As ‘peace’ in Manipur begins to sound like a distant dream with unprecedented violence flaring up once again and unrelentingly crushing the dreams of thousands of people, mainland Indian journalists, who probably had never heard of words like ‘Meitei, ‘Kuki’ or ‘Churachandpur’ ever before, have finally begun taking an interest in the various challenging issues facing this border state located in the remote corner of India’s Northeast.
Although we appreciate the mainland media's somewhat late attention to our more pressing issues, things became even more complicated as they began to view this conflict through the prism of their ideologies and political leanings.
What's worse and extremely ironic is that the work and ethics of the few local media houses based in Imphal are being questioned in reports written by mainland journalists while remaining completely oblivious to their own parachute journalism.
Parachutists at least fly into the conflict zone to gather information, but some of these journalists, who have never set foot in the Northeastern region, not even once in their lives, have tried to assess the media houses that are reporting from the front lines of the conflict.
The series of events taking place in Manipur since May 3 is one of the biggest crises the state has ever witnessed in its history. The timing was rather uncanny and unfortunate. This conflict erupted while the rest of the Indian nation is witnessing a widespread menace of Hindu supremacists making hate-speeches, attacking Muslims and adivasis, etc., making life a literal hell for those who are not Hindus, while the face who is said to be behind this whole RSS brigade and Hindutva ideology is sitting at the Centre.
The two communities involved in the prevailing conflict in Manipur happened to adopt different religions, i.e., Hinduism and Christianity. The Hindus happen to be the majority population, while the Christians are the supposed minority in Manipur. This created a perfect atmosphere for the left-leaning mainland media houses, which are up against Modi and his far-right politics, to happily interpret the prevailing conflict as another instance of Hindu supremacists over minorities, though the particular issue has nothing to do with religion.
The anti-BJP media houses immediately decided which side of the conflict they must take and chose to select narratives that fit their ideology out of context against the Hindu community in Manipur. Well, the Hinduism adopted by the Meiteis in Manipur is so vastly different from what the far-left, half-baked intellectuals, and mainland journalists assume it to be.
Ever since internet services got suspended a month ago in the state, journalists from outside Manipur with their one-sided narrative mixed with propaganda got constantly pushed and amplified in social media, so much so that some of the big international media houses even started repeating the same story of majority Hindus persecuting the minority Christians and tribal populations of Manipur. This narrative was being circulated on Twitter all the while saner and neutral voices that could have shed better light on the conflict and helped mitigate the crises were completely stifled due to the over a month-long internet shutdown.
Before labeling the Imphal-based media houses with a particular community, one needs to ask how well their Facebook pages are performing and how active their editors are on Twitter, before and during the crisis, compared to those journalists feeding divisive propaganda on social media with high-speed internet from outside the state.
How are we winning any ‘perception war’ when we have lost so many subscribers from many districts in the state while we constantly struggle to print as we run out of printing paper and ink due to the ongoing blockade imposed along the National Highways in the hill districts.
All newspaper publications in the state have reduced their pages to a few, and the revenue has fallen steeply during this crisis.
One must visit the newsrooms of the local media houses in question and take a look at how often the editors drop press releases from groups and organisations not because we have agendas to push but because we need to douse the flames.
Sitting in your cozy armchairs from the comfort of your AC rooms far away from ground reality and merrily typing away your so-called 'news reports' or podcasting by making a few telephonic conversations and cherry-picking narratives that fit your agenda sounds rather fun and convenient, but that is something we simply cannot afford to do, especially during this crisis.
By associating the state's media outlets with an ethnicity or community, you have in fact fueled the flames of conflict in Manipur.
If you have been really looking, you should have noticed the peculiar pattern of how the representatives and leaders of the Kuki community avoid, hesitate, and refrain from criticizing Mr Modi, whom you despise so much.
Now, a chairman of a Kuki militant outfit has revealed that his organisation and another Kuki outfit helped BJP candidates win assembly elections in 2017 as per an agreement with Ram Madhav and Himanta Biswa Sarma. They further revealed that they had helped the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
As the nexus with the BJP and Kuki militants has been revealed, the Left-Wing mainland media houses have actually failed to stick to their ideologies by taking the sides of a community that is actually in bed with the BJP, and your parachute journalism has miserably failed as well.
After all, left-leaning is not just about attacking the right wing. What is your end goal? Is it about getting more clicks? If your journalism is about creating more division and igniting hatred toward one another, then how different are you from your counterparts?
