Northeast - Articles

Northeast India is a rich abode of natural beauty and bounty encompassing the seven sister states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and the adjacent hilly state of Sikkim. But it is a strange fact that such a vast territory of the country remains poorly represented in the national consciousness. Much blame of course rests with the national media which brings out news from the region for the consumption of its national readers and viewers.

There is a skewed presentation of the news and developments from the region. The national media broadly includes national dailies - The Hindu, The Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Asian Age, The Statesman and broadcasting media - NDTV, Times Now, Aaj Tak, Sahara Samay, Star News and CNN-IBN. Incidentally, the projection of news and current affairs from the region to the national platform impacts the psyche of the viewers and readers. Unfortunately, this is where the national media falters.

The national media is concerned or rather obsessed with news of violence and insurgency which emanates from this region. Let's take a look at the daily staple of the media - ULFA, NSCN, KLO, flood, and bomb blasts. There is only news of United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) and floods in Assam; the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland and talks between the two warring factions of NSCN (Issac-Muivah) and NSCN (Khaplang) consumes news from Nagaland; bandhs from Manipur, Kamtapur Liberation Organisation's (KLO) ambushes on the security forces. Our national media is content within these confines of their definition of news as far as Northeast India is concerned.

The media seems to be have a myopic vision with an explicit shyness to learn outside this definition. Most of the dailies with multi-editions and news channels shockingly have only one journalist to cover the entire northeast region. Some, like NDTV, have two journalists while the rest are content with their single man/woman army left to cover the vast territory. The dailies like The Times of India, Hindustan Times have a couple of journalists. The Times of India and The Telegraph have their own editions at Guwahati. Hindustan Times also launched its edition in Guwahati a year ago which it had to wind up later. The Statesman and the The Echo of India are the only two dailies in India which have a dedicated northeast page in their editions. The audio-visual media does not have a dedicated northeast edition in their busy 24x7 ceaseless broadcasting frenzy. The Statesman brings out its northeast page every Monday, while The Echo of India carries the northeast page every day on page two along with Sikkim.

The Statesman provides a platform to anaylze the news and current affairs of the region with guest columns written by some freelance journalist or retired bureaucrat. Naturally, security and the strategic importance of the region hold prime importance in these pages. The Echo of India tries to portray the true picture of the region giving equal emphasis to positive developments of the region. However, it also falls prey to the usual media biases and tends to go overboard with splashes of insurgency-related news (ULFA's bomb blasts seems to be a staple diet for the media). The recently concluded international meet at Bangkok by the Ministry of Northeast Region (DONER) to leverage the investment potential of the seven sisters was one such rare occasion which received a liberal coverage in the print media. In the broadcast media though, the attention to it was not quite the same. There were some positive developments like starting a dedicated airline for the Northeast, new improved roads and so on which came out from the investment summit, all of which were given some space in the dailies.

In another rare exception, the media went 'berserk' during the Indian Idol contest at a private channel. The reason - Amit Paul who hails from Shillong was one of the two finalists. In the true media tradition, newsprint spoke liberally about the singing sensation from Meghalaya. This was one such rare exception which garnered attention in the national consciousness about a state which is otherwise only known for being home to places receiving the highest rainfall on earth.

The media hardly gives space to happenings from Arunachal Pradesh, or even Mizoram. Of course it feels good when a news weekly like Tehelka thinks of conducting the Northeast Summit to discuss policy matters of the region. While the national media itself has quite a few luminaries who belong to the region it can definitely do more to shed its stubbornness and biased attitude in the portrayal of the region.