| Username |
Post |
| ashu |
Posted
on 28-Sep-00 12:05 PM
The Dristi weekly newspaper, the mouthpiece
of the UML, has been after Pratyoush Onta,
a former Boston Nepali.
In response to the following article, that paper, in an unsigned news-item, launched all the more ad hominem attacks against Onta in its latest issue last Tuesday even claiming that Onta does not write "Dr." in front of his name because -- gasp, choke!! -- he reallly does not have a PhD degree. What's more, the paper went on to claim that Onta has been judged "unqualified" to teach history at TU. As always, the weekly cited
no evidence whatsoever for its conclusions.
When people are after you with unsigned letters/news-items and postings (in Nepal),
my conviction is that you really are doing doing a good job -- which can be upsetting
to some powers-that-be.
Onta, by the way, earned his PhD in history from the University of Pennsylvania in 1996.
He is presently doing research in India
on a Fellowship.
Enjoy this for what this is worth. And, Mabi,
how did you forget to post this here? :-)
oohi
ashu
********************
The plight of dogmatic weeklies
By Pratyoush Onta
Some time ago, I was accused by the weekly Dristi - which is a UML mouthpiece - of having taken Rs
13 lakhs from ActionAid Nepal (an international NGO) in the presence of Dilli Bahadur Chaudhari,
President of Backward Society Education (BASE) and the convenor of the Kamaiya Andolan Parichalan
Samiti. The report stated that the money had been given to me for the rehabilitation of the ex-Kamaiyas
but I had absconded with it and used it for personal 'uplifting'. This, it was reported, was found out by
ex-Kamaiyas who had gone to ActionAid Nepal (AAN) asking for help! The report then implicated both
Dilli and unidentified officials of AAN of colluding with me in this 'embezzlement'.
In a subsequent issue, Dristi published a letter from Dilli who thoroughly denied the validity of the
original report. I had done much the same verbally to its editor. While doing its original piece, no reporter
of that viewspaper had contacted me or Dilli to check the facts. No one in AAN had been quoted. No
documents had been cited to prove my 'crime'. On top of all this, no ex-Kamaiyas had approached AAN
for help in the manner indicated by the paper. In my conversation with its editor Sambhu Shrestha, I
pointed out that the original report had been written without following the basic tenets of journalism and
he conceded this point. Nevertheless, after printing Dilli's letter, the weekly felt it necessary to again
claim that in fact I had taken the money and misused it. Such is the dogma of UML patronized
journalism these days that a newspaper classified as belonging to the A category in the classification of
Nepal Press Council and an editor who has been a member of the Council can print something without
following basic journalistic skills.
If that is so, how do we understand the emergence of this particular 'news'? Earlier in the summer, in his
capacity as the convenor of the above-mentioned Samiti, Dilli had asked Martin Chautari (of which I am
the convenor) to manage the dharna by Kamaiyas in Kathmandu's Bhadrakali. As is well-known, this
act by erstwhile Kamaiyas forced the NC government to announce the end of the bonded-labour system
on 17 July. During the dharna, Dilli provided funds to cover real costs involved in transportation, food,
housing (more than 130 Kamaiyas and volunteers who had come with them were put up in a
Dharmasala in Gausala), printing (of pamphlets and banners), medical expenses (several Kamaiyas
were taken to hospitals for various treatments), and communication costs. All of the expenses were
accounted for by the time Dilli left for west Nepal on 22nd July. No individual in the Chautari team was
paid even one rupee for their more than two-weeks of round-the-clock labour to prepare for and manage
the dharna.
As I have said in a radio interview and in print, although some people have congratulated the Chautari for
its role in a crucial stage of the Kamaiya movement, we think that our support was of a modest nature
at best. However even this was too much for self-appointed 'saviours' of Kamaiyas - both individuals and
institutions - in the UML camp. Having done various projects for the Kamaiyas since 1990, they felt as
though they deserved all the credit. Seeing that much of the credit for helping the andolan was going to
Dilli and not having the guts to challenge him upfront (after all none of the these institutions have the
kind of ground support in west Nepal enjoyed by BASE), their attention was deflected to me. And faithful
Dristi had one more item to embellish its dogmatic journalism (which is an oxymoron to begin with).
I write this not to clear my name against the professionally inept work of a UML viewspaper. Instead I do
so to highlight the plight of the Nepali language weeklies, especially those that blindly follow the dogma
of particular political parties including NC. Given the increasing frustration of the reading public with the
present nature of political parties, these are difficult times for these viewspapers. Circulation has
stagnated for the last 3-4 years (except for one which is a mouthpiece for the Maoists). In the last
two-three years, several weeklies have folded. Many of those no longer in publication belonged to the
ML camp. Some newspapers pushing the Maoist dogma have also ceased publication. This routine has
also been observed in the NC and UML camps, although the demise rate is relatively small for
viewspapers in these two camps for obvious reasons. But it is also true that many new weeklies
continue to emerge in the national viewspaper market. According to insiders, this is happening because
the money needed to run such a paper for a year even in loss amounts to a few lakh rupees. There are
many politician-businessmen sets with this kind of money in today's Nepal.
The reassuring growth of other forms of print media - broadsheet dailies and magazines - has meant that
many of the best reporters working for these viewspapers have moved on to these other publications.
Those who remain do so (with a few exceptions) for mainly two reasons: they are pawns of political
parties masquerading as journalists or less-than-mediocre pen-pushers who could not get any other
jobs. Morale among those working in these newspapers is said to be quite low as they see their peers
moving ahead in other publications from strength to strength. Since there is very little room for
professional performance and improvement, almost no quality work shows up in our weeklies. There is
an occasional brilliant feature write-up but they are rare. With no further professional investment (both in
terms of management and editing) these weeklies seem to be on their way out - not physically of
course but in terms of performing a useful watchdog function. And I do not particularly regret that loss
as long as other print media forms grow!
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 28-Sep-00 12:31 PM
Oh,come on.Who cares about what Dristi
writes?Do your job,man.
The political hacks are all versions of
Goebels(God, if this is right spelling!) ,
the propoganda minister of Hitler.In Nepal,
it is so easy for every weeklies to distort
news to appease their owner.
I don't know ,whether Pratyush is honest or
not.I don't want to provide him automatic
vouchsafe.Dristi, in another hand, deserves
to ask for the use of the social fund if it
doubts Pratyush is misusing it.
But Dristi is just a collection of bullshits
that is folded in the market everyweek by
gullible UML supporters/and those who wants
to read something about what UML thinks about
something,not for dispassionate articles. Why
the hell the government is providing any recognition to these mouthpieces like Dristi
and Bimarsha?
And, once, I was amused to hear these papers
advocating press freedom in Nepal.If Mr Gupta
wants to sensor Nepalese newspapers, he
surely doesn't need to sensor these(he won't
either).They are presensored in Baluwatar or
Balkhu or wherever.
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| ashu |
Posted
on 28-Sep-00 03:01 PM
Biswo,
I think a lot of people (most UML
supporters) do care about what
Dristi prints. I respect the
fact -- though I disagree with it -- that
there are a number of people in Nepal
who swear by Dristi.
That is why, I, for one, even as a
mere reader, am not going to dismiss
Dristi's patently false allegations
against Onta, or for that matter,
against anyone else. Dristi has to
be to be accountable to what it prints.
If Dristi can back up its accusations
with evidence, then kudos to it.
But as Onta himself has pointed out in the article, even its editor Shambhu Shrestha admitted [and I did audio-tape that admission at Dristi's office in Bagh
Bazaar] that it had printed its first
item against Onta WITHOUT following the
basic tenets of journalism.
Think about that: An UML editor admitting
that it printed something WITHOUT
adhering to the basic principles
of journalism!!
And so, it appears that in publishing the second item against Onta, Dristi's
one and only motive seems to be casting aspersions on others' reputation on
account of the indirect fact that Dilli Chaudhary (and to a much lesser extent,
Martin Chautari) got all the credit for Kamaiya Mukti, then that newspaper deserves to be strategically, cooly and calmly
slammed against the wall by a group of
young Nepalis with relentless and
unforgiving drive, strategic know-how, aggression and competitiveness . . . even
if it takes months and years!!
Sure, such a drawn-out battle with a viewpaper can be brutal and emotionally and legally draining. But as I have told Onta and others, if he doesn't relentlessly fight it to the finish, even it means a bloody
finish with no clear winner,then he should give up expecting a better day for
journalism in Nepal, and give up
expecting that the legal process works
in this democracy.
oohi
ashu
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 29-Sep-00 09:50 AM
ashu:
Two points are very important when you are
in social activity:one inalienation to
integrity and next identification with
reality.
In this case:you need to, if necessary,
fight to the end against the yellow
journalism, and hack journalists.For me,
weeklies were never part of journalism,but
it is also true that they command a sizable
market/following all over the country. But a
court is never a constituency of honesty, and
thus not necessarily a part of the process of
quest for justification in Nepal.(after chief
justice Hari Shrestha,the first chief justice).
The second thing, as you mentioned there are
several blind-followers,myrmidions of such
newspapers. Sometimes intellectuals
unwittingly fall prey to the schemes that
only assists to alien them from the mass.
That is what, generally, one intellectual
group should consists of several groups of
different ideology.at least three,left right
and center.So that while it functions, it
reaches every corner, and can get support
from every corner. When you crusades against
Dristi, I am afraid you will only get Fabian
victory,because the mass that follows Dristi
still can see you people as anti-THEIRPARTY.
I am sure you will find out some way to
solve this problem, the way that is judicious
and not extreme.Good luck.
By the way, I am so sad to find that even
the well-known journalists in Nepal are so
devoid of morality and so dyed-in-the-wool
yellow .
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| ashu |
Posted
on 29-Sep-00 01:34 PM
Biswo,
The point of the fight is not to make
Dristi say "sorry", though that would
be nice.
The point of the fight is to signal to
Dristi that there are readers, even readers
who DISagree with the tenets of the UML dogmas, but who nonthless care enough about the state of journalism in Nepal to raise hell against a particularly false instance of journalism.
If nothing comes of out raising such
hell for months and years, then Onta and Company have the emotional satisfaction to say, "Hey, we tried this and this and this to the best of our ability, using the legal tools available to us in this democratic society, and we failed."
After all, to try something and fail with lessons learnt for the future is thousands
times BETTER than to sit in one corner and assume a priori that things are khattam, bad and jhoor, and no matter how much efforts one expends, nothing's going to work anyway . . so why bother type of
attitude.
On the other hand, if something positive does come out of raising hell, then that will create a lesson for Dristi, its readers and other newspapers.
And that lesson would also contain emotional satisfaction for Onta and the company. The attitude here should NOT be that of gloating, however: just the plain, pure satisfaction of having set things right by
refusing to give up easily.
oohi
ashu
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