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Northeast India has turned in to a land of happenings.
From insurgency to ethnic tension and economic activities to
cultural discourses, it started drawing the attention of media
worldwide. The alienated region of the country has suddenly
woken up to an anniversary of a massacre that took place 25
years back in Assam. A senior Indian journalist released a book
on the issue in the national capital recently and suddenly a
group of reporters began to pile up their reporting space with
the memory of the carnage. Many of them even did not bother to
check the old information, while putting those in their fresh
columns (as might be nobody bothers about Northeast).
Meet Nitin A Gokhale, the senior editor, defence and
strategic affairs of NDTV (New Delhi), who has recently
contributed a column for the portal of the satellite channel (http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/showcolumns.aspx?id=COLEN20080042819).
But out of callousness, the editor-journalist copied and pasted
almost 70 per cent of the text from one of his earlier articles,
released by an Indian portal
(http://www.tehelka.com/story_main13.asp?filename=Ne070205The_simple.asp)
three years back. He even used the same quotes, where one of
them was a local Panchayat member. Assam had the Panchayat
election three months back, but Nitin did not bother to check
his present status (whether he was re-elected this time).
Moreover the entire situation was re-created for Nitin (must be
by God) when he had recently visited, Nellie, the place of the
carnage.
It may be mentioned that Nellie, a sleepy village of
middle Assam witnessed a horrifying massacre of thousands of
Muslims in 1983. The village, nearly 90 km away from Guwahati
became a center of media attraction during the period, when the
Assam agitation led by All Assam Students Union (AASU) reached
the peak. It was the time, when New Delhi imposed an election in
the state against the will of the indigenous people. The memory
of Nellie massacre still haunts the Assamese psyche irrespective
of caste, creed and religion.
But surprisingly enough, this sensitive issue was also
taken for manufacturing stories by the journalist, who used to
stay in Assam for some time. Now based in New Delhi, Nitin had
contributed a piece for NDTV with his three years old
information. His column (with an 'I-Know-All' air) titled
'Nellie revisited: 25 years on' uploaded on Saturday (March 1),
tends to analyse the situation after his recent visit to the
location. The writer also described the consequences of the
carnage and its implication on today's changing demographic
pattern in the state. But leaving aside first few paragraphs of
the write up on NDTV portal, the entire text was simply added
form an earlier article (by him of course) used by Tehelka. In
fact, besides a little introduction of the Nellie massacre in
reference to a book release by Hemendra Narayan in New Delhi
recently, Nitin picked up his old text with minor updating.
The journalist picked up all the quotes (as he did
three years back), and used for his March 1 piece on NDTV. One
of his quotes (Mohammed Nuruddin Munshi, the all-powerful leader
of the community in the area) described, "We now number about
12,000-14,000 as against barely 3,000-odd in 1983." The old
article contained the same line with the same description. So
the man must have taken help of his memory to reveal the precise
statistics to Nitin 'during a recent visit to Nellie'. The next
quote (Suruj Konwar, a veterinary department employee) said
exactly the same thing to Nitin, as it was reported in 1983.
The editor provided some space to elaborate the
profile of Nuruddin, who was 'then a 20-year-old having just
completed his schooling in Arabic' and later 'began taking
active interest in politics'. The next lines say, "Today he is
the member of the Anchalik Parishad and a leader of the
community." The old article (uploaded in July 2005) also
described Nuruddin as the member of the Anchalik Parishad (a
part of Panchyati Raj system in India). So he must have been
re-elected in the Panchyat polls of Assam that took place during
December and January 2007. But there is no mention about it. It
simply implies that Nitin does not care about the authenticity
of a quote in his column.
The NDTV editor (Nitin A Gokhale ) was communicated
with his personal e-mail address as well as the official
feedback format, but no response came from him till date. Now
the pertinent question that arises, whether a journalist is
allowed to manufacture quotes for his write-ups those might
reveal biased information? Moreover, is anyone permitted to copy
and paste most of the parts of his own write up, even though the
situation had been changed in three long years? Are these not a
clear case of unpardonable offence by the NDTV editor, which
could definitely hurt the moral and ethical values of
journalism? Finally why does Northeast receive such treatment
from those so-called mainland Indians? March
2008
© Nava
Thakuria
Nava Thakuria is an independent journalist based in
Guwahati (Northeast India). He regularly contributes to
www.indigenousherald.com. He also writes for various
media outlets in India and abroad. He can be contacted at
navathakuria@gmail.com |
