In 2002, the killing of kar sevaks in the Sabarmati Express created a desire to seek revenge for the act by singling out every Muslim in Gujarat as a ‘terrorist’. Almost overnight, a proud and patriotic community found itself being targeted. In 1984, the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards led to the labeling of every Sikh as an anti-national. Indeed, what unites every riot is the constant search for the ‘enemy’. Bodos have lost their land, so have Muslims, but somehow in the popular imagination there is only one aggressor. Yet, if one were to hear the strident voices across media platforms, then it would seem that only one community has suffered. In fact, official statistics suggest that there are far more Muslims today in relief camps than other communities. As reporting becomes more exhaustive and the real tragedy unfolds through the terrified faces of the many thousands in relief camps, it is apparent that this was no one-sided riot: Bodos, Bengali Hindus, Adivasis and Muslims have all suffered in the melting pot of a diverse, multi-ethnic society. Unfortunately, instead of focusing the debate on the underlying reasons for the limited media coverage of the North-east, the Assam violence has provided another opportunity to shoot the messenger by accusing the media of making editorial choices based on the religious identity of the ‘victim’.Įven here, Assam presents a more complex scenario than what the bigoted minds who operate in black and white terms would have us believe. Did we see any coverage on the scale we see when even one little helpless child is trapped in an open drain in a metropolis? It requires a Mary Kom to put Manipur on the national map, a 100-day blockade that saw the price of petrol go up to R140 per litre in Imphal and LPG cylinders cost R2,000 scarcely got a mention. Only a few weeks before this latest cycle of violence, more than 100 people died in floods that left more than half of Assam under water. This is not to offer an excuse for the more limited coverage of the Assam riots but to try and explain that not just Kokrajhar, but indeed the entire North-east suffers from the ‘tyranny of distance’. I have little doubt that had similar rioting taken place today, the Congress goons who led the mobs would have been exposed in the same manner as the Sangh parivar groups who targeted Muslim homes in Gujarat. Delhi 84 took place in the pre-24-hour news network period. The horror was easily accessible, it could be captured on camera almost as it happened. By contrast, Gujarat 2002 took place in the heart of urban centres like Ahmedabad and Vadodara, in many instances just a few kilometres away from news organisation offices. As a result, by the time most reporters reached the worst affected districts, much of the violence was over. No national channel has an OB van in Guwahati. Kokrajhar is at least 150 kilometres from Guwahati. The truth is very different and rather more prosaic. But at another, there is a more sinister subliminal message which suggests that a ‘pseudo-secular’ media will not cover Assam because Bodos are involved, while it covered Gujarat because Muslims were being killed. At one level, it’s a legitimate question to ask in the era of 24-hour news channels. ‘Why hasn’t the media covered the Assam violence with the intensity that Gujarat was reported?’ is a question that has been raised in several fora in recent weeks. The latest comparison being drawn is between Assam and Gujarat. Shockingly, the fact that every human life lost in any riot should be seen as a blot on the country is lost in the cacophony of a studio. It’s almost as if the opposing sides are suggesting that, “My record in handling riots is better than yours because fewer people died in ‘my riot’.” It’s almost as if a collective sense of guilt at one horrific act of violence will be erased only by equating it with another. Failure to do so opens one to the charge of bias and worse. So any television debate on Gujarat 2002 must necessarily draw an analogy to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. In an emotionally surcharged and polarised polity, even riot politics can become a zero-sum game.