Why is #GoBackIndianMedia trending?

What exactly has “the Indian media” done in Nepal?

Ask #GoBackIndianMedia, a hashtag from Nepal that has been trending on Twitter since May 3, World Press Freedom Day, for ten hours.

Go back where? From Nepal to India, of course. And why? Because, “the Indian media” is “biased,” “one-sided,” “insensitive,” doing a “family serial” on Nepal’s tragedy apart from a “PR” exercise for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the name of covering the earthquake. “The Indian media” is also being contrasted with BBC and CNN (never mind, those are just two media organisations among a whole lot of others in the UK and US, respectively) with reams and reams of web space being devoted to how well they have covered the earthquake, unlike “the Indian media”.

 Saddest story

The sad part is that it’s a Nepal hashtag. A country with 10,000 feared dead, thousands injured and lost, in the wake of the devastating earthquake of April 25-26. The hashtag was started by a young MBA, Ramesh Aryal, of Kathmandu on May 2. Even in the midst of the devastation, he had the time, energy and the mind-space to focus on the “Indian media”. “Don’t fool the world. It’s over,” he tweeted, with a caveat: “We love India but hate Indian media.” At a time citizens across Nepal are rallying together or joining the National Volunteering Campaign of Nepal to rescue, offer relief and rehabilitate quake victims, is this all he could think of? It’s possibly the saddest story from the earthquake zone. 

 Great expectations

Was he influenced by non-resident Nepalese Sunita Shakya’s story, “A Letter to Indian Media,” published on CNN’s story-sharing space as iReport (with the tag, “Not verified by CNN”) on May 1? Written (unusually) in emotional uppercase in some parts, she began by thanking India, “from the bottom of (her) heart” for helping Nepal. She then took off on how journalists should behave in a disaster zone (“Your duty as a reporter is not just to capture the scenario and interview people. If you have access to these critical areas hit hard by earthquake, please take some first-aid kit with you. Take some food supplies, tent and water with you”) and also on how to “show (a journalist’s) duty as a human.”

(By the way, CNN has drawn flak for violating journalistic ethics during the Nepal earthquake. Its crew filmed chief medical correspondent, neurosurgeon Dr Sanjay Gupta, doing an emergency brain surgery on a child, using a saw, and in front of the camera. Questions of violating confidentiality of a patient, as well as self-promotion, face the channel now.)

 Big brother India

We would like to look at Shakya’s invectives as the distressed outpourings of someone who is far away from her land of origin, feeling helpless and distraught. It remains a mystery though why her “heart cried and hurt” when she saw Indian news reports “more than those destruction caused by 7.9 Richter magnitude of earthquake.” But what explains Aryal and his friends? And that, too, right after Nepal PM Sushil Koirala said, “We're really blessed as we have neighbours like India”? The truth is, India faces major challenges in Nepal: First, the feeling that India does not take Nepal seriously (PM Modi’s recent visit was the first since 1997); second, that it meddles in Nepal’s internal politics (especially, India’s role in bringing an end to the monarchy in 2006) and the third is Chinese influence (it’s the biggest source of FDI in Nepal).

 Indian anger

The saddest bit, however, happened in India. The moment veteran journalist Shekhar Gupta tweeted about it (“Oops, see what’s trending in Nepal…Anger at “patriotic” channels forgetting Nep not Indian state”) the hashtag went viral. In a strange pack movement, urban Indian twitterati — well-known to unknown — unleashed waves of cathartic hatred on journalists. If Sagarika Ghose called TV journalists, “Hyper Indian…TV performance artists,” Navjot Singh Sidhu, suggested that the Nepalese earthquake victims “should slap (Indian) reporters.”

Surprise, surprise. Scratch below the surface of the anger and you’ll find 90 per cent of the 128K-plus tweets and retweets to be from India. “Dear Nepali brother,” says one. “We Indians also hate Indian Media, pls bury them somewhere in the hills dont send them back.” Here’s another: “From Madison Square Garden to Katmandu, nothing causes more international embarrassment to India than Indian Media.” Yet another: “Dear nepalis brothers and sister indian media does not represent india we indians are with uh.” Can anyone beat this? “Indian Media is like a diarrhoea ! Unwanted, Stinky and doesn't stop!”

A few voices question the frenzy: “we Indian r with you but why you people are against our media”. ABP News correspondent, Dibang, who is reporting from Ground Zero tweets: “sorry. most of these tweets are by indians. in nepal, expect for some anti-india papers, there is support for indian tv.”

According to Kunda Dixit, a veteran journalist and editor of Nepali Times, all journalists from across the world are highlighting the efforts of their own countries. Unfortunately, the people of Nepal are not aware of those, since they get to watch only Indian channels. “For every negative tweet, there are ten positive reactions about India's efforts in Nepal. We shouldn't read much into it," he told the Hindustan Times. “This type of coverage also inspired Indians as well as people from all over the world to send donation / relief,” posts a reader of DailyO.

 Beast that is television

So what has Indian media done to invoke so much anger? Here’s the list, as reported on Twitter: An Indian news reporter asked a mother, whose only son had been buried under their house, “How do you feel?” Another: “reporter asks an injured woman did someone of yours die? She says my ten-year-old daughter. He asks her the same thing  6 times”. For some, the media shamed India: “There r Journos who have gone to Nepal to cover Disaster. There r Journos who have gone to do PR for Dear Leader. The latter shamed India.” For others, “Media humiliated poor Nepal.” An ophthalmologist simply says: “u indian media, just shut up.”

It’s the same old thing that television does every time there’s a crisis or a calamity: shouting, screaming, keeping viewers glued to the screen by dramatising every issue. But that’s the nature of the animal called television. It’s not just India, but nowhere in the world is television a subtle business. It’s all right in small doses, but after the tsunami, Kargil, 26/11, Kashmir floods, clearly the Indian public is not amused by it anymore. Yet, they can’t seem to stay off the TV screen, adding to viewership ratings and business. Surveys show the Mumbai attack was covered in the least sensational manner by Doordarshan. And it got the least viewers.

 Journos from Mars

Instead of calling journalists who went to ground zero, risking life and limb, “brainless morons,” perhaps, it pays to remember that it’s not just India: every reporter from every other country has done pretty much what our journalists have done. More importantly, it’s important to remember that journalists are not aliens from Mars: they belong to the same society that ranks globally as one of the most corrupt, where the average urban citizen pays a bribe of Rs 26,932 on average a year. They are also considered some of the worst-behaved international travellers and rank among the most brutal to women.