Page 106 - Conflict, Terrorism, and the Media In Asia

Gujarat 2002 and the Indian news media 95
English and because I reported human misery in its right perspective...A friend
said: ‘All of you from the English language media have tarnished the image of
Gujarat’...Today, the ‘common man’ in Gujarat hates the English language
media. The Gujarati language media hates the English language media. Even a
section of the English language media hates the English language media.
(Desai 2004: 228)

Journalists’ experience of covering Gujarat violence
Journalists, particularly those critical of the Hindutva forces, had been subjected
to much criticism, threats, violence and worse over the years. As noted earlier,
journalists were attacked by ‘kar sevaks’ while the Babri mosque was being
demolished in Ayodhya. The story was repeated in Gujarat. During a peace meet-
ing organized at Gandhi’s Sabarmati Ashram in April 2002, when the level of
violence had come down, nearly a dozen journalists were attacked by the police
and Hindutva supporters. Sharma (2002) chronicled several such instances:

● Sonal Kellog, a woman reporter of The Asian Age, and a male reporter from
a Surat-based newspaper, were pounced upon by the police when they went
into the Ahmedabad inner city to interview women who had been attacked.
● Raju Chiniwala, a photographer for Sandesh in Surat, was caught by a mob.
They poured kerosene and petrol on him and were about to set him on fire
when a police van arrived on the scene.
● Bhargav Parikh, News coordinator for Zee News, was beaten up by a mob in
Ahmedabad while the channel’s cameraman, Tejas Gondalia, had his camera
smashed and was beaten up.
● Parish Joshi, photographer for the Indian Express in Rajkot, was pushed
around by a mob, the roll in his camera removed and his camera smashed.
● Sudhir Vyas of The Times of India in Rajkot was beaten up by the police.
● Tanvir Siddiqui, senior reporter for the Indian Express and Javed Raja, senior
photographer for the newspaper, could not go out to report because anti-Muslim
mobs were roaming the streets.

Being a journalist in a conflict zone once lent a degree of immunity to the person.
This is no longer the case. In fact, the presence of journalists with their still and
television cameras now makes them visible and easy targets. Television journal-
ists enjoy a high profile due to regular appearances on the screen. They are
recognized on the streets and, depending on the timing and context, are greeted
or derided. Sardesai and Dutt, prominent television journalists for STAR News,
stood out for their bold and independent reporting.
They each recounted some of their experiences of covering Gujarat 2002.
Sardesai wrote:
Amidst the kaleidoscope of images that one has encountered during the
Gujarat violence...one incident stands out. We had just finished interviewing
the Gujarat chief minister at his residence in Gandhinagar shortly before