---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: SAMPAD MAHAPATRA <[email protected]> Date: 20 July 2010 15:02 Subject: UNDECLARED EMERGENCY ! To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected]
Dear Mr Saibaba, Namaskar While I agree that the media - both print and electronic- have not been responsive to a large number of issues of great public interest I beg to differ with the view that there is undeclared emergency in the country. Secondly, I am sufficiently well-informed to talk about the state of affairs in Jharkhand and Chhatisgarh but I can surely tell you with a great deal of confidence that anyone is free to hold meetings anywhere in Orissa. Mr BD Sharma and Ms Medha Patkar have been addressing rallies and meetings in Orissa for the last several years and there should be no problem for Mahasweta Devi or Ms Aruna Roy to organise rallies and marches in the state. Can you cite a single example where anyone named by you has faced prohibitory orders or attacks in Orissa ? It was only during the Kandhamal riots that the state government had refused political leaders the right to enter the district and also banned all public meetings. I would also like to inform you that the MoU with POSCO is an open document and was on the state government's website for months after it was signed in June 2005. ( I have a copy with me). It is true, however, that the governments at the Centre and mineral-rich states have been pursuing grossly anti-people and anti-environment policies in their industrialisation overdrive. Almost all of the 100-odd MoUs the Orissa government has signed with big and medium investors ( including MNCs) are for the setting up of mineral-based industries and thermal power stations. People who face displacement from both their land and livelihood have been bold enough to wage their do-or-die battle. But the national media does not seem to reflect all this in adequate measure. Many suspect the owners of the media houses do not wish to derail the 'industrialisation' process because of their linkages with big capital and are therefore deliberately looking the other way. But interestingly the contradictions and antagonism within the circle of big capital allows the possibilitiy of some turning against the other and spilling the beans. Sir, as a small time reporter, I realise journalists who dare question the powers that be will always be vulnerable to threats and even attacks. But that should not deter him/her from being truthful and bold or standing up for the people who have none to represent them or their interests. But we also need to be careful about our conclusions. We should as far as possible strive to operate within the parameters of our democrartic institutions and traditions while challenging all transgressions and violations. If we do not do that we would inevitably turn cynical and cynicism has never produced anything worthwhile or positive in human history, let alone journalism. Regards Sampad Mahapatra Bhubaneswar The point is that neither the Fundamental Rights have been formally suppressed, nor the situation on ground resembles that of the Emergency days. Today's newspapers under banner headlines have carried the news of train collision and deaths. At least the IE, in its editorial, has asked for the scalp of the concerned minister. That could have had not been even dreamt of, let alone done, under the 1975 Emergency. The list can be made just endless. In fact, a check list has already been provided in my initial mail. This very debate in public speaks for itself. Brutal state repressions must be fought against. But inventing stories only undermines credibility and such fights. *Most importantly, under Emergency only underground resistance could have been thought of. No other form was possible. Today's task is open mass mobilisation, resistance and campaigns. This is the gulf that separates the two situations.* Sukla Dear Sukla Sen ji, This explanation on Undeclared Emergency, I most humbly submit, doesn't inform us fully about the state of things happening in India. Now in India Press/Media can be controlled more easily. What the ruler's think shouldn't appear in media will not appear without imposing any censorship. For example the harassment and even killing of an RTI activist will not become an issue in the media. Hundreds of adivasis killed in Operation Green Hunt will not become public. Lakhs of adivasis herded out of their habitat is not reported. Hundreds of MoUs signed by both the Central and state governments are not for anyone to see what exactly the agreements are for. Only lists of MoUs are furnished without the contents of the agreements even when one is resorting RTI, law of the statue books. Do you know what is exactly there in the MOU of POSCO project or say now put-in-cold-storage Nandigram project? Apart from all these, can anyone go and organise a meeting in Chhattisgarh or Jharkhand or Bihar or Bengal (except in Kolkata) or Telangana or Orissa or Kashmir or Northeast and say everything that you send through your mail on sevearl issues? Why Medha Patkar or B D Sharma or Sandeep Pandey or Jean Derze and Aruna Roy can't take a peace march in Chhattisgarh or Orissa or Lharkhand or Jangalmahal? Why do people face police firing in Sompet in Andhra Pradesh where there is now Naxalite movement for protesting against land acquisition? Why the people's movements against dams in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh are facing such suppression? There could be a million example to cite. What about hundreds of journalists who are not allowed to report? Thousands of them who are warned with dire consequences if they report the truth from all those areas where the government doesn't want to be reported. These areas could Territorial or the Erena of" ''politically sensitive erenas'? You don't even call this situation an Undeclared Emergency because there there is no declared censorship no arrest of opposition leaders and declared suspension of fundamental rights? When you have no opposition party which have no fundamental opposition to ruling coalition in its policies what is the necessity to arrest them? When there is no media house which opposes to toe the line of the ruling gentry what is the need to impose censorship? When there is amply opportunity to curtail all rights according to the need of the policies to be implemented what is the need to separately impose suspension of fundamental rights? Why should we think that the ruler will do the same mistake of openly declaring an Internal Emergency and get blamed when they can do the same without openly declaring it ? For example, if Medha Patkar and Agivesh or Sandeep Pandey and Harsh Mandir or Arundhati Roy, forget about Mahasweta Devi or Varavara Rao can go and say what they want to say in the interiors of Chhattissgarh or Jharkhand or jangalmahal, or Andhra Pradesh or Orissa or Kashmir then I feel I have fundamental rights in operation sitting in Delhi. I feel confident that I am a citizen not a subject. What I wrote here is not to oppose you. This is only to share my anguish with you. Please think about all this also. with best regards, G N Saibaba The term "Undeclared Emergency" is evidently a gross misnomer. During the Emergency all fundamentals rights are suspended. The actual experiences of 1975 are as under: Open political protests proscribed, media subjected to pre-censorship. Most front ranking opposition leaders and large number of opposition workers jailed. No Habeas Corpus could be filed. No elections. Fake encounters did exist before and after Emergency. So did multiple forms of brutal state repressions. That is rather "normal". Does not call for "Emergency". People this time approached the court. Such further legal recourse is still open. Apart from that a public event is being held with all the possible publicity. The inference is self-evident. Crying wolf doesn't help. That undermines credibility. State repressions as they are have of course to be determinedly fought against without recourse to obvious lies. Sukla Dear All, The fake encounter of a freelance journalist Hem Chandra Pandey alias Hemant Pandey has clearly exposed that Indian journalists are working in an undeclared emergency situation. United Nation's premier agency UNESCO has demanded probe into the circumstances in which the scribe was killed. IFJ, PCI, civil society organisations and various journalist unions including Uttarakhand political leaders across the party line have condemned this killing in cold blood. Although the Union Home Minister has denied the probe demand, that was put forward by Swami Agniwesh on behalf of the civil society at large. Situation seems to be worsened taking into account the fresh attack on TV Today by Hindutva goons. Now the Indian journalists are facing two pronged threat- one from the Indian State itself and other from fanatic violent groups operating as a parallel force in this country. And unfortunately, corporate media groups are engaged in disowning their own journalists under the state's pressure, as has been in Hemant Pandey's case where Hindi dailies like Nai Dunia, Dainik Jagran and Rashtriya Sahara openly and immediately published disclaimer that he was not associated with these publications in any form. This is certainly a case of undeclared emergency. Nothing better could be thought of. So it seems inevitable to raise the question: What ahead? *Journalists For People*, an informal and open forum of working journalists calls for a thoughtful debate on these and other related issues. You are cordially invited to an open session on the topic: *Role of Journalists in Undeclared Emergency* *Date: July 20, 2010, Tuesday* ** *Time: 5.30 - 8.30 p.m.* ** *Venue: Gandhi Peace Foundation, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Marg, Near ITO, New Delhi-2* After the open session, a lecture series will be formally announced in memory of slained journalist Hem Chandra Pandey each year on July 2nd, the day he was killed. The meeting will end with a hate motion declared against those Hindi dailies who have disowned Pandey. Please participate in large numbers. For queries, please contact: Ajay (9910820506) Vishwadeepak(9910540055) On behalf of *Journalists for People* ** -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB.
