Mamata Banerjee has no business filing FIRs against journalists
Has West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress leader filed an FIR against Zee News editor Sudhir Chaudhary? The journalist says so, as do reports in a few rightwing outlets which quote Chaudhary's Twitter to assert the same. It seems the West Bengal CM and one of the biggest faces of the anti-demonetisation campaign, Mamata Banerjee, has indeed lodged a police complaint against Chaudhary and his colleague at zee News, Pooja Mehta, for the channel's coverage of what they have called the "Dhulagarh riots".
.@MamataOfficial Govt files FIR against me& @ZeeNews reporter for covering #DhulagarhRiots with Non Bailable sections.FIR for showing truth?
— Sudhir Chaudhary (@sudhirchaudhary) December 27, 2016
A democratically elected Govt using police to curb the media which shows riots story against its wishes?So undemocratic!Whats the message??
— Sudhir Chaudhary (@sudhirchaudhary) December 27, 2016
It seems that Chaudhary is not averse to having an "independent media group" visiting Dhulagarh for they think has become an "Emergency in Bengal". Moreover, Chaudhary has asked how is it that a democratically elected leader gets away with an undemocratic action such as targeting journalists.
An independent media group should should visit #Dhulagarh and find out what happened there and feel the impact of #EmergencyInBengal
— Sudhir Chaudhary (@sudhirchaudhary) December 27, 2016
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| Mamata Banerjee has filed an FIR against Zee News journalists. [Photo: PTI] |
His questions are valid. And Banerjee's action is - plain and simple - draconian. Let's understand why.
Even though Dhulagarh has been under the spotlight for over 10 days now, with communally-charged incidents, arson and clashes between religious communities, chiefly Hindus and Muslims, making headlines, there's a dearth of information on what actually went wrong in the small industrial town. While both the communities reacted with violence, a Zee News report painted the whole thing as Muslims deliberately targeting the resident Hindus, which the BJP used to peg and trend its #BengalInFlames hashtag.
We asked in this platform why the BJP was trying to portray this as an anti-Hindu crusade, when members of both communities participated in brutalising others, and when state police had held about 25 persons in the violence that had ensued.
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| Sudhir Chaudhary of Zee News. |
Even though TMC's Derek O'Brien dismissed BJP's "playing up" of the Dhulagarh violence on Twitter, questions remain why the CM went ahead and filed an FIR against Zee News journalists, before the local and national media outlets could ascertain the truth of the matter?
According to the Zee News report, and accounts published in rightwing Hindu outlets, systematic targeting of Hindus is happening under the CM's nose. But there's little hue and cry in the Bengali newschannels over Dhulagarh, ostensibly because stories that further inflame Hindu-Muslim passions are often shunned in a still secular Bengali and Kolkata-centric English media. However, that doesn't excuse the little reporting that has happened on the issue.
That said, it is equally obvious that Zee News, as well as the BJP, have tried to paint the incident in colours that suit their rabif Hindutva agenda. The highly editorialised and blatantly partisan report may be an affront to journalism, but doesn't merit an FIR from the chief minister of the state.
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| CRPF and police personnel deployed in Dhulagarh region. [Photo: Twitter] |
Though Mamata Banerjee has objected against deployment of CRPF personnel in Dhulagarh as an interference by the Centre, filing a police complaint against a channel is tantamount to intimidation. This is hardly any different from threats and police custody faced by journalists and stringers in states like Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, where national media fears to tread, and human rights activists are repeatedly hounded for their work.
If Mamata Banerjee wants to distinguish herself in the national politics, she can first start by evening out the field for journalism.