Religion and Secularism in Media

Media is always followed with a delusion of being literal, but the audience of electronic media and the readers of print media fail to accept the theory of communication. Every communique needs a point of view and each camera is placed with an angle, but when a point of view is depicted as a viewpoint somehow it becomes bias. On one end, the concept of liberal media is highly appreciated and followed by the spectators; on the other hand, stating bitter truth is objected, as too much liberty for media. Unconsciously, the concept of negative coverage and positive coverage keeps popping up in our head.

Religion and secularism has always been a topic of ambiguity in media, for some mindsets the information provided is considered as bias and for others the source of information may be considered as partial. Even praising or disrespecting all religions likewise will not be accepted by the audience. “Charlie Hebdo” a French satirical magazine unwontedly famous for its sarcastic religion based cartoons, was not judged on its neutrality in mocking all religions likewise. Instead, it faced the consequences of discrepancy and misinterpretation of belief, Dr Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad from the department of religious studies at the University of Lancaster said, the anti-religious attitude is apparent in the way religion is featured in the BBC's entertainment output. As per the source, BBC exhibits Christians as fundamentalist and Hindus as orthodox (Source The Guardian,11,2005.bbcradio). Media is often measured as religiously partial in many countries, due to its ownership and perception.      

           image source:starmark

Narrowing it down to Indian media as India is a multi-religion country and so are the people working in Indian media, it will be deplorable to question media professionals about their religious priorities. But, after all media is secular not atheist, so what happens when our religious values collide with our conscious professional ethics?

Before we find an answer for the above it’s important to learn about secularism, the word secularism means equal treatment of all religions by the state. The 42^nd Amendment of the Constitution of India enacted in 1976, the Preamble to the Constitution asserted that India is a secular nation. Although, there is no definition made for the word secular.

Secularism is timely used and defined in India as per the situations benefiting political agenda of the party’s. In a widely diverse country like India, a little snap in secularism definition is enough to start a domino effect and destroy the synchronization of religious belief. Unintentionally, the modus operandi of media houses sometimes works like a snap to create the sensation. Trolls, threats, and protests against some anchors and reporters in social media are a great example of meager delivery of information and views.

“Hadiya’s conversion case” which is still under judicial supervision is one of the good examples of surface journalism, braid cutting incidences in Delhi and J&K and rape cases in UP were also given a communal angel by some news mongers.

However, the media is still an unprejudiced pillar of our country and the word secular is practiced as a religion. Still, human mind must have a curiosity to learn more about the perspective of information portrayed as news. Unlike ancient time today media work on the short, crisp, easy and prompt delivery of information, whilst creating the sensation sometimes the real news is overshadowed by selling fiction.

Let’s dig a little deeper into some examples to learn more about, what is shown and how is it seen. For instance, the day Babri masjid was demolished, an English herald’s headlines were; “Kar sevaks destroy Babri masjid”, another famous one wrote, “Holy rage put India in crisis”. Recently, a revolt against the movie “Padmavati” got hours of coverage from Television media and the hate speeches of political leaders easily get some TV time as well. Lately made “Temple run” statement of AIMIM chief on INC chief is a good example of what becomes breaking news.    

All the scenarios mentioned here can be interpreted as one-sided or against a major religion of India, but that’s not enough. The aftermath of Dadri mob lynching case, debates on “triple talaq”, “love jihad”, “uniform civil code” and confrontational shows like “Fateh ka fatwa” and “Dangal” can tilt the scale other way around for some viewers.

It is safer to state that media is just a messenger but the prioritization and duration accredited to news depends on this messenger. This prioritization and duration assigned while delivering the news may sometime be considered as bias to the receiving ears and eyes. Just as airing the news of “Hafeez saeeds army in Pakistan” is accepted by the audience as impartial News but airing information about the buildup of religion based armies in India will raise some eyes brows.

image source: aidancunniffe.com

Media is the most popular source of information and relatively it is a genuine one as well, but an irrefutable fact about media is its dependency on the discretion of viewers. News consists of who, when, what, where, why and how but the reaction of this information merely depends on whom, it is delivered to.

Now coming back to our question, so what happens when our religious values collide with our conscious professional ethics?  Just an expression of Media as a person, is a guy running behind the information with a camera and zeal to deliver you the reality, whilst doing his job if a temple, mosque or a church passes on the way, it is bowed down to, but never ingested in.

Media has a power to provoke sentiments and an incontestable reach to millions, but what differentiate media from other organizations is its, motive. There will be resistance and acceptance of information provided, but media don’t work to impress. Even the content or communication might seem imbalanced to some, but media is still as balanced as a human brain and as impartial as Mother Nature. Both religion and secularism goes parallel like rail-tracks in this institution, one as a personal practice and another as professional morality. 

I, Varun Awasthi, hereby state that

a.     This article authored by me is original and not plagiarized from any other sources.

b.     This article has not previously been published / featured in any other media prior to this.