Role of Hindi journalism in fanning religious hatred during and after Babri Mosque destruction

Krishna Pratap Singh, who is from Faizabad district where Babri Mosque was located, tells the reader how responsible, factual and courageous journalism was thrown out and fake, malicious and communal karsevak journalism was embraced by many reporters and editors in the Hindi belt in the late 1980s. The Babri Mosque affair was especially affected by this fake print and later electronic journalism. Covering the VHP’s rath yatra from Sitamarhi to Ayodhya in December 1992 was Krishna's first assignment and he witnessed not only the destruction of the three domes of the Babri Mosque but also of his positive views about his profession. Following is an excerpt from his article on the role of journalism in fanning hatreds:

Maybe one should put it down to naïveté for thinking that that the job of a journalist, even in such dire times, was to be a ‘watchdog of the people’: to be an advocate of understanding an issue as it really is and presenting it as such; to cultivate a distance from the lure of gains and trickery; and with a habit of upholding moral and progressive values in life. It was painful to think that journalists, instead of giving a factual account of situations and events, could go to the extent of concocting them in the interest of an insular, communal group and be willing to work as their instrument.

To journalists like me, the very attraction of the world of journalism lay in the fact that one could constructively question the distortions abounding in the world – what makes the world such a heartless place; why, despite ceaseless efforts, is it not improving and, moreover, who are the people whose machinations are preventing it from straightening itself. 

One witnessed journalists afflicted by communal and professional vested interests immersing themselves in the manoeuvres of the VHP and BJP, hawking their point of view as a ‘truth’ that was far more dangerous and toxic than any falsehood. Since I had no right over them to subject them to my questions, I would ask myself those very questions: in a pluralistic society such as in India, when some people gather belligerent crowds in the name of religion, use the very provisions of democracy to raze it, give it a bad name; spare neither the constitution nor its values; and are intent on dressing up animosity as consciousness and intolerance as a fundamental principle of life, what is the duty of journalists in such a situation? Should they break all professional limits to be tolerant towards such people, egg them on? If so, wouldn’t they themselves become participants in furthering the cynical game of intolerance?

Source: The Time When Hindi Journalism Turned Into ‘Hindu’ Journalism 

Krishna acknowledges that there were journalists that did not report as karsevaks or to increase circulation but they were few:

It was not as if there were no voices of resistance against the prevailing state of affairs; just that they were confined to being voices in the wilderness.

I vividly recall one incident in 1990 when Vishwanath Pratap Singh was the prime minister and Mulayam Singh the UP chief minister. During a commotion masquerading as ‘kar seva’ on November 2, when as per the reports of Hindu journalism ‘Ayodhya was bathed in blood’, I was working in the editorial section of the daily Janmorcha, published from Faizabad. Several news agencies had set up temporary bureaus in the Janmorcha office located in the heart of the city.

Immediately after the police firing on the kar sevaks, one news agency started putting out inflated figures of casualties. When a correspondent of a rival news agency received a call from a flustered head office anxious not to be ‘left behind in the race’, he sarcastically replied, “I have given you the accurate figure of kar sevaks killed in police firing. As for the rest of the so-called casualties, you also know when and how the news agency in question killed them. But if you insist, I will try to find out once again. Although, if you wish to raise the number of casualties please send some guns. I myself will kill some to arrive at a figure that surpasses the rival news agency. But if an incident results in five casualties, don’t expect me to inflate the number to 15.” The phone conversation swiftly terminated on the other end.

The floodgates of self-control could not be maintained for long. In their rivalry to outdo the competition, the things journalists and newspapers did to sensationalise news by inflating the figure of kar sevaks killed in the firing is well-known. The conventional belief among ordinary people was that journalistic publications always underreported casualty figures, saying five had been killed when in fact the actual number would be 15. The police firing on the kar sevaks put paid to this innocent belief. Journalists busied themselves in cooking up ever more deaths adhering to the motto ‘if not real, fake will do’.

The article The Time When Hindi Journalism Turned Into ‘Hindu’ Journalism was published on the 25th anniversary of Babri Mosque destruction.