You can threaten anyone, you can kill anyone but you can’t change someone’s ideology. Ideology could only be changed with thoughts. The more you try to suppress any ideology, the more it will reach the masses.
Editor-in-chief of ‘Rising Kashmir’ Shujaat Bukhari was brutally shot dead pre-Eid outside his office in Srinagar. This wasn’t a murder of just an editor, it was a murder of the truth, it was a murder of a person who was trying to bring peace to the troubled state of Jammu Kashmir. This viscious attack on Shujaat Bukhari once again questions the security of the journalists. It shows how difficult it is to report from Jammu Kashmir. It also shows the situation has gone out of control in the valley.
The graph of Indian journalism is going down day by day. Some news channels have turned into entertainment channels while the ones that are doing real journalism are brought under pressure. Women journalists have gotten rape and death threats. The United Nations have also taken notice of this.
According to a data from Committee to Protect Journalists, 47 journalists have been murdered in India from 1992 to 2018 and 3 of these incidents have taken place in 2018, 19 have been killed in Jammu Kashmir. India ranks 138 in the World Press Freedom Index only one rank ahead of Pakistan who ranks 139. The countrymen are only ‘happy and satisfied’ that our neighbours are ranked below us.
Last year on 5 September, the editor of Gauri Lankesh Patrike, Gauri Lankesh was shot dead outside her house in Bengaluru. Within 9 months another senior journalist Shujaat Bukhari has been shot. It underlines the security of journalists and social intellectuals. Day by day these threats are increasing.
It isn’t new to put restrictions on media. Restrictions on media have been from the time of emergency. Which ever government there is, they have used the media for their benefits to spread propaganda. The difference between the emergency period and today is that, then the restrictions were ‘mandatory’ whereas today media has themselves chosen to become the governments lapdogs. Today’s media is inclined towards a specific ideology.
An online portal, Cobra Post conducted a sting of nearly all media houses including the big and small ones. In the sting operation, the media houses agreed to sell their souls for propagating a particular agenda. As a result there is a raising questions over the integrity of media.
This raises a question that Who killed the media? The ones that puts restrictions? The ones that threaten ? or the media themselves who have shown inclination to a specific ideology?
(IMAGE COURTESY:- AFP)
Read the original Marathi article
OPINION : हू किल्ड द प्रेस ?