Muzzling the media : Threats and diktats : Shooting the messenger
- Sangai Express Editorial :: June 28, 2013 -

Boycott. Ban.

These are terms usually and universally associated with agitations launched by civil society organisations and activists against the policies and programmes of the Government of the day, but extend this to the media and it takes on a totally different dimension.

Journalists working in Manipur would more or less easily understand the nuances of this observation or be familiar with its meaning.

Armed groups dictating what should be published and what should not be published.

Competing forces trying to gag the media from publishing the materials of each other.

Claiming monopoly over a ‘name’, triggered by infighting within the organisation and issuing ‘instructions’ to the media houses that no one else has the right to use the ‘name’ except themselves.

Reserving or demanding front page space, with the addendum that not a single word or sentence should be edited.

Imposing conditions that a statement issued should be published at any cost and anyone not abiding by it would be made to face the consequences.

These observations have not been plucked from thin air, but is a true reflection of the conditions under which the media in Manipur has had to function down the years.

Again these conditions have manifested in the bomb attacks launched at the residence of the president of the All Manipur Working Journalists’ Union sometime in August last year as well as the bomb attacks and bomb gift planted at the office of The Sangai Express some years back.

These are from some armed groups, a rag tag group of desperadoes, out to make a quick buck in the name of the insurrection movement.

The numerous occasions when the media in Manipur have had to go off press in the recent past, should explain this.

With the journalists coming together and forging a strong stand against such strong arm tactics under the All Manipur Working Journalists’ Union, such a trend has been on the wane but the virus has caught on, with its contagious character making sure that it has extended to some civil society organisations, particularly student organisations.

This is what is worrying and at the same time disturbing and unacceptable.

Student organisations arm twisting or trying to arm twist the media houses, whenever there are internal differences amongst themselves amounts to rubbishing the universal understanding ‘students are the pillars of the future.’

Not only immature but also exhibiting a streak of goondaism. Do this, do not do this and that too to the media.

This is not what student organisations should be doing. But then again, questions may well be asked whether those helming the affairs of some of these student organisations are students in the strictest sense of the term or not.

More a case of wannabe politicians, waiting in the wings and in the interregnum, defiling and distorting the very concept and values of what student activism should be all about.

Be very clear, the media here in Manipur is not to kow tow to the diktats of anyone, least of all student organisations.

Let them do their job. Let them act as pressure groups. Let them raise issues concerning the conditions and state of the students. Let them raise their voice of discontentment against the policies and programmes of the Government.

In doing this, if the media is targeted or is intended to be targeted on grounds as juvenile as not agreeing to their stand that material of a rival student organisation should not be entertained then it is taking things a little too far.

This is not how student organisations should function.

The Sangai Express has refrained from taking names at the moment for reasons of propriety but let better sense prevail.