We need to speak up for the Bihar journalist who was attacked, too
As the country erupted in protest against Gauri Lankesh’s assassination on September 5, 2017, another journalist was shot at in Bihar’s Arwal district barely two days later.
Pankaj Mishra, who works with Rashtriya Sahara, a local daily, was attacked and sustained wounds in his hand and back, while he was coming out of his bank with some cash in hand. Mishra is undergoing treatment at Patna Medical College, while one of the assailants has been already arrested.
Local journalist Pankaj Mishra working for Rashtriya Sahara newspaper shot by 2 bike-borne persons in Bihar's Arwal; condition is critical. pic.twitter.com/Q2jrvZEgwm
— ANI (@ANI) September 7, 2017
#UPDATE: Pankaj Mishra shot by 2 people from his village. Mishra was leaving bank with 1 lakh cash which was robbed by them: SP Arwal #Bihar
— ANI (@ANI) September 7, 2017
#UPDATE One accused who shot journalist Pankaj Mishra has been arrested. It is a case of personal enmity: Dilip Kumar, SP Arwal #Bihar
— ANI (@ANI) September 7, 2017
While “personal animosity” might have been the possible reason behind the attack, according to Dilip Kumar, superintendent of police, Arwal, it doesn’t take away from the fact that rival political factions and parties – the opposition Congress and the ruling JD(U) – in Bihar are involved, no matter how tangentially. Mishra, in addition to working with Rashtriya Sahara, is also a Congress member, and he worked with the party’s local unit.
According to NDTV, Mishra “worked as a collection agent for the local branch of the state-run bank and [ran] a help centre at the village, to (aid) people with various kinds of paperwork”.
According to India Today, Mishra was attacked when he was leaving the bank with Rs 1 lakh cash, which was robbed.Mishra’s assailants – Kundan and Ambika Mahto – were related to JD(U); Kundan is the son of Anant Kumar Verma, the personal assistant of the JD(U) legislator from Kurtha, Satyadeo Singh, according to NDTV.
Fortunately, this case of attack and robbery has been swiftly acted upon and Kuman Mahto has been arrested, with Verma’s cooperation, according to reports. But that’s the only sliver of hope in an increasingly grim climate of persecution for journalists for various – ideological, political reasons, as well as for what they report on, whom they challenge and expose with their writings.
Threat and persecution
It is becoming increasingly evident that journalists are becoming prime targets of political vendetta, ideological opposition and many other forms of heinous attacks that result from their work. Kannada editor Gauri Lankesh was not only writing against the Hindutva fanatics, who wanted to target her, and might have, after all, given the open declaration by a BJP MLA from Karnataka that she “would have been alive had she not written against the RSS”.
#BREAKING #NEWSROOM#GauriLankesh was killed because she wrote against RSS, claims Karnataka BJP MLA Jeevraj https://t.co/4fqxBVUizL pic.twitter.com/YABsTZ7hIf
— India Today (@IndiaToday) September 7, 2017
Moreover, Lankesh’s murder is only the latest in a long line of scribes and authors felled for their writings, especially Narendra Dhabolkar, Govind Pansare and MM Kalburgi, who wrote against Hindutva fanaticism, superstitions and the foundational core of violence embedded in caste system. Lankesh too was vocally anti-Hindutva, but that wasn’t all. She was actively reporting – in her weekly publication Gauri Lankesh Patrike – against the growing Hindutva menace in Karnataka. The latest cover story was on BJP national president Amit Shah’s strategies to deepen the rightwing’s hold on the state.
Featured article in last week's edition of Gauri Lankesh magazine was about Amit Shah!!#GauriLankesh pic.twitter.com/vKCBre4pty
— Sadik Ahmad (@Sadik_Ahmad) September 7, 2017
There have been 142 attacks on journalists in the last two years in India, according to the data journalism portal, India Spend, which cites the National Crime Records Bureau fact sheet.
In addition, a number of forums, such as the Committee to Protect Journalists, PEN International/India, Editors Guild of India, Indian Journalists Union, etc, have condemned the attacks even as the assaults themselves have only gone up in number. CPJ, the non-profit that tracks journalists under threat all across the world, has noted that as many as 70 scribes have been killed in India over the past 24 years till 2016, spread all over the Indian states, but mostly concentrated in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar.
Mishra, luckily, has escaped with some wounds, but the fate that befell Rajdev Ranjan, Jagendra Singh, Akshay Singh, Sandeep Kothari, among others indicates the gruesome reality within which journalists, particularly those working in vernacular languages for the local publications, work. While Lankesh, Dhabolkar, Pansare, Kalburgi were murdered over ideology, much like the atheist bloggers of Bangladesh such as Avijit Roy, Niloy Neel, Wasibur Rahman and others, those like Ranjan, Singh are executed for their questioning of the political-mining/sand mafia nexus.
Other instances of journalistic persecution includes one that’s ongoing in Chhattisgarh, particularly Bastar, where reporting on rampant human rights violations has become an extremely hazardous job. Malini Subramaniam, the contributor for Scroll.in had to leave the place after unbearable threats, intimidation and damage to property.
Similarly, the exploits of the Samajik Ekta Manch – now disbanded – had many to equate it with the banned militia Salwa Judum, who targeted Subramaniam, as well as local journalists like Prabhat Singh and Santosh Yadav, even as the Chhattisgarh cops imprisoned them for doing their job. While Lankesh’s murder has galvanised the entire country and its journalistic community, let’s not forget that it’s the reporter in the field in these non-metropolitan areas, writing in non-English languages, who is most vulnerable to such ideological and political executions.
We need to come together and seek a just and accountable government, so that these “supari killings” at the behest of those in power are put an end to once and for all. Else, killing off the fourth estate would finish off whatever is left of our secular democracy.