Media ‘activism’ in Dharmasthala rape and murder case

While the Delhi rape case in December 2012 and the Mumbai gang rape of a photo journalist in August this year ignited widespread reactions from civil society and a quick course of action from the government, the investigation of a similar and equally brutal rape and murder case that took place in Dharmasthala of Karnataka a year ago is unfortunately being sabotaged. Sowjanya, a class 12 student of Sri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara (SDM) College was raped and murdered in the world famous temple town of Dharmasthala, about 80 kilometres away from Mangalore, on October 9, 2012. Attempts have been made to hush up the case, as the culprits are alleged to be closely associated to the Shri Kshetra Dharmasthala management, which includes the religious head D. Veerendra Heggade’s nephew Nischal Jain. Unfortunately, the media in the region has woken up far too late, most of them out of pressure rather than pro-activism. But, better late than never! The case is now turning out to be a major embarrassment for the Dharmasthala temple management and the State government as well, what with a series of public protests and rallies taking place on a daily basis demanding thorough investigation.  

Sowjanya – the victim

Sowjanya went missing on the evening of October 9, 2012. Her body was found in a mutilated state on the following day morning. The post-mortem reports confirmed that she was gang-raped. Thereafter, the police arrested Santhosh Kumar who is said to be mentally unstable and found roaming in the area. It is alleged by the family members and many others that Santhosh Kumar has been unjustly victimised and planted as a proxy for the real culprits who are out there roaming freely. The media a year ago never went behind the case and forgot the incident within a few days. Added to that, the Delhi rape case of December 2012 took all the attention away from an equally important case like this. Fortunately, the never-give-up attitude of the family members of the victim and the support of social activists did not allow the case to die down. Now, more details are coming out. With pressure mounting and protests rising by the day, the Karnataka State government has finally, after much delay and reluctance, decided to hand over the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Hopefully, justice will be done to the deceased victim.

What was very unfortunate about the entire episode in the last one year is the lacklustre response of the local media. Not a single newspaper or television channel tried hard to go dig deeper or simply did not muster enough courage. It is only this October, after one year of the incident that TV 9, a Kannada news channel, has gone all out to expose the skeletons in the closets of the Dharmasthala fiefdom. While one can debate as to the actual intentions behind the channel’s ‘activism’ now a year after, at least its campaign is having a ripple effect, even as its activism borders media trial. A series of reportage and panel discussions were held by the channel for days together. Interestingly, on October 12, 2013 when the channel was broadcasting investigative features and holding live panel discussions with Sowjanya’s parents and other activists, the cable transmission mysteriously failed and there was unannounced load shedding in and around Dharmasthala for greater part of the day. The channel claims that this was orchestrated deliberately and it showed that the impact of the coverage had made a dent with the powers-that-be trying to willy-nilly stop the damage. With this, other channels and newspapers could not be silent. The activism snowballed into a well organised campaign. Various organisations took out processions in Dharmasthala, Mangalore and other places, some supporting the Dharmasthala establishment, but most demanding justice for Sowjanya.

Those actively involved in protests such as the Seer of Kemar Math, Sri Esha Vittaladas Swamiji and social activist and leader of Belthangady Prajaprabhutva Vedike, Mahesh Shetty Timarodi, have reasons to believe that the management of Dharmasthala temple and the close relatives of D. Veerendra Heggade, the religious head of Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara Temple, have links to the case. According to Mr Mahesh Shetty, in the last decade or so over 400 unnatural death cases have been reported in and around Dharmasthala, the veracity of which has been ascertained through an RTI application. He alleges that most of these deaths occurred owing to land maphia of several people associated with the temple management. He also alleges that the temple administration has occupied large swathes of land in the area and it is near impossible to own a piece of land without the consent of the temple management. Mr Shetty, whose organisation has been involved closely with such issues, holds that the temple management in general and Veerendra Heggade in particular are very powerful not just in the area but nationally as well, and no one dares question them. Mr Heggade’s brother D. Harshendra Heggade, according to Mr Shetty, looks into property matters and has illegal land dealings. Incidentally, his son Nishchal Jain has been accused in the rape and murder of Sowjanya. What is indeed shocking is the fact that the police have refused to even question the four suspected – Nischal Jain, Dheeraj Kella, Mallik Jain and Uday Jain – mentioned in the FIR filed by the family members of Sowjanya. The family members and activists allege that all evidences related to the case have been destroyed systematically. For example, a TV 9 visual showed that there was a piece of paper with some phone numbers on it found near the body. However, there is no mention of it in the charge sheet filed by the police to the court. The charge sheet also has several contradictions as to the arrest of Santhosh Kumar. Experts in the panel discussion on TV 9 further suggested that the post mortem report of the victim is a farce, as it does not mention anything important that could lead to further investigation. According to them, all this has been done deliberately by the powers-that-be in collusion with the police to subvert the investigation.

Palpable caution by media

Even as TV 9 has been vociferously going after the case, one cannot miss the palpable caution and restrain by media in general in the region. No newspaper or TV channel, barring TV 9, seems to take a chance. Hence, the newspapers are only giving some space to report protests and press conferences and are refusing to go beyond. Care is taken to see that the opposite view (read, the temple administration!) is given due space whenever activists and protest groups point fingers. While there have been many such reports appearing, there has never been a single editorial or op-ed article written analysing the issue in prominent newspapers in the region, including the widely circulated Kannada daily, Udayavani. The reasons are there for anyone to see: D. Veerendra Heggade and the Dharmasthala administration have never had a history of being put under the scanner. It seems that they are too big an institution to even be questioned, let alone probed! Though Sowjanya studied in a college run by the temple administration, no concerted efforts were made by the administration to press for deeper investigation. Mr Heggade, in fact, never visited the victim’s family. But, now when fingers are directly pointed at him, he is mobilising large scale sympathy for himself and the temple administration, stating that ‘those against us are trying to malign the name of Dharmasthala’.

As regards media’s role in the entire campaign, the developments have clearly shown that the on-going media campaign is bearing fruits, though unintended. Channels like TV 9 have a history of making hay while the sun shines. In Sowjanya’s case, though, the channel has to be commended for at least daring to probe against all odds. Its extensive reportage, coupled with the subsequent public protests, has made the ‘establishment’ jittery and run for cover. One only hopes this ‘activism’ will continue until the truth is uncovered and justice is done.

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

Death of broadcast news!

There is no prime time news on our English television news channels anymore. What we have is only the cacophony of studio debates. These debates have different nomenclatures in different channels, such as Talking Point, The Newshour, Buck Stops Here, Centre Stage and so on. However, what is common to all of them is the saga of talkativeness and argumentativeness. Everyone, including the anchor, talks and argues almost all the time, just to prove a point. Why not? After all, we are ‘argumentative Indians’ if Amartya Sen were to be true. But these television channels have reduced talk shows into a spectacle of sound and fury with very little substance. There is an old saying, “Whenever argument is weak, shout!” Television panellists (of course, most of them politicians) have taken it literally just to be sure that even when they have no arguments, at least the decibel level of their voice could intimidate the opponents.

Well, the credit (or the blame!) for setting a trend in such prime time television debates has wrongly been attributed to Arnab Goswamy of Times Now. His channel may have been the first to begin a studio-based debate during prime time on week days, but Indian channels have had such debates, though not always around prime time on week days. The real cause, as it seems, for most channels to resort to such increasingly studio-based programmes is sheer economics. In an era of broadcast media incurring huge losses, cost cutting seemed not a mere choice but a necessity. And the easiest option that was available for most channels to bring down the cost was to cut down on expensive field reporting and increase the relatively cheaper studio-based ‘talk shows’. As a result, any news there is today, is generally borrowed from news agencies such as ANI or UNI.

But if we think that it is lazy journalism and an easy way to deal with economics, we are mistaken. These studio-based debates are fraught with their own problems. For one, the respective channel has to find a ‘worthy’ topic day in and day out to attach a ‘meaningful’ debate (and, of course, something that can spur maximum argumentation). The subject needs to be current, if not something related to some important occurrence of the day. Fortunately for the channels, the recent flash floods in Uttarakhand and the politics that followed, gave enough fodder for endless debates. However, a cursory glance at some of the debates on ‘dry days’ reveals that channels have indeed struggled to find worthy issues to debate on. And hence, even flimsy issues, which would otherwise have passed off as just another news item, have been made to look larger than life.

Setting agenda

Maxwell McCombs, who has carried out breakthrough research in media’s role in agenda setting, opines that the traditional agenda-setting role of mass media ‘involves both the surveillance and consensus functions of communication, calling attention to the new and major issues of the day and influencing agreement about what are the priorities of these issues’. The present day television debates are also setting agendas. However, the difference is that this agenda setting is not so much for ‘influencing agreement about what are the priorities’ of the issues, thus positively influencing public opinion; rather it looks as though these debates help the channels only to showcase the argumentative abilities of their ‘firebrand’ anchors, besides providing some infotainment to viewers. In a recent insightful article in EPW, former TV reporter Sandeep Bhushan calls this trend as ‘manufacturing news’ in studios which, in his opinion, ‘manufacture consent on behalf of the power relations.’ (Manufacturing news, EPW, June 8, 2013).

Finding right panellists

The other major problem that the channels face in sustaining these everyday debates is to find the right persons to come and carry on the show. The problem becomes compounded when the channels have a herculean task in finding people on both ends of the debating tug of war. The obvious choice, thus, is to get some prominent speakers from the two major national political parties. Most channels are based in Delhi and they must try as much as possible to find people locally. Also, those being called must have the all-important quality of the gift of the gab: they must be fluent in English, reasonably articulate and astute in rebuttals. Not many, even if they are intelligent and smart, possess this quality. Hence, television channels have to return to the same faces time and again. That is why we see on a daily basis the likes of Manish Tewaris, Ravi Shankar Prasads, Abhishek Singhvis, Nirmala Sitharamans, Chandan Mitras, Aun Jaitleys, among others, hopping studios. But, even these panellists are very calculative in appearing too often on TV, as they know that people can get bored of the same faces. However, as Nalin Mehta in his book India on Television points out, they will not mind appearing any number of times during 'high viewership days’ such as elections.

With the disappearance of any meaningful coverage of news and field based stories, the TV  audiences have to either give up watching news on television or change their taste. TV channels may not really be perturbed by the loss of such an audience, as they know they will always find newer audience, especially in those who like more drama on the floor. However, the issue here is not so much about losing or gaining audiences as loss of broadcast journalism per se. It seems, broadcast journalism in India is on a steep decline, if not on the verge of extinction, unless some serious thinking goes into making it palatable. It is not that channels must put an end to these talk shows. However, most of these talk shows end up just that: mere talking with hardly any new insights and nuances being tabled. Perhaps, our men and women must take a cue or two from the highly watchable and insightful debates and talk shows on BBC, such as Question Time, Date Line London and Hard Talk, where the anchors intervene only when it is absolutely necessary and not so much to prove that they have better knowledge. In these shows also there is disagreement and differences of opinions among panellists. But, all that is presented in a manner most worthy of a professional mass medium. Further, these shows, with deep research and thorough professionalism being their forte, add a newer dimension to broadcast journalism. Perhaps, Indian channels have a long way to go in bringing such dimensions to the studios, or will anything similar suit us Indians – the argumentative lot – at all?

- Melwyn Pinto SJ