Editors Guild calls for unbiased coverage of farmers’ stir

By Matters India Reporter

New Delhi: The Editors Guild of India has expressed concern about the news coverage of the ongoing farmers’ protest against the federal government’s newly passed farm laws.

An advisory from the guild on December 4 cautioned media houses against delegitimizing the agitation by using term such as “Khalistanis” and “anti-nationals” to describe the protesting farmers without evidence or proof to back the claims.

“This goes against the tenets of responsible and ethical journalism,” the statement said. “Such actions compromise the credibility of the media. EGI advises media organizations to display fairness, objectivity, and balance in reporting the farmers’ protests, without displaying partisanship against those who are exercising their constitutional rights to express themselves.”

On the same day, People Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) urged the government to respect the farmers’ protests and repeal the controversial farm laws. It alleged that the three farm laws were passed in September by flouting “all democratic norms.”

The laws were passed “in the middle of the Corona pandemic crisis without a national discussion on the proposed changes of law which threaten to change the face of agriculture in India. It is objectionable that such far reaching changes were ushered at a time when the corona pandemic had already forcibly restricted movement and economic activity of ordinary people.”

Since the last week of November, hundreds of thousands of farmers from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh have driven their tractors and trucks to the Delhi borders to demand that the new be rolled back. They fear the legislations will end the minimum support prices they receive from the government on key crops, leaving them at the mercy of corporations.

But the Bharatiya Janata Party-led governments in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh had tried to prevent the farmers from crossing state boundaries. When the farmers burst through the barricades, they were met with police batons, tear gas and water cannons.

Several BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have claimed that the new laws will actually improve prices that farmers receive by giving them more flexibility. Modi claimed that Opposition parties were fanning rumors to misguide the farmers.

Some members of the ruling party went further in their attempt to discredit the protesters. Haryana Chief Minister Khattar claimed that the government had received reports that the ranks of the protesters included a “Khalistani presence.” claiming that separatists who want an independent Sikh homeland had joined the agitation.

This was repeated by BJP’s Information Technology cell head Amit Malviya, who called a section of protesters Maoists. Another BJP leader Manoj Tiwari claimed that the “tukde-tukde gang” was trying to turn the farmers’ demonstrations in Delhi into Shaheen Bagh-like protests. The BJP and Hindutva leaders term often use the term for individuals and groups, who they claim, have secessionist intentions.

Many news channels have amplified this claim without providing any evidence. Several media reports have repeated the BJP line that the farmers have been “misled” or “brainwashed.” The reports also raised questions on the possible involvement of the separatist Khalistani group in the agitation.

Such allegations have outraged the protesting farmers They have voiced their displeasure and complained that the media coverage was unfair.

“The Modi media is calling us Khalistanis,” said Joga Singh, a 50-year-old farmer from Kapurthala in Punjab. “We have been sitting peacefully for two months. Does that make us terrorists?” he asked. “Please be with us. If you do not give us a voice, then how will Modi know?”

The editors’ association says the media houses should not become complicit to any narrative that derogates dissent or “stereotypes protesters based on their attire and ethnicity”.

On November 3, Twitter labeled one of Malviya’s posts on the farmer protest as “manipulated media.” This was the first instance of the social networking site calling out alleged fake news in India.

Meanwhile the farmers’ protests entered tenth day on November 5.

The PUCL sees the farmers’ protests as “a struggle for survival of more than 50 percent of the Indian people who are farmers.” The civil rights body also says the struggle is a move against “the corporate control of the several dimensions of farming economy and operations from production, to fair pricing, to stocking (hoarding), to markets and to retail marketing.”

“The fear that if these laws are allowed to exist, then they would lead to creation of landlessness, bondage and destitution of farmers cannot lightly be brushed aside, given the nature of the acute farmers and agricultural crisis that has been growing in the last 2 years,” explains a PUCL statement.

The PUCL says the farmers struggle highlights the federal government’s violation of principles of federalism, by legislating on a state subject without consulting the farmers or the state governments. The struggle also exposes how the laws take away legal and judicial recourse and put in place only executive redress.

“Finally, this struggle is also for defending basic democratic and constitutional right of the Indian people of the right to association, the right to protest and be heard,” the PUCL statement adds.