The Mirwaiz and the tomatoes in democracy

Prabhjit Singh

The talks. The slogan has been reverberating in the air since long, not from mouthpieces of the hardliners in the valley but from the corridors of power in Delhi to defuse the turmoil in Kashmir. And when the civil society in the national capital, besides Kolkata and Chandigarh, managed to bring them - a ‘soft’ Hurriyat leader Umar Farooq Mirwaiz or the ‘hawk’ Syed Ali Shah Gilani – outside the valley to talk, tomatoes and eggs were visible as weapons for those who never wanted them to talk.
“Look, they carry tomatoes down there, they will create a mess,” pointed a fellow journalist at the socks of a young man but with a smile in anticipation of a ‘good copy’.
A hidden citizen inside every journalist too roused my conscience and I moved to the front, asking that fellow with tomatoes in socks and pockets to leave the seat meant for the media. The refusal was so loud that it made an eerie silence and an embarrassing situation for the organisers.
After the melee of brickbats, in which the Mirwaiz had a narrow escape, another fellow journalist gave me a belated advise-“you should not have stopped them, we came here to report ‘yaar’, and not as a peace activist.
My disagreement led to debate on the relevance of the civil society’s initiative to hold such seminars in public “in different parts of the country outside the valley”. The tomatoes, the eggs and the broken flower pots and window panes took a back stage.
The matter didn’t end here. The rumours spread that the journalists who assisted or helped the organisers in the event and later in resisting the hooligans to reach the Mirwaiz, now faced tough time in their service matter back in office.
“Don’t try to become Dileep Padgaonkar.” The reply came, in the mid of the discussion when the episode of the three interlocutors- all non-political entities – returning without being hit or even touched in the valley where they, of course, heard separatist slogans.
Yes, the media persons are not essentially the peace makers. But could we say that journalists are not part of the civil society. There have been at least four episodes where the Parliamentarians, and the three interlocutors with a non-political entity, never faced a
single egg or even a stone (as the valley is known for nowadays) during their visit ‘to hold talks’ with none other than Geelani or the Mirwaiz.
Where to draw the line, when the chances of a sensational story increases but at the cost of humiliation of those with whom the country’s government wanted to break the ice.
If our veteran media persons used to inform the police about the hidden terrorists at the cost of a sensational copy in the eventuality of a terrorist attack during the black phase in Punjab, then stopping those hands from blackening the faces of the speakers at a civil
conclave is no less than standing by democracy.
Journalist Jarnail Singh losing the job for throwing his shoe in front of the country’s Home Minister could be justified and even debated looking at the gravity of the issue, but could the media people face any action for stopping those hands?

Prabhjit Singh is Chandigarh based senior journalist and working with Hindustan Times. He is known for his people centric stories on Punjab.