India Unheard - Telling stories of Unheard communities

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Stella Paul

28 April, 2010

Next week we will celebrate International Labour Day and World Press Freedom Day. On the eve of that, a community news service called IndiaUnheard is launching. IndiaUnheard is dedicated to get news of all poor communities including labourers.

TWO SIGNIFICANT dates are coming up next week and like the rest of the world, a lot of plans are on card to celebrate these two dates in India as well – International Labor Day on 1^st of May and World Press Freedom Day on May 3.

Interestingly, although separated just by a day, the real distance between the two events is greater than we could even imagine. To begin with, ‘whats a laborer got to do with press freedom?’ goes a thought and most of us, especially working journalists subscribe to it.

The thought gets reflected in action. So, on the labor day, the media, mostly on print, usually carries some tiny write ups on labour day and, maybe it’s historical significance.

The news section, however, is devoted to the usual lot of news about alleged scams, bribe accusations, alleged match fixing in cricket. Columns after columns are dedicated to how a certain actress wore a particular dress at more than one social event, or, how an actor with a six pack body, now trying to get an eight pack. On TV, hours of airtime devoted to ‘crime diaries’ or, reading of zodiac signs.

But low wages, unpaid salary, difficult work hours, discrimination against women labourers, education of migrant labourers getting affected – these are all ‘non issues’.

However, this year there will be a little change in this picture. For the first time, this Press Freedom Day we will see someone reporting on the migrant labourers in rural India and what the Labour day means to them. The reporter, Bhan Sahu, is a former laborer herself, representing the tribal community of Chattisgarh – a state that has been reeling under the Govt-Maoist conflict and eruption of violence.

It’s the first day Bhan Shau’s is operating a video camera for the first time. And she knows what she wants to do with it. Hers will not be about summarizing a labourer’s story in a para with a glossy pic. It will be a story told by one who lives among the realities of the migrant laborer community.

However, Bhan Sahu will not be a lone ranger. Joining her in the story-telling mission will be 30 others community correspondents from 24 states of India, each one representing a community that has so much to tell, yet never got a chance to do so. Now, under a news service called IndiaUnheard, these people will become the voice of these unheard communities.

For, press freedom means freedom to tell one’s own news and this Press Freedom Day these community correspondents will exercise their freedom to tell their own news, like they have seen it and like they want to say it.