जाने-माने पत्रकार पी साईनाथ की ख्याति उनकी ग्रामीण भारत की रिपोर्टों की वजह से है. वे न होते तो भारत की ग्रामीण पत्रकारिता गर्त में जा चुकी होती. अंग्रेज़ी अखबार हिन्दू के ग्रामीण मामलों के सम्पादक रहे साईनाथ इन दिनों ग्रामीण रिपोर्टिंग पर आधारित वेबसाइट pari का संचालन कर रहे हैं. यहाँ हम मीडिया पर उनकी सोच दर्शाता एक इंटरव्यू दे रहे हैं उनकी वेबसाइट से साभार:
P. Sainath, the former Rural Affairs Editor of the
Hindu, has won an outrageous number of awards for his journalism (over 40). He
recently launched his latest project, the People’s Archive of Rural India,
where he hopes to document the “everyday lives of everyday people.” It provides
multimedia coverage of subtopics such as “Women,” “Things We Do,” Things We
Make,” and “Farming and its Crisis.” The Herald sat down with Sainath in Luce
Hall to discuss the role of objectivity in journalism, what goes into capturing
the lives of the 1.2 billion people who live in India, and his golden rule of
always being aware of what he doesn’t know.
YH: How
did you get involved in Journalism?
Sainath: Historically
the Indian press is a child of the Indian freedom struggle, and I came from a
family that was heavily involved in the freedom struggle. Almost every major
nationalist leader in that struggle, whether it was Gandhi, or Nehru, or the
women Sarojini Naidu and Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, every one of those leaders also
doubled up as a journalist. They saw journalism as a society in discussion with
itself. They saw journalism as a mode of social change.
When I finished my higher studies or left them halfway
through, there was no great plan or grand design. It was perfectly natural for
me to go into journalism because that’s where all the people I associated with
the freedom struggle went. I was born ten years after it was over and I would
say my values are rooted in that generation and in that struggle. So, it was a
perfectly natural move to make.
YH: Has
your role as an objective journalist ever forced you to make some difficult
choices when working with the rural populations you cover?
Sainath: Absolutely,
and I have very serious issues with the use of the term “objectivity.” By the
way, we are sitting in the Henry Luce building. Right? Do you know that one of
the more famous statements from Luce about the doctrine of objectivity is,
“Objectivity is strictly a phony”? There are three kinds of objectivity in my
opinion. One is desirable. One is genuine. And, one is a fraud. The doctrine of
objectivity, which is really a North American product, the doctrine, in my
view, is a fraud….
So, the first kind of objectivity is the objectivity
of the pure sciences. Now, that is admirable, desirable, but not replicable in
journalism. Because, say, suppose someone claims they have created cold
fusion, you remember the claim a few years ago of cold fusion? A thousand
scientists across the country, across the world, are able to replicate those
conditions in a lab and check the veracity of the claim. You and I can’t do
that as journalists. Our labs are entirely different…The laboratory is the
laboratory of daily life and human beings are incredibly different from
chemical compounds. The objectivity of the pure sciences, where something can
be verified, checked, and examined, that is very desirable and it’s admirable
but it’s not replicable beyond a certain degree in the social sciences and in
journalism.
The second thing is the doctrine of objectivity, which
I consider a fraud and really ends up giving the last word to authority and the
powerful. Incidentally, all this doctrine of balance and two sides goes out the
window when the major interests of the newspaper or the channel or the country
it represents are threatened. There is a difference between objectivity and the
doctrine of objectivity. The doctrine of objectivity, which is the gift you
guys give the world, is a fraud. It defends the powerful. It always weakens the
arguments against power.
Though, one caveat, there are people who follow
schools of journalism… which have tried for a third kind of objectivity that I
am very supportive of, which is your personal objectivity, the honesty with
which you deal with a subject. The first thing about being honest is to accept
that our value systems have an impact on us. Now, the day that we accept that
journalism is a very subjective art is the day we begin striving for
objectivity. Now, if I start with the myth that I am objective then you
will be actually committing a serious disservice to your readers, or viewers,
or listeners. If you start from the point of view that we all have our deep
subjectivities, we all are affected by our sensitivities and our socialization
then you know what to look out for. You know the biases and the prejudices to
watch out for when you write.
YH: What
would you say your subjectivities are when you start writing a piece?
Sainath: It
depends on the subject of the issue. I have different subjectivities on
different issues. I have never been dishonest with my readers. They know
where I stand. I never conceal that. My journalism is about the everyday lives
of everyday people. I write about the work poor people do. I write about the
work ordinary people do.
I will write about agri-business. I will and have
written about Monsanto. I will and have written about Cargill. And if I report
them, I will report them very honestly. When I’ve done stories on these guys,
they never ever complained that their version was unfairly represented, and
I’ve done a lot of stories.
YH: Why
did you choose to resign from the Hindu and start the People’s Archive?
Sainath: I
was the only rural affairs editor in existence in India, in South Asia and as
far as I know anywhere else at the national level. How many newspapers do you
know of that have a rural editor full time? I spent 270 days a year on average
of the last 22 years in the countryside.
I spent most of my time, even now, even after leaving
the Hindu in the countryside in the poorest areas trying to understand how
people cope, what are their survival strategies, and trying to do it as much
from giving them a voice rather than imposing my own, that’s also a form of
objectivity. As a writer, and a journalist, and a reporter. I bring in the data.
I bring in the perspective. I bring in context. The story is theirs.
I did this
in the Hindu for ten years. I had a fantastic run at the Hindu. The Hindu took
rural India out of ghettos of agriculture and things like that and put it on
the op-ed pages. No reader of the millions that the Hindu has ever questioned
the objectivity of any of these pieces. In fact, they had the highest number of
hits. They had an astonishing following, which stands me in good stead wherever
I’m writing, and it also shows that human beings in the cities are not brain
dead consumers. They have an interest in other human beings who are less
privileged and less fortunate than they are. My entire experience has been that
people are concerned, that they are worried.
So, the
Hindu did this and it was hugely successful. In late 2013 and early 2014, there
were changes in the paper that made me feel that that run had come to an end,
and that the new priorities did not include the rural. It did not include the
poor, the farmer, the marginal. And I left.
At that time, my eyes were being opened up to the
possibilities of what the digital platform allowed. So, I’m doing the same
thing that I’ve done for 20 years as a full time rural reporter, but the
digital platform infinitely expands the scope for it. So, I’ve been
concentrating on the People’s Archive of Rural India, which is both a living
journal and an archive.
YH: Why
have you chosen to use so many different forms of media–writing, photography,
video–to create this archive? What does it add?
Sainath: I
think that for me it is all about storytelling. There are two aspects. One is
documenting the complexities of the Indian countryside which is the most
complex part of planet earth, 833 million people speaking 780 languages, six of
those languages spoken by more than 50 million people, three of them spoken by
more than 80 million, some of them spoken by 10 people, the last speakers of a
given language. I just did a video on that. Don’t you think it’s important to
record a language that is about to go into extinction? It is part of my
culture, part of my history, part of my legacy. As a journalist I want to be
able to report on it.
YH: I
have a few more questions on here, but they seem to be questions that you’ve
given answers to before. So, what’s just on your mind? What are you thinking
about right now?
Sainath: Right
now we are trapped with how to cope with the expansion of this project. It is
growing much faster than we can cope with. We are getting 150 volunteers a week
online. There are 14 of us in the core group. I had 200 or 300 volunteers
before I began, mostly fellow journalists who were once students of mine. But,
now we are getting 150 highly skilled volunteers ranging from accountants to
medical doctors in rural areas to bankers. They want to do something for it.
So, we are trying to see how to train them so that they can document, so that
they can record, so that they can tell stories. And that’s what we are
grappling with.
YH: Any
words of advice for students who are interested in going into journalism?
Sainath: If
you are someone burning to connect with other human beings, as I am, then it’s
what I see journalism being about. Good journalism is a society in
conversation, argument, often raucous argument, debate, and discussion with
itself. Now, if that’s your view of journalism you will really enjoy it because
you will be taking your studies and your knowledge and using it to interact
with reality, where it will be a help to you and where it will be helped by the
interaction with reality.
So, I would say this. If you are accepting corporate
media as the be-all and end-all of journalism, and you are going there, don’t
go. If journalism for you is about engaging with society, connecting with your
fellow human beings, trying to do something to understand the world in order
that perhaps there are things that could be done better, then go for
journalism.
Interview condensed by Abigail Schneider and the
Herald. Originally published at the Yale Herald.
http://psainath.org/sitting-down-with-p-sainath/
