Saluting Rural Journalism

In one of his poems, the one-act-play doyen Dr. Ramkumar Verma bows to farmers: “He grām-devtā namaskār. Sone-chāndī se nahīn, kintu tumne māṭī se kiyā pyār. He grām-devtā namaskār.” In much the same spirit, this is a salute to you—rural reporters. And for similar reasons. Like farmers across the country, rural journalists too are neglected. Farmers often lack awareness of their rights and entitlements, and are insufficiently organized to fight for them; as a result their condition, even after a century, has scarcely changed. Something very similar besets our rural journalists. They are neglected like the farmer. Even when they do know their rights, they are not in a position to fight for them. They are not organized. Media houses have grown in clout, yet their station has scarcely changed by comparison. That, too, when this most important—and most neglected—stratum of the media is the real and often the only carrier of information and communication, because news is no longer an urban fief.

I have worked with several leading newspapers and media groups, and I can say honestly that I can think through the hardships of rural journalists—even if I can only feel them second-hand. In the cities, not only IAS officers and bureaucrats, even chief ministers and cabinet ministers will stand, figuratively, arms folded, before a senior reporter; but in the villages our reporters often have to face down the local patwārī and daroga—and sometimes lose. Even so, your daily newsgathering is tough. You deserve practical support and human sympathy. Three short vignettes to show the importance of rural journalism:

1) The year is 1947. India’s freedom movement is at its peak. Mahatma Gandhi’s Sevagram, Vani Wardha, is the nerve centre. India’s tallest leaders are in conclave there. A peon from the Nagpur collectorate, wearing the red belt, cycles into Sevagram and asks a rural journalist present: “Where can I find Jawaharlal Nehru?” The reporter’s curiosity is pricked; he shoots back: “Why?” The peon replies: “The Nagpur collector has sent a letter from the Viceroy.” The rural reporter pedals to the telegraph office and wires a story: “Viceroy invites Nehru to form government.” He put two and two together—and was right. One of the biggest scoops of the last century came from a rural reporter.

2) In eastern UP’s Deoria district lies Narayanpur village. An elderly woman was run over by a bus near the village. Villagers erupted in protest. To break their spirit, the police went on a rampage—there were even incidents of gang rape. A CPI worker traveling on that bus reached Deoria and informed a rural reporter that the police had cordoned off Narayanpur. The reporter filed a two-paragraph story that ran in Lucknow as well. K. Vikram Rao—then with The Times of India—read the report, hired a taxi and reached Narayanpur. From there he filed the ground story of police atrocities. Two state ministers raised the matter in the assembly—SP’s Mohan Singh among them. It was Makar Sankranti, 14 January 1980. Indira Gandhi had returned to power just fifteen days earlier. Her first visit after being sworn in was to Narayanpur. She held a press conference at Deoria—R.K. Dhawan and Sanjay Gandhi by her side. Vikram Rao asked if she would order an inquiry—or dismiss the state government. Indira Gandhi, adept at answering questions with questions, shot back: “Does the Banarasi Das government have the moral right to remain after this incident?” Rao’s filed copy concluded: “Banarasi Das government has hours to live.” Within 48 hours the government fell. The credit for breaking not only this story but triggering the fall? A rural reporter who wrote a two-paragraph brief from Narayanpur.

3) In a Vadodara suburb, assembly elections were on. Congress candidate Thakurbhai Patel— the city’s first mayor—was widely touted as a future chief minister. His opponent was labour leader G. Parāḍkar. A rural reporter, with a pinch of mischief, asked Patel: “What if Parāḍkar defeats you?” Patel quipped: “Even my Alsatian can beat Parāḍkar—leave me aside.” The reporter published the quote in Gujarat Samachar. Leaders George Fernandes, Madhu Limaye and Mrinal Gore read it, decided to campaign for Parāḍkar, and landed in Vadodara. They barnstormed from a single car, asking crowds: “Decide—will you vote for a dog, or for a man?” The result: Thakurbhai Patel lost— felled by a rural reporter’s well-timed needle.

Tell me: have you seen a metropolitan reporter deliver stories with this kind of consequence? Yes, urban journalists have broken Harshad Mehta, 2G, Coalgate, CWG, Bofors—because that’s where the money is; that’s where the scams percolate.

I concede freely: you probably think of Delhi–Lucknow bylines like mine as bloodsuckers—because you don’t get fair payment. In big papers and bigger groups, the most exploited cohort is the rural correspondent—the district and tehsil stringer. The news pressure on him is higher; the stress too. We pay so little that he can’t even fill his scooter’s tank properly. Yet when we commission work we pretend money has no relation to labour. I accept: you don’t get fair pay; we salaried journalists live within our packages. But I have one question to you as well.

Why do you agree to work without pay? When a MGNREGA labourer won’t leave without ₹125 at day’s end, why do you rush into throat-cut competition for the “right to report” and a channel’s photo-ID alone? Why do you, after years of work, not even get an official ID card from the media house? The contacts you cultivate, the sources you build, the grit you show—that’s how you get stories. It pains me that whenever I sought to hire a district stringer—or someone used influence to land such a role—no one ever asked: “How much will you pay?” In a cash economy, not asking that question puts you in the dock. Demand your price.

When a media group offers you work, ask first: “What will you pay?” Otherwise, you’ll have to extend your hand to cover daily costs—“manage” favours—depend on officials—hover around police stations and tehsils—buddy up to “milk” departments like Education and Food & Civil Supplies. To deserve your price, prepare yourself for the newsroom and its demands. Training is the single biggest need in rural journalism. Urban reporters get trainings; rural reporters haven’t. They must—because on the frontier of “development,” rural belts are now primary news sources. Use that to your advantage.

Consider mineral stories: minerals don’t come from cities. Recently I read a tiny brief—gold deposits in Doon hills—then silence. The Godavari–Kaveri basin oil find? A rural reporter’s tip— a story that can redraw India’s energy map. Rajasthan’s uranium seams? That too first bubbled up through rural reporters. But now, rural reporters need training to write such stories: how much will the mine yield? How much foreign exchange might we save? The byline that can explain these wins prominent space—hence: training, training, training. Likewise, for economics: Bundelkhand’s drought losses; embankment cutting and silt loss in eastern UP floods; most rural desk copy misses basics— how many cubic feet of soil were lost; what discharge flow did the river carry?

Rail accidents—most occur in rural stretches. To report them well you must identify causes, scan technical facets, state the train’s speed, track class, signalling context—not simply re-type a railway officer’s sound-bite. Rural reporters should proactively link with their mothership newsrooms—the houses that keep more trained rural reporters will win the future, because the very forms of news are shifting.

A striking instance: the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu trained journalists from border districts on the Indian and Nepali constitutions, bilateral trade treaties, shared histories—even the odd fact that Nepal’s kings were once rulers in the Dehradun tract. The before/after of those border reporters’ copy is instructive—training changed their tone, structure, and depth. Content you have; now learn to render it publishable—through language. Rural copy is often raw; polish it into communicative prose.

Don’t wait for government. Organize your own upskilling. I will be blunt: after the last five years—after the “absolute majority” regime of Mayawati—we journalists felt broken-hearted; we had become mute; our pens had withered. Six months after that government fell, suddenly reports poured out—Ambedkar Park soil scam, elephant statue scam, power-equipment scam. Who’s to blame for the prior silence? You and I. Did we not know? We knew. We did not print. Now we file scams like a daily diet, lap up the applause, write as if we are unmasking hidden continents.

Here, both rural and urban journalists failed their societies. Maybe in Delhi–Lucknow we wouldn’t have carried some of your courage-stories. But sooner or later, when the wind shifted and all outlets hunted the same quarry, any editor who once spiked your report would have regretted it. That is why you must write anyway. Do not hold your pen for fear a story “might get spiked.”

I know this first-hand. In 2008 I filed a 2G-scam story from Lucknow. I have rarely had a story spiked while working with Alok Mehta Ji—but this one the desk did not pass up to him. I usually fight to the last for my reporters’ work; I do not fight for my own. When other papers carried the 2G exposés, our desk colleagues, whenever we met, offered apology after apology—their faces and manner spoke more regret than words. When Alok Mehta Ji later learnt that my 2G story had been held, he ordered that my reports could carry any dateline—anywhere in the nation. For a reporter, that is no small gratification. My point to you: write the story. Do not freeze your hand because it might be stopped.

(Kushinagar conference of the Rural Journalists’ Association, 27 May 2012—though I could not attend for lack of time.)