The main aim of the media segment was to focus on how forced migration discourse has been addressed by the mainstream media. Owing to CRG’s previous engagement with media persons in the three creative writer’s workshop; in the Winter Course we need to widen our horizon through addressing how audiovisual medium has played an important role in the last few years. One of the main objectives of the media segment is to understand how issues of forced migration and subjects of forced migration have been identified by the radio/ TV and print journalists in particular and the media in general.  It is also important to look into the prejudices entailed in the conceptualisation of “victimhood” and whether the narratives on forced migration have been able to move beyond addressing victims of forced migration as “populations” and how the experiences have been articulated and represented in various mediums. Internet is seen as an alternative media and the way and how many civil rights groups are using it as an alternative media. 

The two -day programme aims to put together some of the visual representations and tries to look at how the print/ audio and visual media has addressed issues of forced migration and displacement in South Asia.  The two-day programme was organized in collaboration with Panos South Asia.  

Film Screening Rabba Hun Kee Kariye and Yarwng followed by discussion with the Director, Ajay Bharadwaj and Joseph Pullinthananth SDB (9 December 2008) 

The audiovisual medium; particularly films have tried to establish the link between right to information and right to communication. The films chosen for this year’s screening was based on two experiences of forced displacement one based on present development induced displacement in Tripura and the other on genocidal violence of partition. “Rabba Hum Kee Kariye” is a documentary and “Yarwng” is a fictional representation. Though stylistically different; both these films speak about how do we articulate loss, filtered memory and search for a home in the narratives we weave through creative medium. 

Rabba Hun Kee Kariye trails a shared history of Punjab - a culture, language and a way of life- that was torn asunder in the fateful year of 1947. It captures the documentary maker’s almost unexpected encounter with feelings of guilt and remorse about the genocidial violence of the partition. These informal tales, almost like folklore, are strewn across the memory-scape of Punjabi countryside. Through this documentary these long suppressed experiences become accessible for debate in public domain for the first time. While India won her independence from the British rule in 1947, the northwestern province of Punjab was divided into two. The Muslim majority areas of West Punjab became part of Pakistan, and the Hindu and Sikh majority areas of East Punjab remained with, the now divided, India. The truncated Punjabs bore scars of large-scale killings as each was being cleansed of their minorities. Sixty years on, Rabba Hun Kee Kariye trails this shared history divided by the knife. For the first time a documentary turns its gaze at the perpetrators, as seen through the eyes of eyewitnesses. While East Punjabis fondly remember their bonding with the Muslim neighbours and vividly recall its betrayal, the film excavates how the personal and informal negotiated with the organised violence of genocide. In village after village, people recount what life had in store for those who participated in the killings and lootings. Periodically, the accumulated guilt of a witness or a bystander, surfaces, sometimes discernible in their subconscious, other times visible in the film.

Without rancour and with great pain a generation unburdens its heart, hoping this never happens again "   

'YARWNG' is a feature film in "Kokborok" language of Tripura. It won the prestigious Asian Award. Yarwng means ‘roots’. The film revolves around the large-scale displacement that happened in Tripura when the newly built Dumbur Sam submerged huge areas of arable land in the fertile Raima Valley about 30 years ago. The film dedicates itself to all the people who have been displaced in the name of development, the world over.  

One-day media workshop on Media and Forced Migration (10 December 2008) 

The proceedings of the one-day media workshop began with introductory remarks by Ranabir Samaddar, Director, CRG. He talked about CRG’s engagement with media which included designing three creative writer’s workshops in the past, media fellowship programme.  The main thrust of CRG’s media programme has been to engage with the media persons, activists regarding how to combine the right to information and right to communicate. It is against this background he feels we need to probe further into right to communicate and we should not be complacent with our struggle on right to information as right to information can no way ensure the right to communicate of the displaced. It is important that we try to devise ways of communication that shall be dialogic and inter subjective communicative dialogic and use inter- subjective communication skills? He concluded that CRG shall be happy if this workshop could be utilized to form a core group of media activists who would address such pertinent issues that plague victims right to communicate. 

In the introductory lecture Bharat Bhushan, Editor, Mail Today argued that it is important to understand the strategies of the media against the backdrop of the three factors that drive media. Firstly there was a rapid expansion of market for newspapers. It was advertisement budgets and marketing skills that led to media expansion. The marginal cost of staring a new edition was responsible for increasing number of editions in case of newspapers. So what we witness here is that the media content had little role to play in this changing economics. Secondly, the market perception of the readers was considered valuable as a certain set of readership values had to be sold to the advertisers. The media ratings emphasized more on recall value rather than on media content. Thirdly the media content was being produced for the people with a high disposable income which was sanctioned by the growing neo-liberal market conditions. It is against this backdrop we need to understand as to how much space is left for the media to explore “issues”. Hence what we see is a media driven by lifestyle. There are contradictions within the media persons and the newsrooms as there are still a lot of youngsters who join the profession with an idealism of being the mirror to the society but fall through the demands and pressures of the market. The journalists have to negotiate with protection of interest and accurate reporting. 

Media has adopted certain strategies to give voice to victims of forced migration. If we take a look at the recent media coverage of the people’s struggle against proposed SEZ in Nandigram and the car factory we will see how the media in its initial coverage tried to portray the dominant consensus of the market; in other words the debates were around industrialization. In the second phase the media used the lens of “violence” to cover these events. Violence became the new idiom of understanding the threat these movements posed to the state engineered development; it posed newer challenges and demanded negotiation. In other words the media coverage of forced displacement issues was garbed under two notions of “industrialization” and “violence”. For instance, the media coverage of  people’s movement against the proposed SEZ in Nandigram, West Bengal was divided on two lines. While some of the media conglomerates took a pro- industrialization stand the others adopted anti- government stand. Some of the media houses who supported industrialization were forced to change their stand when they realized that they were losing their credibility in the market as the sales went down. So, what we see is that the market does not want to support broken consensus.  

Thus, we need to ensure and reexamine the existing communication strategies so that displaced people have to tell why, how they are displaced. The narratives have to be localized and for this the communication strategies need not be media centric. There are three essential communication strategies. They are: - 

1.       Legal activism is essential, as most of the recent land acquisition has taken place with the aid of the draconian Land Acquisition Act 1894.

2.       Activism around Right to Information Act (RTI) is the most effective strategy. It was cited how after the Government announced compensation for victims affected due to Sardar Sarovar project 750 fake land registration was done to avail of compensation benefits. People who had never been displaced chose to file in applications and this crucial information could be accessed through RTI.

3.                  Thirdly it is essential to link RTI to media, as the information needs to be disseminated through right avenues. It is important that the activists communicate with the media their findings.         

Book Reading Session 

Ritu Menon, Noted Feminist scholar, Women Unlimited, India in the book reading session pointed out at the outset that are more than one kind of medium to articulate our stories. Print and electronic mediums are one kind of medium through which stories are represented. She felt that the readers are happy that they are content that there is another alternative medium where the distinctions between the powerful and powerless are less blurred. It through this alternative medium certain issues could be explored where the dynamics of the power relationship could be explored. She felt this is the constituency that CRG represents.  

The fact that choices are made available and we have them also represents how we use them. What we use is long-term; long-shelf life. Book by definition has to be life long. This makes a big difference to the kind of material we produce. 

She read from two literary non-fiction writings and both the texts were in first person voices. She emphasized that it is equally important to understand does the victim has a voice and can we hear this voice and how should we hear this voice? While on one hand we can make decision on behalf of the voice of the marginal, and dispossessed; it is important to create space for the marginal counter dissenting voice.  Counter narrative and counter factual are important in providing alternative to the dominant.  

Either, Neither or both  

The narrative is about Shehela Shibli (Ritu’s aunt), first paid women Journalist of Dawn, Pakistan. In 1946 she married a Muslim and consciously decided to stay to Pakistan after her family moved to India. Was she a Hindu or Muslim ? She married under “ Special Marriage Act”. Her kind of migration was both voluntary and forced at the same time. There is always something that is indeterminate about it. She was warned, “ Times were wrong for inter communal marriage because the inert communal marriages could turn international.” 

She decides to return to Lahore when her family has moved to India. She arrives to get there and her husband comes to receive her at the airport. She has a new born baby. 

As she enters her house she realizes that her house has become “different”. Most of the things were not to be found. Her husband tells her that the “refugees” have plucked the fruits from the trees in their garden. She is warned, “Remember this is a Hindu Bungalow. You must wear nothing but Salwar kameez.” When she started working in the refugee camps; she found most of the belongings. 

I saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti   

This first person narrative is based on a Mourid Barghouti’s experience of forced exile who finds it extremely difficult to describe the return. The village trees and houses are described through filtered memory.  

“I crossed the threshold and embraced my aunt… saw the fig tree solid in memory and absent in its place” The fig tree had been cut off. In this room I was born before the birth of Israel… Here we lived our early days…. “ 

“People have immigrated and died. Whom should I feed the figs? There’s no body to pluck the figs”. 

This kind of counter narrative would have found little space in any kind of media other than creative writings.  There is a whole business of “compromised existence”. Every conflict situation has something that is retrievable. The possibility that fiction affords is something extremely precious.  

Mandira Sen, Stree Publications in the book reading session focused on dalit narratives from Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.  She argued that displacement is intrinsic to Dalits. Both the narratives are based on experiences of migrant labour. 

Prisons we broke by Baby Kamle 

She is speaking about her mother. Her mother learned to speak when she moved with her father ( who worked as a contract labourer) to different places. Political pressures and social pressures have turned them into “migrants”. Most development projects led to displacement. The narrative is about how her father bagged the contract and the life as a contract labourer. 

Joothan by Omprakash Valmiki 

“Mothers idea about Bengal was about black magic… ever since we got the letter…” “foreign land”. Jasbeer returned to village and engaged in wage labour. 

The discussion ended on how these creative writings give voice to the displaced and the role of the alternative media; particularly publishing industry. There are three critical points to ponder on:-

How do you write displacement?

How do you write violence?

How do you write loss?

Ritu Menon and Mandira Sen argued that their work goes beyond catering the market; instead there is an attempt to develop the market. The main attempt is to bring about social change and hence there is an urge to address issues like displacement, loss and violence, there is always something that is narrative truth, objective truth. Counter narrative has got its own compulsions. It is in this sense alternative is more avante garde and risk taking. After the small publishers have developed the authorial content; the mainstream media pitches in and develops it later. Alternative media provides visibility. 

The book reading session was followed by two parallel group discussions. 

Group A: - The need to link right to information and the right to communicate from victim’s point of view.

Moderator: Supriya Raut, West Bengal University of Juridical Sciences. 

Group B: - Forced Migration and Radio Broadcasting (Discussion based on a radio script written by Sahana Basavapatna, Sixth Winter Course participant).

Moderator: Sanjay Barbora, Panos South Asia, India. 

The discussion in Group A focussed on what is the right in the RTI and does right ensures communication and how do we work for effective communication. RTI is right to complain by the victims. Some of the issues that were discussed were the nature of the act, whether is the significant tool for information, entitlement, whether it can be used against third party , exceptions and how RTI has been used in case of Singur. Thr Group agreed that we cannot ignore the political aspect of the right to information. Groups that interested to communicate has to develop struggles for it because the issues gain visibility through political struggle. One cannot separate the legal and political side of RTI. 

The group was critical of the national security provision, which forbade disclosure of any information that harms your competitive position and trade secret information.  So the Memorandum of understanding between Tata Motors with Government of West Bengal has to guarded. There was debate about what this MoU contains and the participants agreed that disclosure of such documents for public interest should not be prevented. Some of the other questions that were highlighted were the possibility of a third party manipulation, important role that civil society can play in linking right to information and right to communication not only in spreading awareness but also in generating public consensus. 

Group B discussion was based on Sahana’s presentation which was done on the model of panoscope. It was in a magazine format and showed the Invisible City of the Burmese people who have taken asylum in Delhi. It resides very well within the cocoon of the Indian Capital, but disguises itself nonetheless. Sahana captured the life of Burmese refugees by interviewing four people in an eight-minute radio programme. It sought to unravel how life was for them before they moved and what they see for the future? For example, the script tries to capture Burmese women talking while working in a shoe shop in Delhi. Another person, a monk, and a colleague of the interviewer, talks about farms in Burma and his own schooling, his fondness of graphics and computers, drug abuse, pollution of the Irawaddy river, mining precious stones. These are all he freely associates when asked to talk about the past and the future. 

The point of reference, when they talk about their memories of Burma, is generally the 1988 uprising. The fear of imprisonment is a common cause of the exodus. Sahana mentioned she had often to drop a few suggestions to cull out what exactly was required to be known, though carefully enough, so that there is least amount of adulteration.  

During the discussion, questions were asked if the historical context of the movement was taken into consideration. Also, it is very important to note who the audience is. To this, the moderator, Sanjay Borbora replied, for radio, the audience could be as varied as ever. He added a very significant point by saying that it is not one story after all. There are layers to be unearthed, depending on the listener. People can carry a radio along with them wherever they move, and this increases the audibility in terms of the number of people listening.  

The discussion also suggested that, the purpose of making the documentary would decide the choice of sound clips one would use. The moderator summarized by saying, it is like painting a picture with words. Sound effects play a good bit of role. All stations have their signature sound identity.  

The session was fruitful in pointing out that when we actually talk to people on exile, it is more mundane things that come out and render shape to their life perceptions. 

Dipankar Sinha initiated the Panel discussion on Media and Forced Displacement of population (Voices in the Public Domain) by defining the role of media in the case of forced migration; drawing from Habermas’s notion of public sphere and developing it into the public domain, acknowledging that extra-media communication should also be taken into account. He hinted an alert at the pseudo-representation of the mainstream media, creating myth and stereotypes through a by-and-large therapeutic approach towards the crises. Public domain pitches in to provide a critique of this.  

Soe Myint made his presentation on the Burmese refugee situation following the mass killings after the saffron revolution. The conflict resulted in a residue of all sorts of rights violations. There has been internal displacement as well as displacement across borders. Indian media, however, has strangely been insular to the turmoil. In Burma, there are ethnicity specific media organizations, which have become stronger over the last few decades. There has been a spurt of citizen journalists also. Most Burmese go on exile by choice. A Burmese Diaspora has therefore, taken shape gradually. They intend to go back and work for their country. The western, media, though often wanted to portray the details of the crisis, never actually succeeded for lack of proper channels of contacts in the country. 

Sajan Venniyoor, pointed out that the real issues are subverted by the media by engaging with far less important things. For example, while there was need for a means to communicate, there arose a conflict over the official language of broadcast of a particular radio station. After the terrorist attack in Mumbai, the media hovered around the big hotels under siege, neglecting other public places of violence. Displaced people, though have often been the target, but never been the audience to media activities. This is precisely because, forced migration is not an event, it is at best, a process, and the media looks for events only. He mentioned that, there is no Indian market as such, and only regional markets. Moreover, there are problems of monopolizing the media, like one company owning it all. Therefore, there remains almost no chance of displaced people having an access to their own media. The role of community radio is important in this regard. 

Subir Bhaumik critiqued the fact that in India, the term “mainstream” presupposes the existence of one main stream.  The media in turn, profoundly influences the attitude of the host societies, in case of forced migration. This attitude decides the degree of conflict of interests.  Despite migration from Bangladesh being the most pressing issue in North East India, Bangladeshi media is rarely found to report on it, unless there is any significant conflict on the border. Indian media portrays the migrant as the archetypal villain. One can feel how very slowly the migrant issue is being woven into the terrorist issue. Though there are Assamese internal outfits which have had a record of interrupting peace for a long time now, it is the migrant who gets blamed for any atrocity that takes place. In course of time, the term Bangladeshi becomes a pejorative. Moreover, there is a great tendency on part of the western nations to clip together the two separate issues of migration and terrorism. This in turn, strengthens the market stereotypes. Media fails to reflect the realities of the host society. Media is an insider to the host society.  Therefore, it is only logical that the media would represent the host society. The media successfully creates an ‘other’ and goes about its work.  

Sanjay Borbora cited the case of Churachandrapur, where the people had put up their own radio station for themselves. He explained, this is the case when people are rendered invisible or inaudible through constant ‘otherization’. There has been a proliferation of local media, carrying local news and views, broadcasting local culture. This happens when, the media which is responsible for informing the people in the public domain, fails to do so in an authentic manner. The media does not generate any new knowledge. it reflects the society only. In the North East, it is only the security analysts that produce knowledge about the area. A contrary view could be that people might also not want to be visible or speak all the time. Silence could also be a powerful mode of retaliation. 

The workshop ended with the summing up remarks by Ishita Dey and Geetisha Dasgupta.