Kumar Ketkar, editor of ‘Loksatta’, at
his Thane home after the attack by Shiv Sangram activists.
Kumar Ketkar was getting ready to leave for work when he heard what
sounded like a war cry in the distance. Within seconds, there was a
crazed mob pounding at his door. His wife Sharda immediately bolted it
and ran to close the windows. By then, the 70-strong gang had
surrounded his home. They thumped on the door with sticks, splashed
buckets of tar, and hurled stones to break the windows.
“Luckily, we were saved by the iron grills on the windows, or our lives
would have been in danger,” says Ketkar, the editor of Loksatta, the
largest and most influential Marathi newspaper, part of the Indian
Express group of publications.
The mob that proudly proclaimed its allegiance to the Shiv Sangram, a
chauvinistic Marathi group, attacked Ketkar for an editorial he wrote
mocking the State government’s plan to build a 309-foot statue of
Shivaji in the Arabian Sea off Mumbai’s Marine Drive at a cost of more
than Rs.100 crore. The article, titled “All the problems have been
solved, now let’s build a statue”, is filled with sarcastic barbs about
the state of affairs in Maharashtra.
Not surprisingly, the leader of the Shiv Sangram is Vinayak Mete, State
vice-president of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), a partner in
the ruling coalition. Soon after the attack, he told Indian Express:
“Ketkar used derogatory language against Chhatrapati Shivaji to oppose
the move to build a statue. So, our workers attacked his house in
protest. It was a physical reaction to atrocious writing.”
The next day, the NCP issued a show-cause notice against Mete, known to
be close to party chief Sharad Pawar and State Home Minister R.R.
Patil. But he was not arrested, despite his public statements. Only 12
of his followers were hauled up by the police.
When contacted by Frontline, Mete said he was a founding member of the
Shiv Sangram. “The attack was wrong, but people should ponder why only
two journalists in Maharashtra are attacked often – Kumar Ketkar and
Nikhil Wagle. They should think before they write. When they write
against Shivaji, who is like a god in Maharashtra, it angers our
activists. They are not as knowledgeable as Mr. Ketkar, so this was
their reaction,” Mete said.
The Shiv Sangram has links with the NCP, which is competing with the
Shiv Sena to project itself as the upholder of the “Maratha” tradition.
Marathas, who are Kshatriyas by caste, form a powerful group in
Maharashtra and occupy top political posts. Many NCP politicians,
including Sharad Pawar and Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh are
Marathas.
In January 2004, the “Sambhaji Brigade” ransacked the renowned
Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI) for helping the American
author James Laine, who they felt made objectionable remarks about
Shivaji in his book Shivaji: A Hindu king in Islamic India. Instead of
cracking down on the culprits, the Congress-NCP government filed a case
against the author. The Shiv Sangram attacked the Loksatta office in
Ahmednagar in 2006 because it did not publish a picture of Shivaji on
the front page to commemorate Shiv Jayanti, the birthday of Shivaji.
With elections due next year, political parties are competing with one
another in their pursuit of identity politics. First, Raj Thackeray
managed to rescue himself from a descent into political oblivion by
inciting attacks against North Indian “outsiders” by his party workers.
Now, the ruling Congress-NCP is trying to cash in on the sentiment.
“It’s because they are playing identity politics and not talking about
the real issues that they don’t want the press to be free. They don’t
want any criticism. Actually, it is a kind of terrorism,” says Ketkar.
Journalists
demonstrating outside the office of the Police Commissioner of
Ahmedabad after the resident editor of ‘The Times of India’ and one of
his colleagues were charged with sedition and conspiracy.
The attack on Ketkar is no longer considered unusual in Maharashtra.
There are frequent attacks on the media by gangs belonging to groups
like the Shiv Sangram. Rarely is any action taken. “There is
lawlessness. Every day we hear of new attacks by the Maharashtra
Navnirman Sena [Raj Thackeray’s party], not only on journalists but
also on ordinary people. But the government does nothing,” says Jatin
Desai from the People’s Media Initiative.
Meanwhile, in Gujarat, press freedom was threatened by the police. The
resident editor of The Times of India in Ahmedabad, Bharat Desai, and a
correspondent, Prashant Dayal, were charged with sedition and
conspiracy against the state. The newspaper had published a series of
articles exposing the “misdeeds” of the newly appointed Police
Commissioner of Ahmedabad, O.P. Mathur. In retaliation, Mathur filed
five cases against them. The matter is yet to be investigated.
Meanwhile, the journalists applied for anticipatory bail. During the
communal violence of 2002, Gujarati newspapers published reports that
incited communal hatred. But they were never punished. However, the
Gujarat government is quick to clamp down on journalists who are
critical of its officials.
“These outdated laws are used to intimidate journalists,” says Digant
Oza, renowned Gujarati writer. “In the past few years, a few
journalists have been jailed under this section. The authorities gang
up to prevent the media from writing. Sedition can carry a sentence of
life imprisonment, so it can scare journalists. Particularly in small
towns, many have not had the resources to fight the government and had
to apologise before they could be released from jail.”
In 2006, the police arrested the editor of Surat Samna, Manoj Shinde,
its circulation manager and a computer operator on charges of sedition
because the newspaper had criticised the government for mishandling the
release of water from the Ukai dam, which resulted in the flooding of
Surat city. Shinde did not have the financial resources to fight the
case and had to apologise after 39 days in jail. After that, he was
released.
A hundred years ago, Bal Gangadhar Tilak was arrested on sedition
charges for writing against the callous British administration. He was
jailed for six years. In the land of Gandhi, the state is still trying
to gag the press. And many journalists are still sending e-mail
messages quoting Gandhi, “If sedition means disaffection towards the
present system of government, it is a virtue and a duty....We cannot
paint the system blacker than it appears to the average audience today.”
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2513/stories/20080704251304000.htm
Copyright © 2008, Frontline.
