The Press of India is considered one of the most independent Presses all over the world. But is it really true? Do we really have a free press in the country?

2. Situation of
freedom of
expression in
India’s Tribal
State of
Chhattisgarh
Journalists in trouble when
reporting on tribes
By Ana Sinha

3. ABOUT
CHATTISGARH
• primarily a rural state
• According to a report by
the government of India,
at least 34% - Scheduled
Tribes, 12% - Scheduled
Castes and over 50% -
official list of OBCs.
• The forest areas (44% of
the state) are mainly
occupied by tribes such
as Gond, Halbi, Halba
and Kamar/Bujia
and Oraon.

4. Condition of tribals in Chhattisgarh
 increase in conflict and violence since
2005.
 Illegal detention, forcible eviction, rape
and murder of women, fake encounters
and summary executions are intensifying
 over 1000 tribal people have been killed.
 Over 45000 people are displaced and
compelled to stay in state-run relief
camps.
 Police and security forces have raped
over 200 tribal women in the area.
 Nearly 250 school buildings have been
demolished and security forces have
captured another 150.
 Over 1000 innocent tribal villagers,
including women have been falsely
charged and imprisoned.

5. Media coverage
 very little media coverage of
the Adivasi’s plight, even within
India.
 This is partly because there are
no Adivasi journalists, or even
journalists who speak the local
language, but mainly due to
intimidation.
 The Chhattisgarh Special
Security Act has made it a
crime to write about the
Maoists, and local journalists
have been threatened. Most of
the major newspapers are
unquestioningly supportive of
the government.

6. Conflict coverage by
journalists: Curbs on
the Press
 Journalists are prevented
from reporting and
investigating by corrupt
politicians and police, many
receiving harassment,
intimidation and beating.
 Reporting on the Maoist
conflict in this area is
restricted to press releases by
government officials and on
occasion statements issued
by the Maoists.
 There are heavy restrictions
on the freedom of movement
and expression causing many
victims not to speak out
underneath the one-sided
government press releases
and gagged journalists.

7. CASE STUDY: KAMAL SHUKLA
 In one of the latest cases of
violence, Kamal Shukla, the
local bureau chief of the
Hindi-language daily
Rajasthan Patrika, was
attacked in his office in
Kanker, in the eastern state
of Chhattisgarh, on 11 April
by political activist Anupam
Awasthi. Accompanied by
two other men, Awasthi
beat Shukla on the back
and shoulders with a steel
bar and smashed his
computer and camera. He
had to be hospitalized for
five days.

8.  The attack was apparently prompted by articles
about illegal logging in Chhattisgarh that Shukla
wrote for local newspapers and the citizen
journalism website CGNet Swara at the end of
March. Shukla’s revelations, subsequently picked
up by national newspapers, included the claim
that a village official involved in the illegal logging
was the brother of Chhattisgarh’s minister of forests.
According to the International Federation of
Journalists, Awasthi is an associate of the minister
and, before the attack, had tried to bribe Shukla to
drop the story.

9.  The attack came three weeks after India, along
with Pakistan and Brazil, rejected a proposed
action plan on safety for journalists and the
problem of impunity at a UNESCO meeting in Paris
on 23-24 March. Discussed by members of the
Intergovernmental Council of the International
Programme for Development of Communication,
it included concrete recommendations for
improving the safety of media personnel and
asked members countries to adopt legal
measures for the prosecution of those responsible
for murders of journalists.

10. SUPREME COURT
 India’s supreme court has
meanwhile said it wants to
draft guidelines for media
coverage of court
proceedings into order to
achieve a balance between
the right to media freedom
and the rights of defendants.
The grounds for the view that
guidelines are needed is said
to be concern that the media
sometimes influence public
opinion with reports that are
unverified or baseless.

11.  “The natural instinct of
most politicians and
bureaucrats is to hide or
suppress information on one
pretext or another. The
adoption of media guidelines
by the supreme court would
embolden them, further
undermining the public’s
right to be informed.”
 In a 30 March article on The
Hindu’s website,
journalist Siddharth
Varadarajan voiced alarm at
the possibility that the supreme
court would itself draft a code
of conduct with which
journalists would have to
comply. “This would open the
door to the other branches of
government (...) making similar
demands on the media as a
precondition to gaining access
to parliament and legislatures,
ministries, public institutions,
hospitals, universities etc,”
Varadarajan wrote.

12. NEO-JOURNALISM
CITIZEN JOURNALISM
 Shubhranshu Choudhary ,
the founder of CGnet Swara, a
voice portal for citizen journalists to
report or listen to audio bytes in
Hindi, Gondi about Chhattisgarh, is
using a unique campaign to equip
tribal citizens with journalistic skills
to enhance the reportage of their
issues.
 In order to teach Journalism to
tribals, CGnet Swara
( www.cgnetswara.org) is
undertaking a unique campaign to
take Citizen Journalism to Adivasis in
Central India. The organization is
reaching out to Adivasi haats with
dance, drama and puppet show to
tell them how they can use their
mobile phone to tell the world what
is happening around them.

13. WHAT IS CGNet
SWARA?
The tribals of Chhattisgarh are
the first users of a latest
newscasting system on
cellphone called CGnet
Swara, a combined effort of a
fellow of the International
Centre for Journalists, of a
fellow of Microsoft Research
and a researcher of the
Massachusetts Institute of
Technology's computer
science department.
All the tribals have to do to
report is dial on 08066932500
on their cellphone, followed
by '1' to record their message
or '2' to listen to the local
news.