Development Journalism: A Northeastern Perspective

By Sekhar Datta

Concepts on the nature and priorities of journalistic work change with the passage of time in response to new challenges in the profession and societal realities . There was a time when speeches and statements of VIPs used to be the staple of

media coverage across the nation. The gems and pearls of wisdom mouthed by leaders and ministers kept the media-persons in thrall and readers of the print media-at that time TV news channels formed part of a futuristic idea-used to be inundated with an overdose of speeches and statements. Needless to say , Northeast was no exception to this general rule though changes for better or worse were in the offing even during the initial days of independence.

Barring the states of Assam, Tripura and Manipur , the rest of the region had been notified as 'unadministered or Excluded area' accessible only to British civil servants and missionaries . By the Eastern Frontier Regulation Act-1873 the British government had also introduced the innerline regulation to restrict as much as possible the access of plainsmen and mainstream Indians to the hilly region . At the dawn of independence the tribal people inhabting the hilly areas of the undivided state of Assam, later to fragment into  states of Meghalaya , Nagaland , Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh, confronted new challenges . Exposed to western education and culture promoted by missionaries, the backward people found themselves on the threshold of graduating to nationality status after prolonged existence as pure tribals . Media, specially the print media for them in those days held little significance because it was essentially bilingual-Bengali and English . For plainsmen it was altogether different as the print media was easily accessible to them through Bengali and English .

Apart from political sermons that abounded in the print media , the staple soon became news related to insurgency and violence following the outbreak of Naga insurrection led by late Angami Zapu Phizo since 1952 . The insurgency movement in Nagaland was gradually followed by Mizo militancy since 1966 and ethnic insurgency of Tripura since 1978 even as the fabled 17 'Ojhas' of Manipur led by slain Nameirakpam Bisheshwar Singh blazed the trail to Lhasa in Chinese-controlled Tibet in 1979 in preparation for a major Maoist guerrilla offensive under the banner of Peoples Liberation Army (PLA). Insurgencies across Northeast overlapped each other in quick succession and now even the peaceful state of Meghalaya continues to reel under the two-pronged insurgencies of ethnic Khasis and Garos. The only state still free from this smouldering crossfire is sensitive Arunachal Pradesh on the Himalayan heights bordering China.

Given this backdrop, it was only to be expected that insurgency and violence coupled with ethnic clashes would form the principal theme of media coverage in Northeast . The region with its awesome diversity in ethnic identity , culture , language and even in landscape had indeed emerged as a killing field , hogging headlines in the national media for all the wrong reasons . But a wind of change started blowing ever since the boom in electronics media, represented particularly in our context, by the surfeit of Television news channels had set in in the eighties . For the first time print media confronted a major challenge as it became soon evident that reporting merely speeches and statements of political leaders and killings pulled off by insurgents would only ensure a total rout of the print media in competition with the faster and spectacular cable news channels .

It was a moment of reckoning and the realization soon dawned on the editorial czars that major changes had to be brought on for survival in the cut throat competition . The predicament was loud and clear : a TV news channel had the wherewithal to show live with visuals any major incident within hours of happening , leaving the poor cousin represented by print media high and dry. It was time to sit up and take a fresh look and the editorial strategists did a lot of introspection and a consensus emerged that the gauntlet thrown by the electronics media could be effectively met by generating news behind news , analytical write-ups , features , soft-stories , off-beats and , of course , stories on development . A new genre of reportage titled 'Development Stories ' emerged from the womb of a crisis and much store in today's media as much in Northeast as in the rest of the country is set by development journalism.

In the past highlighting the achievements of a government manifested in implementation of development projects through a news-based story would make editors frown . The writer or reporter used to be invariably dubbed a 'chamcha' of one minister or the other , angling for official favours . But the competition with electronics media and readers fatigue with an overdose of politics and insurgency have now made development journalism an attractive proposition . Down the decades since independence print media registered an impressive growth across the region and the ever-rising number of readers had started scanning the quality of stuff served them long before electronics media made its appearance in a significant way .

Coming to the moot-point , what really constitutes development journalism ? The theoreticians may go into the nitty gritty of definitions but in terms of common perception development journalism revolves round economic development of the populace through implementation of projects and schemes and the socio-economic transformations brought about by them. Both the positives and negatives of a project or scheme can form part of a news-story on development . Nothing illustrates this better than the Dumbur hydro-electrical project launched in mid-seventies of the last century in Tripura.

This project gave the state its first power-generating unit but also led to forced displacement of more than twenty five thousand impoverished tribals-a copy book theme for development reporting . Way back in 1982 Tyler Marshall , erstwhile Delhi-based special correspondent of Los Angeles Times , had filed a report on the emergence of powerful Indian middle class that would dominate politics in the country in the coming decades . Based on excellent research Marshall's story had captured the idea of development journalism at its sophisticated best . Apart from this, reporting the economic and business prospects of a place including state of the natural resources also form part of development journalism.

This point is best illustrated by the web reportage of tripurainfo.com which has made Tripura known to the globe by consistently reporting the prospects of the state and the important socio-economic transformations brought about by successful implementation of development projects and schemes .
Since the late seventies Tripura has figured prominently in the national media as a killing field, scarred by militant depredations and ethnic clashes but thanks to tripurainfo.com this tiny state is now known for its rich natural resources and potential for investment. Likewise Northeast or the better part of it was also known as an ethnic cauldron pulverized by insurgencies but during the past many years this region has been in national limelight as a virgin land for investment and development potential-thanks to the newly evolved concept of development journalism and 'Lookeast policy' of the government of India .
Many more positive and important changes in media reportage may be in store in the very near future as the country moves ahead along the fast track of development and socio-economic transformations.