The Imphal Free Press Editorial 8/10/2007 12:57:15 AM
Ideally, it should not require anybody be told there is something as the law which will come down heavily on anybody who breaks it. Ideally, everybody should not only know broadly what is not proper and wrong but also respect this knowledge. But that is only when everything is ideal, and there is seldom anything as ideal. Just to take one example, the Anti-Defection Law should not have been necessary at all if all legislators respected propriety and the values of political loyalty. But here we are with a legislation that should have been a shame on the practice of electoral democracy in the country. The thought comes to mind in the wake of the new order of the government forbidding the state media from publishing underground related information either as news or advertisement. The question is, did the media in the state need this shock treatment? Like the recalcitrant MLAs before the Anti-Defection Law, did the state media too stray out of what is proper? Before pointing its fingers at the government, these are some questions that the media needs to seriously address itself. Our own feeling is, the media, or at least a good section of it, did stray away from what it should have intuitively understood as not proper, initially under coercion, but later as a matter of routine when these editorial decisions were not challenged by the law. These would include the press allowing itself to become the medium through which threats and extortion intents are served to individuals and institutions by various organisations. In the not so distant past, even gangs of kidnappers of less than half a dozen cadres strong such as the one which came to be known as “Umaibi (Eagle)” had been given the room to force-multiply and become terrifying “paper tigers” through the media to harangue the public.
But what needs to be noted is that unlike the MLAs before the Anti-Defection Law, the media’s deviation from accepted norms is not by any compulsive behaviour, and was indeed partly a result of laxity of the law, or more precisely its implementation. Had the government for instance used existing legal mechanisms such as a legal notice, to alert the media from time to time that there are legal limits to its freedom in the interest of public order, maybe things would not have come to such a head as at present. This is to say, there are better ways of straightening out issues than to come out with threatening and overbearing orders on the part of the government. In these days when notions such as “community policing” have become a fad, this should not be difficult to understand. Perhaps a cue can be had from a Central government strategy. There are for instance periodic reminders to the public through unobtrusive advertisement campaigns through the DAVP as to why child labour is a crime; mixing drinking and driving is against the law; dowry is punishable under the law; tobacco consumption is bad for health etc. It is not as if the intended audiences are ignorant of the substance of these messages, but still soft official reminders such as these help in establishing the presence of an active law in the background of whatever any section or sections of the citizens do.
Since there is nothing fundamentally and intrinsically hostile between the media and the government, and since the present standoff is a result of omissions and commissions by either party, we do not see any reason why a confrontation should not be avoided. Both parties can take a step back and reconsider the issue. The press can agree that it had at times gone out of acceptable norms and the government on its part must tone down its tough order to redraft it in the nature of a reminder served to the latter that the long arms of the law exist even when not visible and that this law can be tough if broken wilfully and consistently. Our own verdict is the present order which has become a bone of contention is a superfluous overkill. The relevant laws to control sedition and libel exist in the statute book and there was no need for a confrontationist government order which expectedly only managed to evoke a confrontationist response from the media.
Ideally, it should not require anybody be told there is something as the law which will come down heavily on anybody who breaks it. Ideally, everybody should not only know broadly what is not proper and wrong but also respect this knowledge. But that is only when everything is ideal, and there is seldom anything as ideal. Just to take one example, the Anti-Defection Law should not have been necessary at all if all legislators respected propriety and the values of political loyalty. But here we are with a legislation that should have been a shame on the practice of electoral democracy in the country. The thought comes to mind in the wake of the new order of the government forbidding the state media from publishing underground related information either as news or advertisement. The question is, did the media in the state need this shock treatment? Like the recalcitrant MLAs before the Anti-Defection Law, did the state media too stray out of what is proper? Before pointing its fingers at the government, these are some questions that the media needs to seriously address itself. Our own feeling is, the media, or at least a good section of it, did stray away from what it should have intuitively understood as not proper, initially under coercion, but later as a matter of routine when these editorial decisions were not challenged by the law. These would include the press allowing itself to become the medium through which threats and extortion intents are served to individuals and institutions by various organisations. In the not so distant past, even gangs of kidnappers of less than half a dozen cadres strong such as the one which came to be known as “Umaibi (Eagle)” had been given the room to force-multiply and become terrifying “paper tigers” through the media to harangue the public.
But what needs to be noted is that unlike the MLAs before the Anti-Defection Law, the media’s deviation from accepted norms is not by any compulsive behaviour, and was indeed partly a result of laxity of the law, or more precisely its implementation. Had the government for instance used existing legal mechanisms such as a legal notice, to alert the media from time to time that there are legal limits to its freedom in the interest of public order, maybe things would not have come to such a head as at present. This is to say, there are better ways of straightening out issues than to come out with threatening and overbearing orders on the part of the government. In these days when notions such as “community policing” have become a fad, this should not be difficult to understand. Perhaps a cue can be had from a Central government strategy. There are for instance periodic reminders to the public through unobtrusive advertisement campaigns through the DAVP as to why child labour is a crime; mixing drinking and driving is against the law; dowry is punishable under the law; tobacco consumption is bad for health etc. It is not as if the intended audiences are ignorant of the substance of these messages, but still soft official reminders such as these help in establishing the presence of an active law in the background of whatever any section or sections of the citizens do.
Since there is nothing fundamentally and intrinsically hostile between the media and the government, and since the present standoff is a result of omissions and commissions by either party, we do not see any reason why a confrontation should not be avoided. Both parties can take a step back and reconsider the issue. The press can agree that it had at times gone out of acceptable norms and the government on its part must tone down its tough order to redraft it in the nature of a reminder served to the latter that the long arms of the law exist even when not visible and that this law can be tough if broken wilfully and consistently. Our own verdict is the present order which has become a bone of contention is a superfluous overkill. The relevant laws to control sedition and libel exist in the statute book and there was no need for a confrontationist government order which expectedly only managed to evoke a confrontationist response from the media.
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