The missing fact in the EGI's fact-finding report
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: September 06, 2023 -

With three FIRs filed so far, and the two apex bodies of the journalist fraternity in the state already rubbished what they described as "the ECl's motivated allegations based on hearsay" by issuing a point-by-point clarification jointly, it seems the report published by a fact-finding mission of the Editors' Guild of India (EGI) on media's reportage of the ethnic violence in Manipur has ruffled up the feathers of almost everyone in the state and beyond.

While the reservation of the journalist fraternity in the state against the crowd-funded EGI report is mainly directed towards the swift conclusion made by the fact-finding team that the media in Manipur, which is essentially based in Imphal got transformed into "Meitei-media" and the journalists wrote "one-sided reports" in the current humanitarian crisis between the Meitei and the Kuki communities, the government of Manipur has filed an FIR against the EGI for "its erroneous and nonsensical report" which could fuel the violence to linger on by blaming the government of Manipur and the Meitei for the violence without any evidence.

In addition to this, the state police have registered two separate cases against president of EGI Seema Mustapha, and the three members of the fact-finding team namely Seema Guha, Sanjay Kapoor and Bharat Bhushan, who carried out the mission from August 7 to 10 and published the report of their purported assessment of the media coverage of the violence in Manipur on September 2.

The two cases have been registered following complaints lodged by two individuals under different sections of IPC including Section 153-A, 200/295/298/5000/505(1)(B)/505 (2)/120-B.

From the endless discussion that are doing the round on various media platforms across the country, it is becoming clear that the reservation against the report of the EGI's fact-finding mission on media's reportage of the ethnic violence in Manipur is not confined to the strife-torn state alone.

Apart from raising question on the intent of the EGI's crow-funded fact-finding mission in coming with up a skewed report which is not only filled with factually incorrect information but also offer nothing substantial on the table that could be of some value in the effort of resolving the present humanitarian crisis, these discussion sessions have opened the door wide to raging a debate on whether the members of the fact-finding team had actually followed the EGI's own issued guidelines for proper conduct of journalists in preparing the report or simply given a go-by wilfully to suit their own pre-conceived notion and build up a narrative on the present crisis in Manipur.

Though we could not say anything for sure about the other veteran journalists in the fact-finding team, what Sanjoy Kapoor wrote and published on The Probe on its the july 22 edition, which is exactly 39 days ahead of embarking on the fact-finding mission, definitely points the finger of suspicion towards that direction.

In his write-up under the headline, "Manipur Horror: When Government's Media Strategy Failed', the respected veteran journalist has exposed himself to which side of the clash divide he stands, when he says, "The shocking incident of women being paraded naked and raped has not only exposed the horrors faced by the indigenous Christian tribes-people, the Kukis, but has also raised questions about the government's attempts to suppress media coverage and control information flow.... the ban was on mobile internet, which meant that those living in the hilly areas of Manipur, the Kukis, were the worst affected as they rely on mobile phones for communication. This allowed the Meiteis to have a free run when it came to dominating the narrative".