From Gaza to Dhaka: Missing Indian lens in global reportage

October 7 marks one year since the attack on Israel by Hamas and the ongoing war on Gaza. Thousands of Palestinians, including children, have been killed in this past year, and much of Gaza has been reduced to a pile of rubble. Meanwhile, many of the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas after its attack remain in captivity.

The world has watched this war through the media’s coverage. The heart of the conflict zone, that is Gaza, has been inaccessible to most journalists except those based there. We have seen their reports even as they came under fire. Their reports, often circulated through social media, gave us an unfiltered view of the devastation. And we know of the many who died while reporting or were targeted by the Israelis even when they were off duty. 

Since October last year, much has been written and analysed about the coverage of this conflict by Western media, including the words used to describe the devastation. For instance, when leading newspapers like the New York Times report that X number of people “died” in Gaza, the use of that word hides the ugly reality that these people, including small children, were “killed” by Israeli bombardment on civilian areas. They did not just die. Pointing this out is not nitpicking. It is essential to understand how what appears as factual, unbiased reporting can colour the understanding of the reader or viewer of a war. 

But this column is not about the reporting on the Israel-Palestine conflict, but on how we as Indians view what is going on. What is the filter through which we get our information when war breaks out outside our immediate region? Would we have paid more attention if journalists from Indian media organisations had also been reporting from the region? If we do not see Indian bylines in the reportage from there, why is that so?   

If you look at the “World” page of any major Indian newspaper, you will notice that most of the stories are from international news agencies like Reuters or by the news service of major Western newspapers like the New York Times. Rarely do you see an Indian byline.

One could argue that the Israel-Palestine conflict does not touch most Indians. Hence, media houses would not be interested in investing in sending journalists to cover the conflict. However, it must be noted that two small independent digital platforms, The News Minute and Newslaundry, have raised funds to send veteran television journalist Sreenivasan Jain to report from the region. Here’s a link to his first report.

Even if mainstream news organisations in India conclude that their average reader or viewer is not interested in a war taking place in some other part of the world, what about our immediate neighbourhood? Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nepal.

There was a time when several national newspapers had correspondents in all these countries. That did not last long. It was only The Hindu that persisted and sent correspondents to report from our neighbouring countries.

For decades, Haroon Habib, a veteran Bangladeshi journalist, reported for The Hindu from Dhaka. His reports were nuanced. They had context, and for anyone wanting to understand the developments in that country, Habib’s reports were a must. He stopped reporting some years ago. And since then, despite the recent tumultuous developments in that country, neither The Hindu nor any other paper has had a full-time correspondent in Dhaka.

In Sri Lanka too, The Hindu has always had a correspondent, and today, it is the only one that has one in Colombo. In fact, with the election of President Anura Kumar Dissanayake last month, it was The Hindu’s reporting that provided important insights into the impact of this change on relations between Sri Lanka and India. This comes through in this podcast featuring Amit Barua, who worked with The Hindu till recently, Nirupama Subramanian, a former Sri Lanka correspondent of the publication, and Meera Srinivasan, who is currently based there.

The Hindu also had a presence in Pakistan for decades. But in 2014, its correspondent and the journalist representing PTI were asked to leave by the Pakistani government. Since then, there has been no Indian reporter in the country, although PTI has a local journalist who files stories. As a result, all we read is agency copy, usually on statements by politicians, unlike in the past when at least The Hindu carried stories on the different aspects of life in Pakistan, including arts and culture. 

Even in Nepal, which is easily accessible to Indians, no Indian newspaper has had a full-time correspondent stationed there. We get news of disasters and changes of government, but little else.

The result is that even when there are dramatic developments, as in Sri Lanka two years ago and last month in the presidential elections, and more recently in Bangladesh, the news coverage is at best perfunctory. Agency copy gives us the bare facts. Rarely does it have adequate background or context that a correspondent based there can provide.

Apart from our immediate neighbours, Indian newspapers don’t at present have anyone reporting from China, a country that is constantly in the news on various counts. Again, in the past, most major newspapers stationed journalists in Beijing. The reason was obvious. An Indian journalist would be able to sift what news would interest Indian readers. 

Coming back to West Asia, for years The Hindu had a correspondent based in Dubai whose remit was to cover the region. He had the resources to travel and report. The bylines of journalists like Kesava Menon and Atul Aneja were known to the readers of The Hindu. Today, you will not find an Indian byline for any story on the Israel-Palestine conflict or even from Iran that has now been drawn into this rapidly escalating conflict.

A major reason for this drastic reduction in people reporting from around the world is economics. Print media has faced drastic cuts in advertising revenue. As a result, barring those media houses that dominate a particular market, most have had to scale down news coverage.

Context, of course, is needed in all news coverage. Take, for instance, the dramatic developments before Gandhi Jayanti, October 2, in Delhi, when the march led by Sonam Wangchuk from Ladakh was stopped at the Delhi border. Wangchuk has been leading the demand for full statehood for Ladakh ever since it was reduced to a Union Territory in 2019 along with Jammu and Kashmir with the reading down of Article 370. His latest demand is for Ladakh to be included in Schedule 6 of the Constitution, which will give the people of Ladakh the right to decide how their natural resources will be used. While the political demand has featured in the reports, not enough is known about the latter.

This article in Scroll explains why pastoralists in Ladakh are objecting to the plan to set up a 13-gigawatt integrated renewable energy project with solar farms and windmills. The energy generated will be used not in Ladakh but outside the region. Setting up this kind of project, which will occupy vast tracts of land, will deny these people access to their traditional pasture lands and affect their migration routes. This is one of the reasons the people of Ladakh want the right to decide whether they want or need these kinds of projects. 

Such stories illustrate how essential it is for the media to have feet on the ground, in India, and in our neighbourhood.

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