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 42nd
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.