media and us...crime and its perpetrators

When we talk about crime and its coverage in the news media, we are mostly looking at manipulated truth, truth that is mostly distorted and edited to capture the most dramatic elements. Crime sells and that’s universal. I am not much familiar with news programs here but in India there has been an onslaught of late-night crime news broadcasts that cover everything from witchcraft to burglaries. The perpetrators shown are mostly people from the slums, the underprivileged ones. Here, they are mostly black or Hispanics. Crime has a face and it is mostly black or of a poor man. They are shown as threats to the society.
When I was in Baltimore for the winter break, I was advised not to be in the downtown area after 4 p.m. as there are mostly blacks there and they are criminals. Crime rate is pretty high in Baltimore and many people think it is because most blacks stay there and also because of poverty. It is a vicious circle. Blacks are criminals because they are poor and they are poor because they are stupid and arrogant, attributes of a black person, largely supported and maintained by the media.
I will talk about my country because that’s familiar ground. There is a group of people, mostly tribals, who were classified as criminal tribe by the British because the rulers thought these underprivileged people were intrinsically criminal and went so far as to brand them. After independence, the nomenclature changed but the category remained. And the media did not do much to address it. As I read Dilip D’Souza’s Branded by Law, a book that explores the tribe and its travails as a result of this branding, I felt betrayed by the media. We seek the truth as audience but do we ever get nothing but the truth. I guess never.
The book is a remarkable attempt by D’Souza to portray the deep-set prejudices in India against certain communities through his own interactions with the DNTs especially the ‘Pardhis’ and the ‘Sabars’ tribes. It is also a well-researched documentation of the historical and social context, which pushed the community to the periphery of civil justice and social life depriving them of the basic human rights.
He describes his personal encounters with the people once branded as criminal and now after being denotified, continue to live in the shadow of their derogatory branding.
In course of his examination of the various laws which were passed to for a repeal of the Criminal Tribes Act in 1952, after India became independent, not much has been done to uplift the DNTs. One incident that really set me thinking was the murder of Limbu Jayaram Bhosle ‘s husband (both Pardhis) because he happened to steal pomegranates to appease his pregnant wife’s desire. Is that what being criminal is? And does the media have no responsibility toward clearing misconceptions? By keeping quiet, media says a lot.
The most interesting thing is that D’Souza also draws a comparison between the bias against certain categories of people in the US and these tribes here. He talks about gypsies, blacks and other communities in various other countries who also suffer from distrust and prejudice and all the evils that come along with them. And that seems to be so true. I remember watching the promos of a certain program called the Cops or something like that and almost all the cops were white and the criminals were black, which goes on to prove media’s branding and its selective treatment of crime.
As a creator and distributor of information, I see an urgent and inherent need to be unbiased and reflect social or crime issues.
Curbs on the freedom of movement, grinding poverty and lack of opportunities have resulted in generating an attitude of frustration and anger in the DNTs in India and blacks or Hispanics in United States toward the society. As I understand, the social alienation and isolation of communities have largely been responsible to a great extent for civil strife and agitations.
The faith that people repose in the media is reflected by the account of Mithun Gongajya Shinde of Rajale village urging D’Souza to publish the photographs of the people of his community so that the people come to know about their conditions. Media has a tremendous task to fulfill in a country where the prejudices are so deeply ingrained.
The fact that the DNTs still continue to live in clusters and have not yet achieved absorption in the society is a mockery of democracy and the fundamental rights. Media acts as a watchdog of the society and the issue of DNTs has to be treated as a social disorder by them for a complete restoration of the lost dignity to these hapless people.
The socially oppressed must rise and it is the fourth estate’s obligation to bridge the gap and erase prejudices. The lack of political will to better conditions must be compensated by media’s will.