Shooting The Messenger

A journalist’s murder is an assault on democracy no matter what his or her politics

Last week, Santanu Bhowmick, a 28-year-old television journalist, was hacked to death while covering clashes between supporters of two political outfits in Mandai, West Tripura. Four cadres of the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) have been arrested in the case. Reports suggest that Bhowmick was allegedly targeted by the IPFT because the channel he worked for backed the Tripura Rajaer Upajati Ganamukti Parishad (TRUGP), a rival tribal outfit affiliated to the ruling CPM. It is not unusual for sections of the media to have political affiliations, but journalists working with them are mostly professionals. Bhowmick, in all likelihood, was doing his job and seems to have got killed for trying to do that well. The government must make sure that his killers are punished.

Bhowmick’s death comes a fortnight after the gruesome killing of Gauri Lankesh, the editor of a Kannada newspaper, in Bengaluru. As it happened in the case of Gauri Lankesh, Bhowmick’s murder too has become a politically contested event. The perceived closeness of the channel, and the victim, to the CPM is irrelevant in the pursuit of justice. A murder is a murder and irrespective of which side of the political divide the victim stood, the government has to ensure a fair probe, make arrests, conduct a time-bound trial and deliver justice. That the murder of a journalist becomes instant fodder for people to takes sides on the basis of the perceived political preferences of the victim is deeply worrying. There is no reason why a brutal crime has to be read with the politics of the party in office: Any criminal investigation ought to be conducted independent of the ideological direction of the party in government, be it in Karnataka, Tripura or at the Centre. Unfortunately, politics enters into discourse the moment a journalist is murdered. It is treated as a political event with utter disregard to the grief and loss of the friends and family of the victim. Interested parties also intervene in the public discourse in a concerted manner to shame and discredit the victim on the basis of her political views, as we saw immediately after the murder of Gauri Lankesh. This is most unfortunate and disquieting.

The impunity with which journalists are being attacked is troubling. India has various laws that protect the right to freedom of expression. However, journalists are frequently targeted by powerful lobbies, political groups, influential individuals and even state agencies for what they publish or broadcast. The solution is to have fair investigation, arrests, time-bound trials and convictions.