News reporting in Bhutan’s context

By Nanda Gautam
The Netherlands

When editors and reporters make choices about what stories to cover, and how to cover them, the decision comes out mostly from the media strategy and the national culture. The national culture emphasizes what is considered proper in their own definition, how to act towards strangers and what to express, no matter whatever the truth is. Culture is truly a mind programming. The media strategy generally bases its values and rituals on their national culture. This character is distinctive in Bhutan’s information production and delivery system today.
The sense of public insecurity began in Bhutan after the fourth hereditary monarch turned to bitter politics that was felt mainly by the Lhotshampas as direct interference to their private life and restrictions against their rights and freedoms. Drukpas on the other hand were made to feel falsely that Lhosthampas are the enemies of the nation (Ngolop), illegal immigrants trying to take over the country. People take criticism against the monarchy and its government as personal attack.
How can one operate as a ‘Journalist’ in this type of socio-political setting? After ten years in exile, I recall here the way I have worked and attempt to answer the above question.
I am a passionate radio listener and inquisitive to news. One day in 1991, I learnt from a part-time News Presenter of the Bhutan Broadcasting Service that the government may closedown broadcasting in the Lhotshampa minority language and the blame for that shall be tagged against the Lhotshampas themselves for not giving adequate importance to it. I decided to change my carrier from teaching. I approached the Director and the Minister for Communication to present my motivation to work in this language service. At that time the use of this language was stopped in schools and institutions. After passing a selection exam, I got the chance to discover for myself if I could be a voice for those unheard or silenced.
The Lhotshamp-kha/Nepali language unit of the BBS was attached to the News and Current Affairs Division. Journalism is practiced here as a carrier and must follow organizational values which in my case limited the options to fully exercise the virtue of journalism.
The news aired by the BBS is prepared through censorship mechanism after the reporters and stringers submit it to the News Coordinator. He carefully selects the news items and uses proper words. For example, the forcibly exiled Lhotshampas living in the UNHCR refugee camps in Nepal since 1990 are never addressed by the Bhutanese media as ‘the refugees’ but uses a term as ‘the problem of the people in the camps’. This trick is to make the rest of the world unknown to this forcible exile believe that the Bhutanese regime is not guilty of the human rights violations however the forcible exile was executed as consequence against the demand for democracy. The stories related to human rights, border issues, refugees and reports that are not palatable, also to the Indian government are assumed as ‘sensitive’ and often not selected. The reporters avoid reporting on events that are assumed as ‘sensitive’ because he or she doesn’t want to take risk or invest extra energy to get sanction from the higher authorities. Thus the stories are rarely people oriented. Keeping in mind of the organization culture, that has a brigade of elites working in it, the news production becomes naturally elite oriented; focuses on their achievements and gives name to their opposition as evildoers.
I remember one story from Samchi. A flash flood destroyed many hectares of crops. The news reported that although the crop was destroyed leaving many farmers with famine, it declared that compensation for the famers is not necessary. This is because the famers are Lhotshmpas. Later, same type of incident occurred in Chhuka, but in that event the news said that the compensation is imminent! The farmers in this case are Ngalongs. Dogs stray all over Thimphu streets. When asked by the Westerners why not get rid of them to prevent rabies epidemic, the answer given was that ‘we are Buddhist and won’t resort in killing’. ‘We are sympathetic to all sentient beings’. Incidents from these places covered are one-sided cliché, biased and unchecked. Reporting in Bhutan is a challenge to break the bi-polar conflict between the assumptions ‘us versus them’ and find out what lies in between.
If reporting in Bhutan were truth oriented, media; Keunsel, BBS and other new establishments would expose untruth on all sides, uncover all cover-ups and expose the truth. Unfortunately it is not always encouraged due to the national culture. Very often reporting has the tendency to help cover-up lies of the regime, dehumanize opposition, sees the underdog as problem and wants to be reactive waiting for violence before reporting. The reporting, in addition, doesn’t focus on suffering of all, on women, children and the disadvantaged population. Giving voice to the voiceless is often taken as an insult against the regime. This is because the underdog is distinctively an ethnic group of Lhotshampas which is discriminated by the state, based on their race, like in the age of apartheid Africa. I was nearly killed or imprisoned as a consequence of giving a voice to the voiceless people.
It was beginning of 1996 the BBS management allowed me to join a team of producers going to Punakha for the inauguration ceremony of Pho chuu bridge. I had to make a topical program that focussed on in-depth reporting on a topic of current affairs. The inauguration was very elaborate. When it was time for the lunch, a group of poorly dressed men, women and children came and they were violently chased towards the backside of the tent by an officer. I knew from their appearances that they were labourers conscripted from the Southern districts. I followed them. One old Brahmin inquired if he could speak the truth. I said, ‘yes’, and he began with a cry. His plight was that he was forced by the local officers in his village in Tshirang to join the National Work Force ten years ago. This was a labour force created by the home ministry to construct roads, bridges and government installations. His main tragedy was that his land was confiscated by the government after the political demonstration of 1990. His house was also destroyed. In addition, his children were not allowed to go to school although he was promised for such provisions earlier. He understood of late that the promises the home ministry initially gave such as the eligibility for extra land, housing and loan facilities after completion of ten years tenure were false. He felt betrayed.
I spoke also with a couple. The man looked sick, feeble and was breathing heavily. His daughter perhaps three years old was half naked and malnourished. They were Tamang family from Sarpang. The woman began speaking with me over her difficulties in work on the construction sites. They always had to move from one place to another. Her husband got tuberculosis. He was never allowed to stay in the hospital for full treatment. They talked a lot about the cruelty meted by the employers and meagre wages given. The whole family was scared not knowing where they would be sent out since the work on that bridge was over. They had not visited their ancestral land in Sarpang but heard that resettled Western Bhutanese had occupied their land. I recorded their voice and also noted their detail in my notebook. Then I went to the recruitment officer of the Home Ministry with questions surrounding the recruitment methods, compensations in case of disabilities, education and medical facilities etc. He claimed in the interview that everything is done properly except he admitted that schooling for the labourer’s children was not possible because they had to move from one construction site to another.
I produced 15 minutes long radio program with the mix up of the bridge inauguration ceremony and the plights of those labourers. The labourers expressed the truth on how the poor and innocents were misused. The interview with the home ministry officer, I thought, would serve as the arguments that made the story balanced, so I broadcast it. My hope was that if I were prosecuted, the plights of the laborers would be highlighted. Also I thought the political parties and human rights organizations operating from Nepal and India might hear it and campaign for the laborer’s rights.
Soon after the radio program was over I met a group of friends worried for me and came to my residence. They were worried that I would be prosecuted in the same evening. The next day, as soon as I reached BBS, the director Sonam Tshong called me to his chamber. He re-listened the record of my program and wanted to ask why I had produced that concerning the laborers. I said the laborers were speaking about themselves. Their recruiter; the Home Ministry officer, was also interviewed to contemplate their story. Therefore I thought this was a nice job a media organization has to do to help relieve other’s sufferings. Director flew to rage and declared that so far he had been protecting me from the wrath of the Home Ministry and he would not protect me further. He accused me of not maintaining my profile low which he had told me to do. He recalled a case of a Burmese journalist who was once a popular public icon but forgotten as soon as he was killed. He warned that same consequence would happen to me. He said, ‘You will be killed and thrown in a nala (sewage canal) and the whole story of Gautam will be closed for ever.’ He said that he personally would not do that but would forward to the Chairman, Yeshe Jimba to decide over my fate. He called his secretary to collect my tapes and notes and that were immediately brought to his table.
I started shivering and sweating. I thought what he just described about the fate of a Burmese journalist would happen to me then. My days and hours were in countdown. The previous week, I had seen a dead body of a Lhosthampa health worker from Khotokha, possibly killed and thrown in Wangdi river. The image of the body came to my eyes and I was terribly frightened. When a relative of the deceased approached the head of Wangdi district to get at least his life insurance claim, she was threatened of the same fate, and this fact by any means conveyed a question over my fate too. I had to survive at the mercy of the government officers. I remained working in Bhutan purely at the clemency of my director although my parents had already been evicted. Their land was seized and house burnt down soon after I had joined this career. I had no rights. I was not exceptional. And then that little clemency also got suddenly exhausted.
When the director started packing my records and notebooks to take it to the Chairman, I wanted to speak my last words. I folded my hands and said, ‘Sir, you have protected me so far although the home minister has sent several letters to expel me out of the country. I am very thankful to you for letting me work as a journalist. My last request to you now is: kindly allow me to dig a graveyard in the BBS premises and throw my body in that, once I am killed. I don’t have any one left here to burn my body according to my tradition. I don’t want to go to heaven or hell. I shall grow up from that graveyard into something.’ Hearing this, he came very close to me and stared at my face. I stooped down. He then walked out, slammed the door, leaving me in his office behind.
Every time a reporter reports the facts, it adds another layer to the collective understanding of how they are likely to report similar facts in future. Bhutanese media still maintain an archetypal standard of the past and are not changing to new novelty of thoughts because of the paradox that the reporters who are witnessing truth are compelled to meet the demands that they must follow up what news coordinators and directors want or see elsewhere. That is why the media’s role remained fixed as commentator and not as communicator. Their approach is to seek simplicity and not explore the complexity and uncover the conflicting issues. Therefore their stories do not promote dialogue, garner public participation, people are not consulted. Reporting in Bhutan is a dangerous challenge to break this vicious paradox.
The reality that emerges tomorrow in the society may bear a slight imprint of the news reported in the media today. I ask myself whether each individual journalist carries an unknowable share of the responsibility for what happens after his reporting. My reporting on those laborer’s plights did not yield anything. I met the woman interviewee few months later on the way to Sunkosh. She stepped in the bus at Wakleytar. She was alone. As soon as she saw me she became morose. I said that I was very sorry that I could not meet her after that interview. ‘Where is your baby?, I asked. ‘Died’, she said. ‘ And your husband? ’ I enquired. ‘He also died,’she said. That shocked me heavily. She said that after the interview the government officers (Dashos) made their life extremely difficult. She said that once Dasho told her husband to fetch a log from the jungle; she expressed this by raising her hand up and looked upward to mean other side of the hill on the way to Gasa. But, she said, ‘He never returned!’ When she turned towards me, I saw two drops of tears rolling down her chicks that marked like a ravine in a cliff. I cried too. We then both immediately pretended normal to evade the questions from the onlookers. She told me that the Brahmin who was interviewed also disappeared miraculously. These are the clandestine gory acts of the Bhutanese Buddhists who say in public that they are sympathetic to all the sentient beings. I really feel sad for what has happened to these innocent laborers and feel guilty for trying to pursue people oriented, explanatory, representing all sides and participatory approach in Bhutan’s traditional rigid journalism.
According to Munich Charter 1971, Declaration of the Rights and Obligations of Journalists; the journalists’ responsibility towards the public excels any other responsibility, particularly towards employers and authorities. This is what required most to do in being and becoming a journalist in Bhutan.

References:
Hofstede, Geert. Cultures Consequences. London: Sage publication, 2001
RSF Practical Guide for Journalists
Peace Journalism

(The article was initially published in Becoming a Journalist in Exile – Editor)

Tags: Bhutanese Literature Nanda Gautam Reporting in Bhutan