Why should Dalits become journalists in India?

By John Cheeran
The Hindu on last Saturday, June 3, 2006, devoted its edit page for bemoaning the lack of Dalit and OBC journalists in Indian media.
Let me state a few things on the subject.
I’m a Syrian Christian from Kerala and a journalist. I don’t enjoy any of the reservation benefits. I’m an upper caste Indian!
I have worked for a reasonable period in New Delhi as a journalist.
When I worked for an organization, where the writer of the The Hindu piece, Siddharth Varadarajan also worked in the past, they did not ask my religion or caste.
I was in fact interviewed by an upper caste Hindu. It would not have mattered little to him whether I belonged to upper or down caste!
That is to say in the defence of media managements that they do not discriminate on the basis of caste. But if Varadarajan wants to have a special recruitment drive for OBCs, SCs and STs that is a wonderful idea. I suggest an exclusive newspaper for Dalits too.
Quite often the advocates of OBC, Dalit agenda have referred to B.N. Uniyal’s so called survey where he failed to find a single Dalit accredited journalist in India.Varadarajan also refers to the Uniyal’s discovery.
There is little meaning in such a theory.
The key thing here is accredited journalist. Though I have been a journalist for the last twenty years, I have no accreditation from the government. Does it take away from my credibility as a journalist? There are many like me. In any newspaper organization, only one per cent of its editorial staff takes out accreditation from the Press Information Bureau.
That basically means Uniyal’s media sensus was a bogus one.
And then, how many journalists are bold enough to wear their Dalit or OBC background?
There are many OBC journalists in New Delhi who will not like to be identified as OBC journalists.
One of my friends, who is an OBC journalist, is holding the No.2 position in the editorial rung of an All-India, English language newspaper chain.
Even his paper’s coverage was not pro-reservationist.
I also wonder how many of his colleagues know him as an OBC journalist.
So much for Varadarajan’s theory of recruiting more OBC, Dalit journalists.
And let me ask Varadarajan why should anyone, including Dalits, become journalists.
There is hardly any money, job security or avenues for growth in the Indian media.
From a Dalit’s perspective he has little to gain from choosing journalism as a profession.
The preferred job sectors of Dalits, much like the rest of the upper caste Indian society, are IT, other allied engineering branches and medicine.
Dalits and OBCs can enjoy the fruits of reservation in these fields while both in college and in office.
What does places such as The Hindu, The Times of India, The Indian Express and the DNA offer to Dalits or for that matter to any educated Indian?