Author:
Publication: Organiser
Date: November 23, 2003
Introduction: West Bengal journalists
pushed to wall by Marxist government
The dull redbrick Writers' Buildings,
the administrative headquarters of the West Bengal Government in Kolkata,
is at present the scene of belligerency between the media persons and the
ruling Marxist Government in the State. The media exposure about the death
of a six-month-old infant and a 21-year-old girl due to inhuman behaviour
of a section of Government doctors and health staff of the city's two major
hospitals in a quick succession during the last week of October led to
a major running battle between the Marxist Government and the press with
no signs of any immediate truce.
The high profile Chief Minister
of the State, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, has imposed a total ban on journalists
entry inside all Government hospitals in the State in order to prevent
media exposure on the fast deteriorating health care services. The police
pickets are posted in Government hospitals to stop the entry of 'unwanted
press reporters and photographers in the hospitals. The CPI(M) cadres armed
with sticks are roaming free inside the major State-run hospitals to unleash
a reign a terror so that no one can dare protest against apathetic conditions
in hospitals. When reporters and photographers of TV news channels went
to cover the agitation of junior doctors in Kolkata's R.G. Kar Hospital
on November 2, they were beaten up mercilessly by armed Marxist workers.
Junior doctors in the hospital were protesting against the assault of a
doctor by a powerful local CPI(M) leader and his armed associates inside
the children ward of the hospital previous night.
The unprovoked assault by Marxist
goons, aided and abetted by policemen, virtually stunned the newsmen irrespective
of their political allegiance. Alarmed by the sharp reactions in all sections
of the press and trade union bodies of the journalists, the Chief Minister
sought the assistance of the Kolkata Press Club to prepare a code of conduct
for the journalists to regulate their entry in Government hospitals and
all State administrative offices in the city. The Press Club convened a
meeting of its members on November 5 to discuss the issue suggested by
the Chief Minister, which was turned into a virtual battleground with verbal
duel between members of the executive committee and ordinary members of
the club. Journalists belonging to print and electronic media present at
the meeting on the day condemned the representatives of the club unequivocally
for convening the meeting to formulate code of conduct just to oblige the
high-profile Chief Minister.
"Remember, Kolkata Press Club is
not the extension of the CPI(M)'s headquarters in Alimuddin Street or Buddhadeb
Bhattacharjee's Writers' Buildings. Journalists are not party cadres. Let
the Government impose ban on the movement of media persons and we know
how to fight it out. So long as our readers and viewers have faith and
trust on our reports, we don't care what the Chief Minister says or does",
the members told the Press Club authorities. The firework started when
a journalist of regional Bengali Daily, Bartaman, reminded the journalist
members various incidents when the CPI(M)-led Left Front Government had
punished media persons following exposures about corruptions or anti-people
activities. Most of the speakers at the meeting were unanimous that the
CPI(M)led State Government's attitude towards the press had changed sharply
since the publication of the Bengal Lamp scandal involving the former Chief
Minister, Jyoti Basu, and his son, Chandan Basu. The scandal not only led
to the sacking of the then PWD Minister, Jatin Chakraborty, for leaking
out official papers about under-the-table financial deals by Basu. It also
strained the relations with the media. Speakers reminded that it was Buddhadeb
Bhattacharjee who had ordered to demolish the age old press corner in Writers'
Buildings in January 1992. It was the same person who had blamed the reporters
and photographers when they were beaten up by some Government employees
owing allegiance to the CPI(M)-affiliated Coordination Committee for State
employees inside - Writers' Buildings. The media persons covering the State
Secretariat took pictures of a meeting organised by the Coordination Committee
inside Writers' Buildings during the office hours. The incident occurred
soon after Bhattacharjee took the chair of the Chief Minister and assured
the people of a new work culture. Turning 180 degree Bhattacharjee accused
journalists of visiting the place of the meeting in Writers' Buildings
canteen hall uninvited. "Why you people loiter in the corridors of Writers'
Buildings every day with motives to find out faults of our loyal employees?",
the Chief Minister asked journalists when they went to him to complain,
However, Bhattacharjee was kind enough to arrange medical treatment for
injured scribes.
The demolition of press corner by
Bhattacharjee, who was then the information and cultural affairs minister,
was the first red signal hoisted by him to warn the media that he knew
how to tackle the 'unfriendly' press. Attacks on journalists in West Bengal
continued since then. It was literally four-hour black-hole experience
for the twenty-two journalists who went to cover the Bangladesh Prime Minister,
Begum Khaleda Zia's arrival at the Kolkata airport on May 28, 1992. Journalists
with valid entry passes were detained inside a locked room by the police
for over two hours and released only after the departure of Begum Zia.
Two reporters and a photographer of Hindi daily Jansatta were severely
beaten up by the CPI(M) supporters inside ESI hospital in Gourhati, Hooghly,
following reports about corrupt practices by some hospital staff on May
23, 1992. Two lensmen were beaten up at the State Electricity Board office
in Salt Lake in the eastern suburbs of Kolkata on August 19, 1992 following
press criticism about daily power cuts. These incidents and many others
were the direct fallouts of the confrontations between the press and the
Left Government after the demolition of press corner in Writers' Buildings.
When Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee took
over the reign of the State administration in May 2001, he immediately
imposed ban on the entry of accredited journalists travelling in cars inside
the Assembly building premises on security reasons. The ban is still in
vogue and journalists have to get down outside the Assembly building gates
and they walk down at least 100 meters long open passage to enter the building
during the rains and hot humid summers to cover proceedings of the House.
No doubt, the main objective is to humiliate newsmen as the ban on the
entry by car inside the Assembly premises is imposed only on the press
and not on MLAs and their visitors.
The prestigious Jnanpeeth award
winning poet and a noted Left intellectual Subhas Mukhopadhyaya, who died
recently at a city nursing home after the city's SSKM hospital had left
the poet virtually unattended, in a statement said before his death, "The
truth is that press reports are now more credible to public than what the
Government says. Newspapers today are acting as a mirror in reflecting
the true image of our society. I congratulate press reporters and lensmen
for their courageous attempt at exposing the fascist nature of the present
rulers of West Bengal."
The net result, the Government withdrew
medical treatment to the ailing poet admitted in the SSKM hospital silently
and left the poet to die unattended. It was Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee
who had shifted the poet from the SSKM hospital to a private nursing home
to provide at least some solace to the dying poet and his grieved family
members. (VSK)
