How to mislead your readers: Lessons from News18

Your favourite news portal might churn out Fake News
Photo: Internet Search

In the last couple of years we have seen an exponential rise in usage of the term, “Fake News”. The term got traction, shortly before the US elections and has been used widely ever since. The term was coined in response to so called news reports, claiming actions and events, which never happened. But is that all Fake News is about? If a news report claims that the sun has risen in the west today, it will obviously be a fake news. But what about news reports, which uses data, first person accounts, field visits and other credible means to publish a report, yet it doesn’t give you the true picture? Can this “fact based” news still be called Fake News?

Indian Affair came across this news report from New18. Filed by Adrija Bose, the news talks about a very sensitive topic, that of human trafficking. Now before I talk more about the news report, it is worthwhile to know that almost all headlines for a news report are written by a special desk and not by the reporter filing the story. The idea is to write a catchy headline, which will get more clicks. This is known as “click bait”.

The headline reads, “It's So Common For Haryana's Men to Buy and Sell Wives That No One Cares anymore”. Now a headline like this should send shivers down our spines. Because buying and selling wives has become common in Haryana. When one uses the word, “common”, for an activity, it implies that a vast majority of people practice that. One can say, “smoking is common among men in India”. Common things can be observed by everyone. They don’t need an “investigative reporter” to go out and collect data. The headline will make us believe that a vast majority of the 25.3 million people in Haryana practice wife buying and selling.

But wait, isn’t buying and selling wives illegal, let alone inhuman? Why isn’t anyone talking about it? What are the opposition parties doing in Haryana? If a vast majority is involved in buying and selling of wives, there would have been a national outrage. Victims would have come forward and their buyers/sellers would have been hounded by the media. Clearly the claim by New18 is a case of exaggeration, bordering on Fake News.

The news also claims that the state has a sex ratio of 834, i.e. 834 women for every 1,000 men. I have no idea where this number is coming from. The census of 2011 counted 877 women per 1,000 men, a significant increase from 2001 census, of 861. So in the very beginning of the “news report”, two major lies have been used. Dispensing wrong or misleading information is also Fake News.

After a sweeping generalisation in the headline, the “news report”, for no apparent reason, shifts its focus to Mewat. The district of Mewat in Haryana is the most backward district of India. With a decadal population growth of 38% (state average of 20%), it has the highest population growth rates in the state, except for Gurgaon due to migration. This is primarily to a significantly high fertility rate in the district. Against the state average of 2.7, Mewat has a fertility rate of 5. Surprisingly the claim of an abysmal sex ratio as the reason for the “common practice of wife buying and selling”, also turns out to be suspicious. The district of Mewat has a sex ratio of 906 (against the state average of 877), the highest in the state. The district also has the lowest literacy rates in Haryana. Only 73% men in the district are literate against the state average of 85% and an abysmally low 38% women are literate, against the state average of 67%.

Adrija Bose, managed to talk to four trafficked women in the district, all married/sold to Muslim families. This is not surprising given that Mewat’s 79% population is Muslim. It is only natural that statistically they will be higher in any parameter. Surprisingly, in the “news report”, Adrija does not provide us the numbers for trafficked women even for a single village. While she claims that the practice is “common” yet she could only come up with just four women in the entire district. One can understand that it is difficult to find out trafficked victims, let alone talk to them. But when something is “common”, it should have been possible for Adrija to talk to more than four women in a district with over 1 million people.

Later on in the “news report”, Adrija encounters a shocking truth. She says, “The shocking part is that everyone here is aware that 'Paros' [a term used for trafficked women] are bought from different parts of the country because of the lack of women in their state, that they are often shared among the brothers in a family, and that they are sold to other villagers. But no one bats an eyelid.” She goes on to extrapolate her personal opinion, as a problem of the entire state. She clearly failed her statistics exam, if she ever took one.

Finally Adrija quotes, Ghausia Khan, a local activist, where she reveals the source of the problem. “The 59-year-old activist may be the only light in all of Mewat district, but she has not been able to stop the practice. "I have tried, but I can't do this alone. Men who are old, alcoholic, violent, or widowed don't find wives in Haryana. So they go to other states to find wives," she said.” So the so called “common” practice of buying and selling wives is restricted to a particular category of men in Mewat. Apparently it is not even “common” in Mewat, let alone Haryana.

The problem of trafficked women being sold to men in Mewat and their subsequent commoditisation, seems to be a local problem. This is an alarming situation. While Muslim women in rest of the country are fighting against Triple Talaq and Nikah Halala, the trafficked women in Mewat are not even given their basic right to a legal marriage. It will be futile to engage with the local Maulvis to solve this problem. They, in all probability are indifferent to the crime. There is a need for more women like Ghausia Khan, who will fight the battle for their fellow Muslim women.

The problem with ill researched reports is that they appear to be true when someone reads them. The reader will only get to see the truth once they start doing their own research. In this particular “news report” Adrija would have spoken to people in the Mewat region, but she extrapolates her “findings” to the entire state and to all of North India. She then absurdly goes on to claim that, “Though the practice of buying wives is common in the northern part of India, it's especially popular in Haryana.” One wonders, what her yardstick to measure what common or popular is? Such sweeping statements not only diminish the credibility of news and the journalist, it also trivialises a very sensitive issue. 

Haryana has become some kind of a punching bag for reporters who want to cover “patriarchy” and other social issues. There are many problems in Haryana, including patriarchy and others. But these problems exist in almost all states, in varying degrees. But Haryana is almost on the top when it comes to “news reports” on such subjects. It is probably due to the fact that a journalist can simply ask their office driver to take them to the nearest patriarchy infested village. And being surrounded on three sides by Haryana, the probability and convenience of landing up in a Haryana village is extremely high. As a famous journalist once sighted the “tyranny of distance” as an excuse to not cover the Assam riots, it is the ease of access for the likes of Adrija Bose. One can do a day trip to a Haryana village and file an extrapolated report the next day. It is that easy.

India at the United Nations Security Council - You propose, I oppose

India has been a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) seven times since 1950. Its current membership will end in December 2012. This membership period is perhaps the most interesting period in India’s history of UN membership of the Security Council. January 2011, started off with a wave of unprecedented string of uprisings in North Africa and Middle East. What started in Tunisia as a rebellion against the corrupt regime soon spread to the entire region and came to be known as the Arab Spring. Sadly as the Arab Spring gave way to Arab summer and winter, India watched the events from the sidelines or sat on the wrong side of the voting table.

The very first opportunity came up in shape of the Libyan crisis. As the Arab spring entered Libya hundreds of civilians became target of organised massacre by Mr Gaddafi. In middle of March 2011, Gaddafi forces announced a massive crack down on rebel forces in Bengazhi (second city of Libya), which immediately deteriorated the situation. The UNSC proposed to adopt a resolution (resolution number 1973) to enforce a no fly zone. The Libyans wanted UN intervention, the members of neighbouring Arab countries supported UN action, India however chose to abstain. The argument used to justify abstention on voting was more of a lame excuse. India said that the report prepared by the special envoy to Libya was not made available and the secretariat has not made an assessment of the report. In such a situation it will be unfair to take military action. India suggested political efforts to handle the situation, while a city of 650,000 people was under imminent danger from forward marching Gaddafi forces.

The second opportunity came when the case of Mr Gbagbo came up for discussion. Mr Gbagbo disputed the victory of Mr Ouattara, his political rival who won a presidential runoff election in November 2010. Mr Gbagbo’s refusal to hand over power to the legitimate winner (the election was monitored by international observers) started a spate of political violence. Thousands of people were killed by supporters Mr Gbagbo and hundreds of thousands fled their homes. The scale of violence was grave enough to be termed as the second civil war of Côte d’Ivoire. The UNSC adopted a resolution sanctioning military intervention to save civilians from the ongoing killings. The situation in Côte d’Ivoire was clearly an anathema to India’s democratic values. India was not a member of UNSC at the time the resolution (sanctioning military intervention) was adopted. However, India voted against another resolution (on 31^st March 2011) referring the case of Mr Gbagbo to the International Criminal Court. In its speech on the voting floor India came across as a country which preferred restrain even as thousands of civilians were killed or displaced.

Let there be no vote

Yet another opportunity presented itself with intensifying of conflict in Syria. The Human Rights arm of UN, The Human Rights Council on 23^rd August proposed to adopt a resolution to send an independent international commission of inquiry to Syria to investigate alleged violation of human rights. Syrians have been experiencing government crackdown ever since the protests first started on 26^th January 2011. Thousands were killed, tortured and arrested by August 2011. In its response to the resolution India said, “India’s traditional position on country specific resolutions is well known. We do not regard spotlighting and finger -pointing at a country for human right violations as helpful. We believe that engaging the country concerned in collaborative and constructive dialogue and partnership is a more pragmatic and productive way forward...” India abstained from voting.

Beware of the foreign hand

Three crucial votes and India played the spoilsport in all three. India however was not the only country sitting on the wrong side of the table. Russia and China consistently opposed most of the resolutions (it took a lot of effort to make them support the no fly zone over Libya). On careful analysis all the three resolutions were also an instrument of regime change. The UN on behalf of its member states and with support of NATO forces successfully changed regimes in Libya and Côte d’Ivoire. For countries like Russia and China this is their worst fears coming true.

Both Russia and China are accused of large scale human rights abuses, restricting free press, restriction on free movement of people and above all murdering democracy. While the Arab world was blossoming in its Arab Spring, China put extra policemen on the streets to stop a Jasmine revolution. Election results in Russia were predefined and Mr Putin decided to grab power for two more terms. Elections in China happen every decade without a single vote being cast. With political opponents and dissidents being sent to prison on frivolous charges both Russia and China are the hotspots of absolute power. They would be the last ones to support any such resolutions, which are aimed at altering the political framework of a country.

On the contrary India is a shining example of democracy. Human right records put India much ahead of Russia and China, India enjoys a free press and people are free to move within the country. With all the good players on its side India still lost the game. What went wrong with India? There can be many reasons as to why India behaved the way it did. The reasons can be traced back to the cold war and beyond.

As a young democracy India preferred to not align with any of the military blocs during the cold war. Acting on the principle of non interference India together with Egypt and what was then Yugoslavia started a Non Align Movement. This was a bloc of recently independent colonies in Asia and Africa (mostly poor). This bloc came to be known as the third world (the West and Soviet being first and second). India wanted to shed its colonial baggage and march ahead. However, later on India did suffer from some setbacks where the Western bloc meted out a raw deal to India. The non cooperation of the West in the Kashmir issue at the UN and later a war with China demonised it. India opposed whatever the West proposed. This also led to India’s proximity with the Soviet Union during later years of the Cold War.

Though India has emerged out of the “Hindu rate of growth” in economic terms it still is stuck in the cold war days when it comes to diplomacy. It still finds the concept of “sovereignty” extremely touchy and sometimes misunderstands it. Political veterans still refer to the “foreign hand” when situations go out of control (be it inflation or FDI in retail). India still feels threatened by the West and its ideas. However, India aspires to be the member of UNSC. But the question is, is India ready for that position?