TELEVISTA
North-East needs better coverage
Amita Malik

It was about 10 years ago. I was on one of my periodic visits to Assam and Meghalaya, where I was born and brought up. And I must confess that I was shocked at the way in

which the electronic media was covering this most important part of India. Many experts believe it is even more turbulent politically than Kashmir. It borders China, Myanmar and Bangladesh. This makes it still more vulnerable. At that time the electronic media, particularly TV, hardly had satellite phones. And I saw the poor DD reporters doing interviews and news stories on tape, and then waiting patiently for the erratic airlines to get them to the newsroom in Delhi, which they always reached late. By that time the news that they had so laboriously gathered and edited had already become stale.

The North-East has a proud tradition and an ancient culture which needs to be better known to the rest of India.

Things have certainly improved with the advent of independent news channels having given a fillip to the area. We certainly have competent reporters like Bano Haralu from Nagaland and Kushalaya Bhattacharya and others reporting on the region. But the obsession with political news, mostly stories of violence, with ULFA in the forefront, dominates the TV channels.

Two significant events further opened my eyes to how neglected and comparatively unfamiliar the North-East is, even to the grand media moghuls who rule the roost from

Delhi. When Sushma Swaraj went to inaugurate a long-awaited extra transmitter for the North-East, the chief ministers of all the seven sister states were present at the launch. But the over-smart anchor from Delhi introduced the Chief Minister of Tripura as the CM of Meghalaya.

Earlier, I was in Manipur in a small hotel. I asked the room boy where I could get Doordarshan. “What is that?” he asked. “Tell the cable operator, he will know,” I replied. He came back and said: “He says he knows but nobody wants it”. And I found that young Manipuris were listening to China for pop music, and watching American films with the original dialogues from Indonedia, since they were sub-titled in the Indonesian language. It was also the year of the World Cup in football, and viewers in Shillong found they got better reception from Indonesia than Guwahati on DD. I sincerely hope that things have improved since.

I was, therefore, pleasantly surprised after I got a box from Tata Sky for my TV to discover two channels from the North-East. One was DD’s North-East channel and the other was a channel called simply North-East TV. I have yet to find out who runs it. DD was showing a spirited session of western music in a language which I thought was Khasi. I was not surprised because the biggest pop music festival ever held in India was in Shillong some time ago. The North-East loves western music and DD’s eternal dose of Mumbai’s filmi geet takes the second place as the early Christian missionaries, Italian and Welsh, both renowned for their musical traditions, introduced the North-East to western music. I find that the best Christmas carols come from either the North-East or Chennai. The Christian communities from there have even travelled to the western world and won praise for their lovely singing, which is of international standards.

The second channel was showing a vigorous play, which was in some language I could not follow. Actors were knocking each other around, some in uniform army style,some in police uniform and some citizens in plain clothes. I suspect it was a play about militancy. These two channels, with the news in English as well, are certainly bringing their language programmes to those people from the North-East who are living outside, and also giving others a chance to learn something from the English programmes.

And there is a lot to learn.

The mighty Brahmaputra is one of the most photogenic rivers in the world with all sorts of life in and around it. Assamese culture might only be known by Bhupen Hazarika, but it took General Sinha, when he was Governor of Assam, time to persuade the Indian Military Academy in Pune to put up a statue of Lochit Barphukan, the Assamese general who defeated the Moghul invaders, on the banks of the Brahmaputra.

Indeed, the North-East has a proud tradition and an ancient culture which needs to be better known to the rest of India. One can only hope that more channels will give better coverage to this very important part of the country.

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