THOSE SEVEN STEP-DAUGHTERS

Follow us:WhatsappFacebookTwitterTelegram.cls-1{fill:#4d4d4d;}.cls-2{fill:#fff;}Google NewsWe call our country Bharat Mata - the Mother Nation which has untold love and affection for its children. For us Indians all states should be equal. And for any newspaper or TV channel that claims to be 'national' it can hardly afford to neglect any state for whatever reason. So why has the Indian media so criminally neglected the seven states of the North-East? Why is the region still an alien mystery? An arcane culture? Why does the NE seem so distant and exotic?

When a prominent Hindi channel gives the weather report, the graphics radar sweeps through the breadth of the nation merrily dotting the capitals with their highs and lows. It comes till Kolkata and sometimes Guwahati and then sswisshh! it takes a shapely U-turn towards the Eastern Coastal region. The bypass has to be seen to be believed as if it has been repelled. Hello? What about the North-Eastern weather? Not important enough to be given 10 seconds of air-time? A colleague of mine here told me how one fine day she opened this national newspaper which had a map of India and due to space-constraints the layout had conveniently left out the North East. Is anybody aware of the wrong signals it generates for the NE population. Now if they feel alienated and ignored can we blame them? One English channel has a National news-digest and even a South Indian news-digest but no North-East digest. The reasons given are that there are not too many reporters there. One channel actually has only one reporter for the entire NE. One reporter for seven states! Why so? Don't things happen there? Some say it is not logistically possible since even news-agencies like Reuters and ANI are not active in that region. Why not? Some of my own friends say not much happens there that can be covered. But how do we know that unless we take the pains of actually going there and finding out. We just need a little interest and effort. Some even complacently say that no one is interested in news from the NE!!! Now this can't be true. And even if this is true then is it not the duty of media to awaken that interest in the audience? To bring the NE into our TV rooms instead of being so apathetic?

Not that the NE never makes news. When there are Bodo clashes and houses are torched it makes news. When there is guerrilla warfare and people die, that makes news. When there are border killings and children are butchered, now that is great news. When a bunch of women parade naked in protest, all the cameras are present there to flash it all around the world. That is all that comes as news from NE. Murder, killings, rape, mayhem.... Recently a national daily carried a piece of how people eat dog-meat in Aizawl. (My Mizo friend told me that such a thing never happens there)These are just a few examples of media's indifference and stark ignorance of the region. The NE is represented as nothing more than a hell-hole.

Why can't we have positive stories from the NE? Colourful stories. Heart-warming human stories. Why can't we have real stories about their life? Stories about their everyday problems and how they are coping up with them. Their social and cultural dilemmas. Why can't we attempt a genuine reading of insurgency and see how it is affecting the youth. Why is there so much unrest? What about the problems of the tribals? What about their lives, their concerns? Their sorrows. And their joys. Their colourful celebrations. Why can't the mysteries of the region make news? The mystery of Jatinga Valley for instance, where thousands of birds commit suicide every year. There must be so much more happening out there. And all going unreported.

There are problems yes. Hostile geography, different language, inaccessible culture. And yet it just needs a little effort. A sensitive understanding and genuine concern for these seven step-daughters to make them feel - they belong. Otherwise people like that terrorist leader in Mani Ratnam's Dil Se will keep lamenting, 'We are not India. For everyone Delhi alone is India.'






first published:September 18, 2006, 16:13 ISTlast updated:September 18, 2006, 16:13 IST
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