|| M.ARIF
On July 20 people in Gurez region of Kashmir, along the border with Pakistan, hit the streets to protest against a New Delhi based news channel Zee News for “wrongly portraying” the region as opposite to aspirations of people of the Valley which is in the midst of the unrest following the July 8 killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant commander Burhan Wani. The protest broke out after the news channel interviewed a group of people including contractors and porters who according to the locals work with army. Their anti-Kashmir remarks were passed off by the channel as the opinion of the people of landlocked Gurez which is part of north Kashmir’s Bandipore district.
“The news channel distorted the reality by picking up a group of men for the interview who were already fed to speak on the lines which fits their (channel) narrative,” a local businessman Parvaiz Ahmad told Kashmir Leader. “We support Kashmir in these difficult times and we are united with the people of the Valley in their aspirations,” Ahmad said. Another local Gulzar Ahmad accused the new channel of trying to vitiate the atmosphere in Gurez and project people of the region as anti-Kashmir. Gulzar said in solidarity with Kashmiri aspirations, Gurez had observed a complete shutdown for three days from July 9 onwards when protests broke out across the Valley. “What they (channel) showed is far off from the reality,” he said.
Anger is simmering across Kashmir against some New Delhi-based news channels for their “biased” coverage of the present unrest in the Valley in which at least 50 people have got killed. Now, the High Court has stepped in and asked the Government to act against the news channels which were fuelling “hysteria about Kashmir and its people”.
Though the protests ended peacefully it conveyed the growing anger against several New Delhi based news channel who have been running a campaign to “distort reality” in Kashmir which has witnessed 50 killings in past 20 days in action by the forces following the killings of the militant commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani in encounter with the forces in south Kashmir’s Kokernag area. The Simmering Anger Four days before the Gurez incident, the office of divisional commissioner of Kashmir, Asgar Samoon, wrote to principal secretary home, Jammu and Kashmir, requesting the state government to get the union home ministry to take action againstTimes Now for “instigating violence and spreading false information” about the present situation in Kashmir.
“It was recommended that the government should ask the union home ministry to take action against Times Now for their involvement in vitiating stability in the region and foiling the government efforts in restoring normalcy,” an official said. Following the killing of Burhan which led to massive protests across the Valley, the government has already directed cable operators in Kashmir to take some national news channels and all Pakistani news channels off air for launching a “tirade of misinformation”.
The divisional commissioner’s communication to the government had come a day after Shah Faesal, the first Kashmiri to top the Indian civil services examination, had hit out at a section of national media for “misrepresenting the idea of India in Kashmir, as part of a business strategy”. “It has also been projecting lies about Kashmir to the rest of the country. It happened in 2008, in 2010 and in 2014, so there is nothing surprising about the tilt and the timing of this debate,” wrote Faesal. Faesal, who is the director of school education, Kashmir, wrote that nearly all the programs on Kashmir right now were aimed to “provoke” people, the coverage was “selective” and the intention of these programs appears to be to compound the problems of the state government.
While slamming the television news channels that ran his picture along with that of Wani, the young bureaucrat said that by juxtaposing my photos with the images of a slain militant commander, a section of national media has once again fallen back upon its conventional savagery that cashes on falsehoods, divides people and creates more hatred. In an article for the Indian Express Faesal even named the four news channels saying the biggest challenge for the India this time was how to reclaim the custody of “national interest” from its national media. “Kashmir or no Kashmir, the biggest challenge for India, this time, is how to reclaim the custody of “national interest” from its national media, and restore communication with its neighbours and people.
Anger is growing in Kashmir against several New Delhi based news channel who have been running a campaign to “distort reality” in Kashmir which has witnessed 50 killings in past 20 days in action by the forces following the killings of the militant commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani in encounter with the forces in south Kashmir’s Kokernag area.
I have no hesitation in saying that Zee News, Times Now, News X and Aaj Tak are at the vanguard of a movement that will take India from a dialogical civilization to a dumb, illogical civilization.” “In Kashmir”, Faesal wrote, “People often confuse the outrageous editorial policy of the national media with the oppressive state policy. When Kashmiri representatives are bullied in TV debates, their aspirations ridiculed, their grievances shouted down, the symbols of Kashmiri pride insulted, or when nonissues are given precedence over the killing of the innocents, when military bravado is encouraged over civilian agony, when positive initiatives of the state government are overlooked, and truth is not shown at all, and most importantly, when cows are made to feel more important than the Kashmiri people, the frustration and anger will, expectedly, be directed against India. Every hour of prime time TV news aggression pushes Kashmir a mile westward from India.”
Shah Faesal, who is the director of school education, Kashmir, wrote that nearly all the programs on Kashmir right now were aimed to “provoke” people, the coverage was “selective” and the intention of these programs appears to be to compound the problems of the state government.
The High Court Steps in Following protests against some news channels and Shah Faesal’s outburst against a section of national media, J&K High Court asked the Government to act against news channels for fuelling “hysteria about Kashmir and its people” and for “pushing Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officer Shah Faisal to the edge.” While expressing displeasure over the coverage of the Kashmir by some national news channels, Chief Justice NN Paul Vasanthakumar and Justice Muzaffar Hasnain Attar observed that the hysteria created by some news channels about Kashmir and its people was creating problems for the Government, which needs to take some action and regulate them.
“The media is not above the law and needs to be made aware of it,” the double bench of the High Court made the observations while hearing a public interest litigation (PIL), filed by People’s Welfare Forum, a nongovernmental organization. Taking cognizance of the write-up of Shah Faesal who had wrote a hard hitting article in the Indian Express, blaming the reportage of news channels for “pushing him to the edge”, the Court observed that If Faesal resigns then he would be pushed to the “other side of the divide”.
The IAS topper had threatened to resign over the broadcasts by some news channel, drawing parallels between him and Burhan Wani. ‘Chased away’ For past several days people in different parts of the Valley have shown stiff resistance against the coverage of the protests by some Delhi-based news channels. There have been reports from different part of Kashmir that crew of some news channels was chased away from the protest sites with people accusing them of distorting reality
