How caste plays out in India’s newsrooms
This story was first published in News Laundry, and is a transcript of a video report posted by News Laundry refering to their project report on how caste system plays out in the Indian newsrooms. You can watch the full video report (source of this story) by News Laundry by clicking here.
Did you know that three out of four anchors of flagship TV news debates are upper caste? That not one is Dalit, Adivasi, or OBC?
That merely 10 out of the 972 articles featured on the covers of a dozen magazines that we studied are about issues related to caste?
That no more than five percent of all articles published in the country’s six largest English newspapers are written by Dalits and Adivasis?
These are some of the shocking findings contained in the report Who Tells Our Stories Matters: Representation of Marginalised Caste Groups in Indian Newsrooms, which was published last year by The Media Rumble in association with Oxfam India.
Sometime in 1996 a foreign correspondent called up journalist BN Uniyal to ask him if he knew any Dalit journalist, after spending days talking to friends and colleagues Mr. Uniyal was unable to find anyone like zero literally. In 2017, after having conducted a similar search across the country for more than 10 years journalists Sudipta Mondal said he was only able to find eight Dalit journalists in English media and only two of them risked coming out to him.
Between October 2018 and March 2019 News laundry and Oxfam together conducted a research project to find out more about the representation of marginalized caste groups in Indian media, the results were shocking to say the least, three out of every four anchors in flagship debates on TV news were upper caste not one Dalit or Adivasi or OBC. Only ten out of the 972 articles featured on the cover pages of the 12 magazines that we looked at were about caste related issues and no more than 5% of all articles in English newspapers were written by Dalits or Adivasis. The research suggests that Indian media is still dominated by upper castes, scheduled tribes are almost entirely absent while scheduled castes are represented mostly by social activists and politicians not by journalists OBCs are similarly underrepresented even though they are estimated to constitute over half of India's population. The fact that me a ‘Suvarna’ is sitting here telling you all this in a video is testimony to the findings of this report.
The report is basically aimed at opening and informing a public debate on discrimination and social exclusion in media. Let's go back to the basics first, caste is an ancient system of discriminatory segregation that is determined by birth. It is based on notions of purity and pollution and is rooted in the Hindu doctrine, the caste system divides Hindus into four varnas or categories these are, Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra, those who fall outside these endogamous groups each with a preordained social function are known as Dalits or Scheduled Castes and Adivasis or Scheduled Tribes the still pervasive caste system unsurprisingly raise its ugly head in our newsrooms - there are vast sections of India's marginalized caste groups who lack access to media platforms and discourses that shape public opinion. This leads to certain voices not being represented in our news ecosystem.
Take for instance leadership positions in newsrooms, of the 121 newsrooms that the report looked at a whopping 106 were occupied by journalists from upper castes and none by those belonging to Schedule Caste or Scheduled Tribes. Let's take a peek at the panelists on English TV news channels, a mere 5.6 percent of panelists across the survey channels belong to Scheduled Castes and shockingly not even 1% of them belong to Scheduled Tribes, what's even more bizarre is that during the discussions on caste issues 62% of the panelists across news channels were from the general category, 89% of leadership positions in English TV news channels belong to the general category along with a 76% of anchors who hosted flagship shows the results got even more skewed when we looked at Hindi news channels where hundred percent of the leadership positions belong to the general category and so did 80 percent of the anchors on prime time shows.
Let's take a look at newspapers, according to the report media professionals from marginalized caste groups do not occupy any leadership positions in the six English newspapers and seven Hindi newspapers that we looked at. In the 16,000 articles that we poured over in English newspapers over 60% of the articles were written by upper caste writers in Hindi newspapers nearly 56 percent of writers belong to the general category the only silver lining was Amar Ujala where hundred percent of the articles published on caste issues were written by contributors belonging to the marginalized caste groups.
Now let's look at digital media 84% of all leadership positions belong to the general category just like newspapers and TV news channels there is no representation from scheduled tribes and scheduled castes in the digital media space, in fact the study found that 56 percent of writers belong to the general category and yes news laundry was also one of the organizations that was surveyed. Now coming to magazines the study chose 12 magazines covering a range of interests
among them 63.5% percent of the total output came from the writers belonging to general category and only 11.2% from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes combined while OBC writers contributed to a meager 1.1%.
Talking about giving space to caste issues only India Today, India Today Hindi, The Caravan and Sarita gave space to caste issues on their covers. However, a majority of the caste stories published in these magazines were penned by general category writers. At India today Hindi this percentage stood at an overwhelming 99.5 percent the report clearly signifies the dire need for the inclusion of marginalized groups in India newsrooms for an equitable and developed society the representation of all is a must and more than anywhere else this applies to our newsrooms.
This story was first published in News Laundry, and is a transcript of a video report posted by News Laundry refering to their project report on how caste system plays out in the Indian newsrooms. You can watch the full video report (source of this story) by News Laundry by clicking here.
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'Qayamat' day will never come, Babri Masjid will never be rebuilt: Yogi Adityanath
Barabanki (UP) (PTI): Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday asserted that the day of 'Qayamat' (doomsday) will never come and hence the Babri Masjid will never be rebuilt.
Speaking at an event in Barabanki, the district neighbouring Ayodhya, Adityanath said, "We had said that 'Ram Lalla, hum aayenge, mandir wahi banaayenge' (Child Ram, we will come and build the temple right there). Has the temple been built? Is there any doubt?"
The audience replied by chanting "Jai Shri Ram".
"The day of 'Qayamat' (doomsday) will never come and hence the Babri structure will never be rebuilt. Those who are dreaming of the day of 'Qayamat' will rot away, that day will never come," he said.
Adityanath was taking part in religious rituals organised at Ram Janaki Temple in Dulhadepur Kuti, Barabanki, in the memory of late Mahant Baba Harishankar Das Maharaj, according to a statement from the Uttar Pradesh government.
Two weeks ago, Janata Unnayan Party chief Humayun Kabir -- who was earlier suspended from Trinamool Congress for his announcement that a replica of Babri Masjid will be built in West Bengal's Murshidabad district -- had declared that the construction of Babri 2.0 will begin at noon on February 11. Following this, a Hindutva fringe group had called on the people of Uttar Pradesh to march to Murshidabad.
The fractious Babri Masjid issue dates back to more than a century.
A Supreme Court verdict had settled the issue on November 9, 2019, by backing the construction of a Ram temple by a trust at the disputed site in Ayodhya and ruling that an alternative five-acre plot to be found for a mosque in the Hindu holy town.
Hindus had been contending that Babri Masjid -- a three-domed mosque built by or at the behest of Moghul emperor Babur -- was erected by the invading Muslim armies after razing an existing Ram temple.
It turned into a legal dispute in 1885 when a mahant went to court seeking permission to build a canopy outside the mosque. The plea was dismissed. In December 1949, unidentified miscreants spirited a Lord Ram idol into the mosque. The structure was destroyed by a large mob of kar sevaks on December 6, 1992.
Speaking in Barabanki, Adityanath said that after 500 years, the "glorious moment" of Ram temple construction took place in Ayodhya.
"In these 500 years, many kings and emperors have come, many governments have come. India gained Independence in 1947 and after the first elections in 1952, governments were formed. But why didn't the idea of building a temple for Lord Ram at his birthplace ever occur to them?" he asked.
Taking a jibe at opposition parties, he said there is no place for Ramdrohis, or traitors of Lord Ram, anywhere.
"Some people adopt an opportunistic attitude. They remember Ram when a crisis strikes and forget him later. So, Lord Ram has also forgotten them now. There is no place for Ramdrohis anywhere," he said.
Intensifying his attack, Adityanath said, "We want to tell those who were firing on Ram devotees, obstructing Ram's work, and those who are still dreaming of the Babri structure: the day of doom will never come. Don't live for the doomsday, learn to live according to the rules in India."
If someone breaks the law, the chief minister said, the path only leads to hell, not heaven.
He added that every Indian must work with a positive mindset for the vision of 'Ek Bharat, Shrestha Bharat' (One India, Better India).
"Every saint's spiritual practice is for his country. His 'dharma' (moral duty) is also dedicated to the country. Both complements each other. One is the body and the other is the soul, the two cannot be kept apart," Adityanath said.
He said India cannot be separated from Sanatan Dharma.
"That is why you see that Sanatan Dharma, India and Indianness are being attacked from all over the world. We must be vigilant against attacks from within and outside. Because those who don't like India's progress, those who cannot digest the resolve of Viksit Bharat, are engaged in a conspiracy," Adityanath said.
He said people must brace themselves to stop three types of evil mindsets -- "the one that is conspiring, the one falling prey to this conspiracy, and the one selling themselves out and working for that conspiracy".
