The curse of being a majority
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: January 05, 2024 -

IN an interesting turn of events, a research report published by Media and Policy Analysis and Advocacy Loisang, Imphal has concluded that the mainstream media houses in India did not adhere to their own codes of conduct in many instances in their reportage on the Manipur crisis.

Carried out under the supervision of JNU Prof Akoijam Bimol, the research report, titled "National Media and Manipur Mayhem", is said to have examined the reportage of five leading national media houses regarding the Manipur violence during May-August 2023 based on the ethical codes delineated by the Press Council of India (PCI), 2022, as the framework of the assessment and using theoretical and methodological tools of media studies to assess the reportage regarding the Manipur crisis and to see whether the reports of the national media were fair, accurate, objective, and ethical.

The study's findings covering 1599 news reports published during the 4-month-period led to the revelation that the national media houses did not adhere to the PCI's codes of conduct in many instances during their reporting about the crisis.

Citing instances, the research report pointed out that one of the key patterns noted in the news reportage is the use of 'sources' being quoted in the news items and it has been found that the 'Kuki' sources are quoted far more than the Meetei sources in the news reports and this difference is statistically found to be significant.

The research report also throws light on the biases in the vocabulary employed. For instance, it said, the loss of life of the 'Kuki' (or tribal) is often described as "killed" and that of the Meetei as "died".

The research report maintained that use of "killed" to describe the 'Kuki' deaths implies an intentional, unjust, and unnatural loss of life, hinting at those responsible for these deaths.

The research report indicated that such biased reportage may have aggravated the situation instead of focussing on core issues based on factual reporting.

One may easily discard the latest research report published by Media and Policy Analysis and Advocacy Loisang, Imphal as a counter to the controversial report of the Editors' Guild of India (ECI)'s fact-finding mission on "Media's Reportage of The Ethnic Violence in Manipur" which was unveiled in early September last year with a sweeping conclusion that the media in Manipur, which is essentially based in Imphal got transformed into "Meitei-media" during the crisis and the journalists wrote "one-sided reports" that rely almost entirely on the narrative of the state government, but how the 'parachute journalism' of national media houses has done more harm than any good in the current humanitarian crisis in Manipur is something that could be disregarded that easily.

It has been rather convenient for the mainstream media houses and their parachute journalists to look through the prism of over-familiar minority-majority conflict and accordingly write their stories, when the truth is far from it.

Without any in-depth understanding of the historical context, cultural nuances, and intricate societal dynamics involved, it was easy for these parachute journalists to demonise the Meitei/Meetei and lap up the Kuki-Chin people's minority victimhood narrative, just because Meitei/Meetei are predominantly Hindus living in the relatively developed valley area, even though they form a bare majority in the state.

They should understand that the alleged feeling of negligence and persecution that the Kuki-Chin or any other tribal groups living in the relatively undeveloped hilly regions are talking about have got nothing to do with the Meitei/ Meetei.

Unlike them, it is the Meitei/Meetei who have no constitutional safeguard and protection of any sort to secure their future.

In a multi-ethnic society like Manipur, which is home to people of as many as 35 communities, being a bare majority, is indeed a curse.

Having said this, it is always baffling why these parachute journalists never ever try to find out who lit the first spark that led to the current conflict between the Meitei/Meetei and Kuki-Chin people on that fateful day of May 3 last year after the Tribal Solidarity March taken out against the ST demand of the Meitei/Meetei ended peacefully in all other hill areas except the Kuki-Chin dominated areas.