Community Media Coverage of Gender Issues: Struggles and Successes in Rural India

Introduction

Covering women's issues, particularly violence against women such as rape, domestic violence, sexual harassment, and femicide, has never been easy for journalists in India. It becomes even more difficult in remote rural areas where several cases of violence against women go unreported either because mainstream media do not reach such places or the involved parties are too powerful for the stringers reporting from those locations. The coverage of crimes against women in mainstream media has also been questioned for its inadequate reporting and for sensationalising the story (Gilbertson & Pandit, 2019; GMMP, 2015; NWMi, 2022; Phillips et al., 2015).

According to National Crime Records Bureau's ‘Crime in India’ 2019 report, a total of 405,861 cases of crime against women were registered during 2019. The maximum number of the cases were registered under the heads of ‘cruelty by husband or his relatives’ (30.9 per cent), ‘assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty’ (21.8 per cent), ‘kidnapping & abduction of women’ (17.9 per cent) and ‘rape’ (7.9 per cent) (Ghose, 2020). The state of Uttar Pradesh had the highest number of crimes against women with 59,853 cases, followed by Rajasthan with 41,550 cases and Maharashtra with 37,144 cases. Uttar Pradesh also had 2,410 dowry cases, the highest among all the states. Unfortunately, this is just the recorded data of cases with the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), and a huge number of crimes against women go under-reported, especially in far-flung areas of the country.

Amid such miserable circumstances, community-led local and small media initiatives are sketching the much-needed silver lining in the country's far-flung areas. There are some community newspapers like Khabar Lahariya in Bundelkhand; Bahini Darbar in Reva, Madhya Pradesh; Ujjas in Kutch, Gujrat; and Navodayam in Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh not just covering gender issues in their newspapers but also sensitising women in local communities about their rights and powers. Scholars have increasingly recognised how crucial access to media and communication is to create space for gender discourses and pave the way for women empowerment (Ahmer, 2006; Gurumurthy, 2008; Nirmala, 2015; Pavarala & Malik, 2007; Rodríguez, 2001; Sinha & Malik, 2020). More specifically, in the South Asia context, Malik (2020) argues that community radio stations strengthen ‘voice capability’ amongst women through participatory production and management at the stations and promote a climate of gender consciousness as a whole.

The research takes up a case study approach and analyses data from ethnographic engagements in the field. Wimmer and Dominik (2011) suggest applying various data sources in a case study for a more rigorous and systematic investigation. The research employs multiple data collection methods, including in-depth interviews, focus group discussion, participant observation, and document analysis. Simultaneously, the researcher analysed news content collected from different platforms of Khabar Lahariya to understand its Narivadi Nazar (feminist perspective) and how it is different from the media content available otherwise.

The present research article first talks about the debate on the reporting of gender issues in media. It situates the current work in the realm of community media and public sphere research. Then, it briefly introduces some of the community newspaper initiatives working towards a more gender-sensitive reporting of women issues in the rural areas of India. The article then elaborates on the coverage of gender issues and violence against women in Khabar Lahariya by taking up that as an in-depth case study. Started as a Bundeli language community newspaper in 2002, Khabar Lahariya currently functions as a media organisation that disseminates news through various platforms, including print, video, mobile, and online media. The article puts forth that the all women-led organisation specifically focuses on the coverage of gender issues and violence against women in the region of Bundelkhand. Khabar Lahariya creates a public discourse around gender issues in rural areas, further influencing the larger gender debates owing to its growing reach and popularity.

The Debate Around Gender in Media

There is considerable research on gender in media both from the perspective of media representation and gender participation in media production (Gilbertson & Pandit, 2019; GMMP, 2015; Joseph, 2005; NWMi, 2022; Phillips et al., 2015; Sharma, 2014). Apparently, these studies have always questioned the tonality of the coverage of violence against women in mainstream media. Based on an analysis of 1,500 news reports from four mainstream newspapers in India, Gilbertson and Pandit claim that ‘mainstream newspapers' reporting on violence against women and girls is overwhelmingly incident-based, presenting this violence as a series of isolated events rather than a systemic social issue’ (Gilbertson & Pandit, 2019, p. 1). Violence against women is reported as crime news, and it is not considered a separate beat in news media. The practice restrains media from creating a larger discourse around the issue and reflects a withheld problem within the media industry. Building on the works of Caputi and Russell (1992) and O’Connor (2002), Das (2012) argues that:

It has been found out on many instances that the media fail to give prominence to news associated to crimes and other violent acts perpetrated on women. The media are blamed of marginalising, distorting, fabricating and downplaying news when it comes to reporting VAW & ‘Femicide’ (Das, 2012, p. 4).

He furthers that media content reflects the ‘patriarchal dominance’ present in society to cater to larger male audiences. He quotes Douglas (1994) stating, ‘the media promotes a white, upper-middle-class male view of the world that urges the rest of us to sit passively on our sofas and fantasise about consumer goods while they handle the important stuff’ (Douglas, 1994, p.11 cites in Das, 2012, p. 2).

However, it becomes especially worrying in the light of the revelations made by the proceeding of the conference on femicide organised jointly by PATH, the Inter-American Alliance for the Prevention of Gender-based Violence (InterCambios), the Medical Research Council of South Africa (MRC), and the World Health Organization (WHO), held in Washington, DC, in 2008. Widyono (2009), in the proceeding, notes down that in the countries where getting official data on femicide is difficult or in the cases of undocumented crimes, newspaper accounts become the only available source of information on the incidents. Newspapers’ articles are also crucial to establish the relationships of victims with the perpetrators and to understand the circumstances around the homicide, where she observes that in many of the studies presented at the conference, versions of newspapers were used to fill the gaps in the information provided by police officials and medical staffs (Widyono, 2009). Thus, the coverage of news stories, the given information, and the language used in the story writing structure the overall debate around gender violence. This further feeds into and directs the perspective on gender in society.

On the contrary, community media may not have a more significant impact due to their small-scale operations; however, they seem more focussed and successful in creating debates around issues in small areas because of the clarity of the purposes and motives of the organisations. Gender issues, more specifically, violence against women, is a significant reporting area for many community media organisations in India. Also, because many are run by women, primarily from marginalised communities, the primary purpose behind starting the community media is to give space to their voices amidst the ignorance they face from mainstream media. Advancing over the ideas of voice as value (Couldry, 2010), counter-public sphere (Fraser, 1990), and concientization (Friere, 1972), scholars have analysed and accepted the potential of community media in giving value to the voice of the marginalised. They do so by democratising the process of media making and by providing a space to the marginalised to talk about their issues and concerns (Ahmer, 2006; Gurumurthy, 2008; Malik, 2020; Nirmala, 2015; Pavarala & Malik, 2007; Sinha & Malik, 2020).

The current article argues that over and above giving space to the marginalised communities and serving as a counter-public sphere, community media forms the discourses of these spheres. Although these discourses might seem to have only small direct impacts, they hold weightage in the fact that these minor interferences feed into the larger discourses of gender and have the potential to influence them if they keep hitting at the right place. Rodríguez (2001) encourages citizen journalists for this potential which she considers a sign and essence of a live democratic society.

Community Newspapers and Gendered Lens

Bahini Darbar in Reva, Madhya Pradesh; Navodayam in Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh, Ujjas in Kutch, Gujrat and Khabar Lahariya in Bundelkhand, Uttar Pradesh, are some examples of community media initiatives that work towards media democratisation and for giving a voice to the local communities (Sinha & Malik, 2016). Women groups run all these initiatives, and their more significant focus is on addressing gender issues in small communities and creating more space for such discourses. In many cases, since the motive of work is to make a difference for women in those areas, they do not just stop reporting the issues in the community newspapers. They follow up on the stories and engage with local civil society to pressure the local authority to redress the matters. Below is a brief introduction to the community newspapers mentioned above.

Khabar Lahariya and its ‘Narivadi Nazar (Women's Perspective)’

An all-women team of 40 members runs Khabar Lahariya as a multimedia news organisation that disseminates news through print, online and mobile platforms. It was started in 2002 as a handwritten broadsheet in Bundeli dialect from Chitrakoot district in Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh by a team of seven neo-literate women with the support of a Delhi-based NGO, Nirantar. Witnessing the need for local news reporting in the area, Khabar Lahariya extended its operation in many districts in Bundelkhand and soon started publishing as a twelve-page weekly. In 2016, Khabar Lahariya entered into digital space and launched its website, social media pages including Facebook, Twitter handle, YouTube Channel, and its own mobile app. The organisation mainly caters to Bundelkhand and distributes the printed newspaper in and around the region. Khabar Lahariya runs from two centres – one in Chitrakoot comprising mainly the reporting team and sub-editors who prepare the paper's printed version – the second in Delhi, having the editorial team who takes care of online platforms. The community media organisation primarily covers the regional and local issues of the Bundelkhand region, along with giving space to prominent national and international news stories. Since its inceptions, it was clear to the organisations that they would always prefer women issues in their newspaper. They continued with a dedicated page called ‘Narivadi Nazar’ – that translates to ‘women's perspective’ – in the newspaper. Even after going digital in 2016, Khabar Lahariya followed the same principle and created a specific section on women stories.

Moreover, it is crucial to observe that in due course, Khabar Lahariya constructed a strong network within the media industry. Many other media outlets give space to the news stories of Khabar Lahariya on their platforms. The Hoot, The Huffington Post, First Post, and The Wire are some popular names giving Khabar Lahariya a much larger audience base. They add Khabar Lahariya's stories to the bigger debates on marginalisation and violence against gender, caste and class. In addition, many independent production houses have made videos and documentaries on the everyday life and struggles of the women journalists of Khabar Lahariya. A recent documentary Writing With Fire, directed by Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghose, has made its nomination entry for the Academy Award (Oscar) in the best documentary feature category for 2022. All these associations and achievements of Khabar Lahariya serve as a means to bring local issues onto the global platform. Celebrating the women journalists of Khabar Lahariya not only starts a talk about those women but also brings forth the debates of gender and marginalisation from far-flung areas of the country.

Nevertheless, covering women's issues, especially violence against women, had never been easy for the women journalists of Khabar Lahariya. Meera Jataw, the editor of Khabar Lahariya at the time of the study, had many stories to share when it comes to their challenges in covering issues and concerns of local women. She recollected a particular story that they had covered in 2003, just after a year of the inception. It was a story of police atrocity on a local woman where the local police badly beat up a woman from Karondha village in Manikpur block. The police suspected her to be an informant and a well-wisher of a local dacoit Dadua. Meera recollected, ‘the police had beaten her up so badly that her body had several blue patches. The police had dragged her on the ground, and in that, her clothes got torn off.’ Khabar Lahariya carried that story in detail, accusing the local police, including the superintendent of police. For more impact, it also published the photo of the woman with the story. Meera continued, ‘the matter became a big issue as it was against the authority. We were called up by the police and some local officials and questioned how we dared to write something so disrespectful to the system.’ The team received many threatening calls to withdraw their stand on the matter, and the local media forced them to publish a disclaimer and apologise for false reporting. However, as Meera informed, the team confronted all the opposition and stood with the woman. This particular incident made them famous in a short while, and they got support from the local community, especially from the women members of the communities.

The late Krishna Didi, the 60 years old office manager of Khabar Lahariya, who was sitting beside excitingly narrated another similar incident:

We had published a story on a murder of a girl by strangulation and hanging. We doubted it was a case of dowry death. The girl was from an upper-caste family, which is why it became a big fuss. The entire upper-caste community stood against us, and the reporter who had covered the story got open threats that she would be beaten up if she would enter their village again.

Kumar (2008) notes that identifying dowry-related deaths and bride burning is quite difficult in India because of the attempts made by police and victim's relatives to hide the nature of death. Since most women who work for Khabar Lahariya come from marginalised communities, especially Dalit and Adivasi, it could not be taken as an empty threat. Atrocities in the name of caste and gender was an ordeal in the areas of Bundelkhand. Meera mentioned that many women expressed reluctance to work with such risks to themselves and their families after those incidences. ‘We had to struggle a lot to keep our team together,’ Meera added.

Nevertheless, their hard work paid them off well, and in 2004 they received the prestigious Chameli Devi Jain award for women in journalism. In 2012 they won the Laadli Media Award for gender-sensitive reporting. They received many awards and recognitions worldwide, including the UNESCO King Sejong Literacy Award in 2009, Times Now Amazing India Award in 2012, and Kaifi Azmi Award in 2013. Amid the encouragements pouring from all the directions, women were fighting their own battles in the ground, working as counterparts to men. When it comes to journalism in rural areas, the competition becomes even cutthroat as the women have to fight at professional levels and overcome the hurdles of patriarchy and casteism at the social level. For the women journalists of Khabar Lahariya, going through the entire system where very few women officials can be seen in government offices is an everyday challenge. Ignorance, non-cooperation from male officials, and intentional delays are common responses they receive which are usually not the case for male reporters or reporters of mainstream media. On many occasions, during the research work, the researcher observed the cold responses given to the women journalists by police personnel, male officials, and male community members. Lalita, who works from Faizabad for Khabar Lahariya, shared that initially, they were constantly asked for valid press cards to prove their identities. ‘It was difficult to enter government buildings as nobody would believe us that we – girls – could be journalists too. We used to carry our newspaper until we got proper identity cards made for ourselves,’ Lalita recollected. The non-cooperation is also because of the kind of news these women journalists cover. They often reach the police or local government to question their stand and actions on gender and caste-based atrocities. The people in responsible positions prefer hiding from such direct questions.

Khabar Lahariya has come a long way in reporting gender issues and creating a space for local women to discuss their concerns openly. The empathetic approach of women journalists has inculcated more confidence in local women, too, and it has shown some significant changes in the area. During the focus group discussions conducted in the local villages of Bundelkhand, many women agreed to gain some knowledge about their rights. They understood that the atrocities they considered personal were crimes, and their fellow women and future generations should not tolerate the same. Malati, a 45 years old woman from Bhonri village in Manikpur block, expressed, ‘earlier when we reached out to police to register a complaint about gender violence, we were ignored and scolded as if it was the woman's fault. They took us seriously only when we started accompanying someone from Khabar Lahariya.’ She smirked and winked as she added, ‘we now threaten police or staffs at government hospitals that we would tell Khabar Lahariya ‘Didi’ (elder sister) if you would not work properly.’

The younger generation is also learning from the community newspaper. For instance, Kavita, a 13 years old schoolgirl from Bharatkoop village in Chitrakoot block, thrillingly shared how she learned many things about women's rights, laws protecting women, and various helpline numbers by reading Khabar Lahariya regularly. However, she also mentioned that she could only read the paper at the school, and her family could not afford to purchase the newspaper. Urmila, an advocate by profession and a founding member of Khabar Lahariya, discussed the purpose of starting the newspaper. She elucidated, ‘since we were working with women from marginalised communities, it was clear to us that through the community newspaper, we wanted to give space to their voices and would try to pave the way for making their lives better.’

Khabar Laharia has addressed many issues of gender bias in the area, and there are still many to fight for, especially the issues of women's political rights, which is crucial for more significant changes. Meera firmly put her opinion on that with an example. She questioned, ‘government has made many provisions for women to participate in the workforce. For instance, there is a good reservation for women in the Panchayati Raj system (a village-level legislation system in India), but the government never goes back to check if the women are working?’ The researcher found a popular term called ‘pradhan pati’, which literally translates to ‘head's husband’ during the study. The husband of a woman head of a ‘gram panchayat’ (village-governing body in India) is called Pradhan Pati. Some seats are reserved for only female candidates in local legislation as per the political system. Women stand in the election and get the reserved positions in the ‘gram panchayat’. However, in practicality, a woman is never handed over such power, and her husband takes up the actual authority. Meera declared while talking about the political status of women in Bundelkhand, ‘women at Khabar Lahariya are doing whatever they are doing by themselves without depending on men for anything.’

The women journalists of Khabar Lahariya understand well the difference between the reporting of gender issues by mainstream media and community media. A sense of gender sensitivity can be observed among the teammates, which is different from women working elsewhere. Most of the women journalists agree that if Khabar Lahariya had not been in the picture, the change would have come, but it would have been really slow. Khabar Lahariya has given a pace to social change in the area. Meera concludes her interview by expressing her wish to write a book on their gendered perspective and the kind of change Khabar Lahariya has brought in the area for the Dalit women of Bundelkhand.

Conclusion

The journalists of local community-based media organisations do not know any guidelines on gender-sensitive reporting; however, they developed their gender-sensitive understanding as they have seen and experienced in their personal lives. A sort of empathetic approach reflects in the reporting of women journalists who have come out of gender atrocities in their own lives. During the research work, the researcher often observed that the women journalists take too much on themselves in doing their jobs and put their safety at risk. However, as Nazni, a senior reporter of Khabar Lahariya, put, ‘I have gone through a lot in my life, and I cannot see someone else facing the same’, validates all the tolls they take on themselves for their work.

The hard work of women journalists of Khabar Lahariya deserves credit for some significant changes in that area. For instance, the cases of violence against women are coming into notice. Women themselves are coming out to report their complaints, and the local media has started giving space to such stories that they were side-lining for so long. All these are examples of how Khabar Lahariya has successfully influenced the gender debate in the area.

Moreover, when other bigger media platforms take up these stories, it significantly creates a buzz around those matters . For example, Khabar Lahariya extensively covered the public sentiment and local debate on the Triple Talaq Bill of 2019 in the Bundelkhand region. Khabar Lahariya published the coverage in both text and video forms on its various platforms. Also, some other English news portals, including First Post and The Wire took up the story on their pages, observing the relevance of the matter. The story became a success for Khabar Lahariya, and it recorded massive hits and likes on various online platforms. Many such stories on caste discrimination and casteist practices against Dalit women, plight of ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activists – Community health) workers, women's health – reports on maternal mortality, financial aid during pregnancy, and risk of sterilisation, and women journalists’ personal experiences of abuse adding to #MeToo movement – made their ways to global news portals. In addition, as mentioned earlier, different reporters and independent documentary filmmakers have increasingly covered the lives of women journalists of Khabar Lahariya, and some of these works have reached acclaimed global platforms, including a nomination for Academy award. This popularity has translated into a higher readership and audience base for the media organisation. Today the YouTube channel of Khabar Lahariya has over 100 million views, and the printed paper has a readership of 15,000 in Bundelkhand. Khabar Lahariya is no more a community media limited to community readership only but witnessing a global reach which also means that the stories brought up by Khabar Lahariya are reaching a larger mass and influencing the larger gender discourses.