For peculiar and often incorrect reasons, Indian English language dailies are credited with carrying more heft and objectivity, than they actually deserve. One presumes that management and editorial staff of these newspapers will be under lesser pressure to plunge to satiate communal, partisan agendas, but historically, Punjab’s experience has been different. World Sikh News editor Jagmohan Singh looks at some recent reporting and commentary in the Indian Express and fears the nadir that such journalism has touched. Let it be known that it is not always that the Big Brother is watching you, the Small Brother also does and speaks out too.  

IN THE GIVEN POLITICAL ATMOSPHERE IN THE COUNTRY, some media houses have come up better than the others, and the Indian Express has often been credited with keeping its head above the water, though no newspaper or news television house is now free of the pressures exerted by the Indian regime.

Former editor of the Indian Express Arun Shourie famously remarked not very long ago that everybody in the journalistic world in Delhi knows whether Venkaiah Naidu can pen two paragraphs in English but still the newspapers carry long articles, presumably written by him. The Indian Express has carried several articles by Indian Vice President Naidu in recent times. So, as we said, any hope about the Indian Express must come with a rider.

In Punjab, we have been noticing clear agendas and biases in several newspapers. The kind reflected in the Indian Express in recent times is some of the most worrying kind since the newspaper otherwise enjoys a better reputation.

Recently, in Patiala, a man procured a pass from the state government to presumably distribute langar. Instead, he used it to sell books across the state, and in the process, became a coronavirus spreader.

What was the job of the reporter? It was to report the facts and ask the authorities some hard questions. The newspaper should have asked who did the verification when someone applied for the pass. It should have asked which official was held responsible and what action was taken. It should have asked who was giving clearance to the vehicles in which the clever fellow was carrying books from district to district to sell them. It should have asked where were the authorities in all those districts.

In Punjab, we have been noticing clear agendas and biases in several newspapers.

Instead, the newspaper puts out a story on 24 April, that starts by saying, “Distribution of langar, distributors travelling to other cities despite the lockdown” were among the reasons why Patiala and Rajpura became hotspots of coronavirus. And this was a clearly provocative and sweeping statement backed by zero facts. In fact, the details in the story actually prove that deducing the distribution of langar from the facts reported by the same newspaper could only be an act of extreme prejudice.

World Sikh News editor Jagmohan Singh looks at some recent reporting and commentary in the Indian Express and fears the nadir that such journalism has touched.#DeraBeas @IndianExpress #JournalismofCourage #TableeghiJamaat #vaishnodevi @MVenkaiahNaidu https://t.co/1eqH2mJvnx

— The World Sikh News (@WorldSikhNews1) May 1, 2020

You take a pass to distribute langar. You do not intend to do so at all. You sell books. The reporter knows all that. Top officials tell the reporter that. The officials are quoted in the story saying exactly that. Still, the first line of the story says “Distribution of langar” was responsible!

Why do we say it was deliberate prejudice? Because by the time the story was published, many more details were already known. The role of the Shiv Sena leaders in the entire imbroglio was well known and had been reported by the media widely, but the reporter did not even touch that aspect. This kind of stance of the reporter could not have escaped the news editor and editor but it made it to print. It was given a huge display.

Once a newspaper’s reporters are found harbouring such pronounced prejudices against a particular community in their reporting and their personal social media outpourings, how can anyone expect even a semblance of objectivity from them?

The police had not blamed the langar distribution. The coronavirus had not spread because of langar. It was spread because a bunch of crooks wanted to make money and a bunch of inefficient or corrupt or both officials either did not do their work or looked the other way.

The Indian Express almost became a part of the cover-up and fudging. When the Indian Express was claiming that the distribution of langar was responsible for turning Patiala into a coronavirus hotspot, the Patiala SSP was actually telling it that those held accountable for the wrongdoing had obtained passes for langar but indulged in buying and selling of books, and it was a misuse of the passes issued for langar.

Which part of this was complicated for a senior journalist and an entire hierarchy of editorial supervisors not to understand?

Once a newspaper’s reporters are found harbouring such pronounced prejudices against a particular community in their reporting and their personal social media outpourings, how can anyone expect even a semblance of objectivity from them?

“Why have you brought back Sikh pilgrims from Maharashtra?”  asks this slip of a reporter. Senior Indian Express people who are “friends” of this reporter on the Facebook account. Is it anyone’s case that the Indian Express does not see the reporter’s biases and prejudices? 

It is well known in modern journalism that you find a story that you go out looking for. What kind of stories do you think such reporters are searching for? Will these reporters ask the hard questions to the administration as to the conditions in which the pilgrims from Nanded were kept, the way they should have been screened, who was responsible for sanitising the vehicles and why were these not sanitised, why were they housed in inhuman conditions and why are there scenes of people crying for food in isolation and quarantine centres? Or will they be blaming the victims and asking the CM to answer them “personally” why the people ventured to come to their homes?

Surely, working from home could not be blamed for lethargy, shoddy journalism and provocative partisan reporting aimed at vilifying a community and humiliating the grand tradition of langar. In a lot of countries, the newspaper would have been hauled up before courts and media ombudsman bodies.

There is another tale of an Indian Express reporter clearly not just working from home but overenthusiastically messing up from home. This journalist, whose reports in the newspaper leave much to be desired when it comes to objectivity and bias, has now made her political leanings and biases very clear.

This reporter berates the Sikh devotees visiting Nanded, questions why were they brought back and wants direct answers from none other than the chief minister, but does not do any of this in the newspaper. Facebook provides the space and courage to spew venom and malign Sikhs.

This reporter berates the Sikh devotees visiting Nanded, questions why were they brought back and wants direct answers from none other than the chief minister, but does not do any of this in the newspaper. Facebook provides the space and courage to spew venom and malign Sikhs.

“Why have you brought back Sikh pilgrims from Maharashtra?”  asks this slip of a reporter. Senior Indian Express people who are “friends” of this reporter on the Facebook account. Is it anyone’s case that the Indian Express does not see the reporter’s biases and prejudices?

One would be forced to ask why this reporter does not want to ask Yogi Adityanath who sent buses, Nitish Kumar-Sushil Modi who want special trains or Amit Shah who is pulling the strings or governments who transported students from Kota but wants Amarinder Singh to answer.

And this reporter wants direct answers. One is forced to presume that this is the new newsgathering procedure sanctioned by the Indian Express editors since they all cannot feign ignorance about this reporters’ venomous comments.

One needs to ask all such poison-spouting hacks why they do not question similar efforts being made by Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Maharashtra to bring back their people from other states, not to speak of India’s efforts to get Indians from Canada, US, Australia and Europe or citizens of these countries returning to their countries?

Who will ask about evacuating pilgrims from Vaishno Devi and the gatherings at Dera Beas?

Surely, working from home could not be blamed for lethargy, shoddy journalism and provocative partisan reporting aimed at vilifying a community and humiliating the grand tradition of langar. In a lot of countries, the newspaper would have been hauled up before courts and media ombudsman bodies.

But then, should we really have any hope of the Indian Express when it comes to communally-coloured journalism? The newspaper has the capacity to match the toxic levels of a Sudarshan channel or a Republic TV virus-tinged programme against Muslims in the name of some morons of some Tableeghi Jamat.

Sample this 12 April 2020 Indian Express column by Coomi Kapoor that defines misadventures in journalism.

In her gossipy Inside Track drivel, she found that the Indian Health Minister Mr Harshvardhan was the best man for the job. That’s a certificate and leaves the readers will little hope of bringing critical faculties to the coverage of the pandemic. The Health Minister has already been pronounced a messiah. Maybe he even has wings. Coomi Kapoor would know.

After all, she knows so much about the pandemic and those who spread it. You would be shocked by her knowledge, the kind that has already gone viral in India -right from the lynching of Muslims to the efforts to disenfranchise them through misconceived citizenship laws. The veteran journalist says, among many of her other insinuations: “Since this orthodox sect does not believe in vaccination, some feel it buttresses the theory that those not vaccinated with BCG are far more vulnerable. Others believe that the Tablighi’s community’s living and eating habits helped spread the infection.”

What is the Indian Express doing? How is this not journalistic lynching of an entire community?

So, Muslims eat something because of which coronavirus spreads. What exactly is that since clearly, people of other religions do not eat that stuff?

What is the Indian Express doing? How is this not journalistic lynching of an entire community?

Long dead are the claims about Journalism of Courage if journalists and editors are being courageous only in openly and shamelessly flaunting their biases on the news pages of the daily, in their columns or on their Facebook accounts.

Hopefully, better days will prevail and someday, we will find a cure to coronavirus. However, there is little hope to rid some in this country of a dangerous mindset, which is now mentioning the Tableeghi Jamat and the Nanded Sikh pilgrims in the same breath in print and on TV.