The Naxal movement originated in the 1960s, the movement did not produce frequent violent activities until the beginning of the new century. But the last decade has witnessed increasing amounts of Maoist violence. The continual violent activities of these groups have attracted much media attention. The Naxal movement has been given front-page coverage in the print media and broadcast on prime time on televised news casts. There are two major factors which have contributed to the increased coverage of Naxal news. First, the number of private media groups has increased in the post Cold War era due to the adoption of a neo-liberal market policy by the central government.
The private media in this new environment has had to play a more vital role in terms of objectivity of news coverage and its dissemination. Second, the increased number of media groups has increased competition. The domestic media in India is now looking for topics of coverage which have been traditionally neglected or less covered. Although the print media had been covering the Maoist issues even before this period, the more recent coverage from private satellite television has politicised and sensitised the issue as it is today. Consequently, armed insurgencies led by Naxal groups have been given special attention in both print and television media.
Another reason for the heightened coverage of Naxal activity is the sensitive nature of news. Sensational news generally receives more attention from viewers; therefore TV channels which were covering Naxal news had more viewer and in turn had more chance to become popular. Here, it should be noticed that violent news is always sensitive, but the media, particularly the satellite media, has negatively sensationalized the Naxal’s violent activities. The same news is aired many times within a day, and the increased frequency of the same violent news has a greater reach to cadres and sympathisers of the movement, in terms of ideological effects. Contrary to the satellite media, print media by virtue of its nature could not attract as much audience attention. However, in the neo-liberal environment, the number of print media outlets has increased, particularly in the Hindi region as many new Hindi newspapers have been recently introduced by the private sector. The introduction of these new media outlets has obviously led to increased competition within the sector; in order to attract audience ratings, and sensational news items like Naxal violence has received more frequent coverage and has been featured on the front-page more often than other issues.
The Naxal Terror Watch, has documented specific print media news coverage since 2000. According to the media monitoring report, since 2004 to 2007, every year the number of coverage of violent activities by Maoist increased. For example, in 2004, the amount of news about the Maoist activity totaled 43, while in 2007 the number increased to 2287. In 2008, a lesser number appeared in Maoist news; however, 1879 articles appeared during this year, still an impressive number.
Similarly, during the same period, television news agencies devoted more space to Maoist events. The leaders of Maoist groups were interviewed and the broadcast was aired many times. It has been observed that the increased coverage and the airing of Maoist leader interviews gave audiences an image of Robin Hood among their cadres and sympathisers; which in turn boosted the morality of comrades to prepare for more violence.
On other hand a country, which is one-fourth rich and three-forth poor, cannot be at peace with itself. In addition, a country where above 48 percent of population is below poverty line would continue to remain. When poor people are denied access to resources and opportunities or when they are robbed off their livelihood sources they cannot be suppressed by force of power and authority. The areas in which they live are in very bad condition. Thousand of innocent people around the country have already fallen victim to mindless violence.
Similarly, a country with diverse culture and sub-cultures has to come to terms with this reality and educate the people to live in harmony with different faith based groups and belief systems. A civilized country must create a supportive and understanding environment in which the majority, minority, poor and rich groups do not feel discriminated, feel secure, live with self-respect and practice their faiths and belief without fear. A major challenge in 21st century will be how to find out ways and means of eliminating such fear and suspicion.
The idea of human security actually means that a child born today is not allowed to die tomorrow, a disease is not allowed to spread, a person is not detached or separated from his/her source of living, an ethnic, religious or any kind of tension is not allowed to explode into violence.
Essentially and rationally, there should not be any conflict among various groups as all of them believe in humanism.
Conflicts and disharmony between castes, sects, ethnic, rich, poor and religious groups continue to dominate the socio-political scenarios today in different parts of the Country to generate hatred, violence, social tension and dislocation all around.
Now a days we do not want to know the reason of problems, only we talk about the sensex, GDP, foreign exchange. These are very good figures. But they do not provide food to the vast majority. They do not provide clothing and shelter to millions. The Naxals have shaken the society out of its complacency.
The towns and cities maybe dazzling, but rural India is still buried under poverty. The Maoist movement is a symbol of the divide between rural and urban India. The movement cannot be solved by police action at all, without understanding the real reasons of Naxalism, we can not ride on the Naxal movement.
