana, where recently multitudes of articulations were put forward to rationalise rapes rather than attempting social criticism and social preparedness to avoid such occurrences. The print media in Manipur, in a very uncharacteristic way straying from the cultural ethos of the land, reported the finding of the dead body of the woman without in any way reflecting the social hatred of such crimes and without in any way hinting at the need for social mobilisation against such acts.
Now compare this with the reporting on the financial management of the pollution authority with a very negative comment on the three-wheelers plying in the land. While the financial management issue is something to be addressed by the relevant authorities, I despise the caption on the photograph of the three wheelers. The caption portrayed the latter as something a nuisance and huge pollution emitting agents in the land. The illogicality of the caption arises on many counts. We must be aware of the social role they play through their operations in the transport sector. Just look at the historical, cultural and contemporary mobility of the women in Manipur. It would be impossible to imagine this without the role of the three-wheelers. Second, look at the public transport system here. There is no system which ensures the convenience, coverage, timing and cost-effectiveness like the one provided by the three-wheelers. Third, in an economy where the employment opportunities are conspicuous by their absence, the jobs generated by them cannot just be discounted. Any discussion and comment on their services and efficiency cannot be done without keeping all these in mind. But the recent caption with the photograph establishes the application of power of the print media with the height of illogicality.
The upshot of my intervention is that the print media should also behave and apply mind in a logical and constructive way in the same way as they attack others with these expectations. There are events where the society needs to really ponder deeply. While reporting on such events, we would expect that the print media would not only report but as well hint at the likely social issues involved. The print media should not adopt the culture of jumping at conclusions and hint at possible lines of response without social debate. There could be events where the interests involved are in multitudes and the arrival at any definitive conclusion is rather not easy. In such cases, we would expect the media at pointing out the various sides involved rather than pointing at a definitive line of action without debate. The primary role of the media to arouse social understanding and social articulations should not be lose sight of while attempting sensationalisation. The media here are yet to emerge as a forceful agent for social change though there is ample proof of just buttressing the emerging social character of opportunism and sensationalism.