AMMU JOSEPH: Yes. I came to New York for the 47th annual session of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), which meets in March every year and deliberates on one or two themes. This year the two themes were violence against women, and women’s access to and participation in the media and ICTs (Information & Communications Technologies).
I was there basically to present the insights that had emerged from a U.N. expert group meeting (EGM) held in Beirut in November 2002 in preparation for the session. About a dozen women from different parts of the world had been invited to Beirut to discuss issues ranging from policy to employment and decision-making, from media content to the impact of new technologies. Despite differences in professional backgrounds and media environments, there was an amazing sense of common purpose among the participants. And, although most of us were meeting for the first time, we had obviously been thinking along similar lines in our approaches to gender/media issues.
I think the report of the EGM, more than the “agreed conclusions” that the governments currently represented on the CSW adopted at the end of the session, would be of great interest to women in the media anywhere in the world.
IWMF: What is the press freedom situation in India for journalists?
AMMU JOSEPH: Well, to begin with there are two media traditions in India. One relates to the broadcast media, television and radio, which have been traditionally government owned and run, and therefore government controlled. They're supposed to be public broadcasters but, since they're basically supervised by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, they are obviously subject to some degree of control by the government in power, which means the political party wielding power at any given time.
The other tradition is that of the independent print media, most of them privately owned. Even now, there is considerable diversity in ownership patterns, with most Indian newspaper organizations still predominantly family-owned. “The press,” as we call our print media, has always been fairly liberal, partly because a significant proportion of it was involved in and influenced by the freedom movement. Many leaders of the movement for independence from colonial rule, from Mahatma Ghandi onwards, edited their own publications, using the media to disseminate their ideas.
So, even though newspapers and magazines in India were almost always part of the private sector, they were very much informed by public spiritedness. Traditionally, most of those who ran them saw the media as playing a public service role and not being entirely driven by commerce and profits. So, we’ve had a fairly good press tradition from that point of view.
But recently a lot of things have changed in the media in India. For instance, thanks to satellite television, a large number of private channels, from both inside and outside the country, have entered Indian homes. As a result, even broadcasting is no longer completely within the control of the government.
And print certainly isn't. Whenever the government has attempted to impose restrictions on the press, there has generally been protest from within the media. Journalists, including senior editors, have even taken to the streets and marched in processions. The spirited opposition to any attempt to quiet the press may have something to do with the fact that there was very tight control on the media during British rule. And that freedom of expression and freedom of the press were, therefore, very much a part of the nationalist freedom movement.
The only exception to this general trend was seen during the Internal Emergency imposed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in the mid-1970s, when the mainstream media did not do enough to resist the censorship imposed by her government. Fortunately, her mini dictatorship did not last long.
Right now I would say that there are two trends that threaten press freedom in different ways. Often, when we talk about press freedom, we discuss it only in terms of freedom from state control and official interference. We tend to forget that media freedoms are also under threat from commercial interests. The media in India today are feeling the pressure of the market more than ever before.
For instance, there's a lot more pressure on the print media to continue to attract advertising despite the proliferation of television channels. This pressure has resulted in the press becoming much more market-oriented. It is clear that if we are concerned about press freedom we have to be aware, if not wary, of the role played by commercial interests in determining editorial content.
Another important source of pressure on the media in India today is the rise of fundamentalisms of various kinds fostered by the emergence of militant religious or ethnic identities. The people involved in stirring up violent conflicts between communities represent conservative, right-wing forces using religion or ethnicity for political ends. I’d say such forces also endanger press freedom, not to mention society as a whole, because they're much more intolerant of dissent. They resent the media, especially the independent, liberal sections of the media, and accuse them of bias because they don’t toe their line. They are also quite good at propaganda and manage to spread disinformation through their stooges in the media.
I see a parallel trend in the U.S. as well. I think the right wing all over the world questions independent media, and at the same time uses the media to great effect.
But, despite the right-wing nature of the present government of India, I'm not very pessimistic about the present situation. I think the Indian media are fairly alert to political pressure, although they may not be equally alert to commercial pressures.
IWMF: What is the biggest challenge for women journalists in India today?
AMMU JOSEPH: Well, actually, we have come a long way, I think, in the metropolitan cities and especially in the English language media. As you probably know, we have about 18 official languages but our press exists in around 100 languages. There's a big difference between the English media and the “language media,” as we call them in India, especially in terms of women’s access and participation.
In the metropolitan English language media, women make up 50 percent, at least, of the newsroom in some places. And there are women, not at the top-most spots, but fairly close to the top of the editorial hierarchy. For example, some are in charge of single city editions of multi-edition newspapers. There aren’t quite as many in real decision-making positions in management, even though we do have publishers – even of some major newspaper groups – who are women.
But there's a big difference between that whole scenario, which is rather encouraging, and the situation in the language media. In recent years women have been coming into the language press, too, in larger numbers, but they are still a far way from being well-distributed across different functions and levels, and they are certainly scarce, if not entirely absent, in decision-making positions.
There is a need to encourage the trend towards having more women in every section and level of the media. But it's clearly not enough to focus on women as a whole. It’s also important to try and ensure that women from different communities are represented in the media -- that there is diversity in that sense, too.
In India, as in other places, the kind of women -- and men -- who come into the media are usually from the privileged classes and castes. There's a gross under-representation of people from the lower castes and classes in the media across the board. And, although this applies to both men and women, women from disadvantaged communities have to overcome the additional hurdle of gender.
IWMF: What do you see women doing to face those challenges?
AMMU JOSEPH: Well, I think one of the problems is, of course, that there is such disparity in educational levels. About 50 percent of Indian women are not literate, so there's no question of them having access to media professions. This is obviously a major problem that has to be addressed at the level of support for women's literacy and education.
But even women who do go to school, and even to college, need additional skills and real opportunities to get into the media. For example, the media are almost always based in urban areas, and that is a factor that affects access for rural women. Redressing the imbalance is going to be far from easy; it will obviously involve a long, long struggle. But I don’t think we have made enough efforts in that direction so far. I think we really need to recognize these huge gaps and to figure out how to get more women from remote areas and “marginal” groups into the media.
Some first steps have been taken here and there. For example, a woman journalist I know in Bombay made a special effort to teach a journalism course in a college for Muslim girls, so that they are exposed to media skills as part of their general education. We need to initiate such processes at different levels and not just in big cities. We need to help by providing encouragement, training, mentoring, opportunities for interaction with other women journalists, and so on.
I think this will make a major, positive difference to the media as a whole, and possibly help them to become more responsible and responsive to ordinary citizens, including women.
March 2003
Read Ammu Joseph's article "Gender, Sectarian Violence and the Media", which discusses why the Indian media were slow to report on the large-scale and brutal crimes against women during sectarian violence in the Indian state of Gujarat in February and March 2002.