Indian Media Coverage of Tribals- An assessment of Indian newspapers and TV channels

Essay by tanya55Junior High, 8th gradeA+, September 2006

download word file, 4 pages 3.8

Downloaded 16 times

The Hindu

The Hindu is a newspaper that most of us 2nd year journalism students find incredibly boring, though some of us swear by it. All our teachers keep egging us to read The Hindu, though most of us just cannot get round to doing so. Perhaps one of the reasons we dislike reading The Hindu is because it covers real news,that is vital to the development of our country. It acknowledges news that is of importance, and projects the real face of India, unlike our favorite reads, the tabloids. The reason most of us know little about the situation of India's tribals is because we rarely read such papers. The Hindu is a paper that rarely gives too much importance to the Page 3 people, or stars or celebrities, whose lifestyles we aspire to lead, and gives coverage to what affects the lives of a larger section of our population.

The Hindu has given excellent coverage on the tribals. It has started from analyzing the very term 'tribal,' and then goes to talk of their exclusive mistreatment in society- Ever since the Portuguese travel writers and missionaries decided to describe the vast variety of ethnic and occupational groups and sects of the Indian subcontinent in terms of "caste" and "tribe", the terms have stuck to society as long-worn masks that start becoming one's real personality. The result is that today no Indian describes society without taking recourse to the categories "caste" and "tribe". In the initial period of India's contact with western nations the two terms were used as synonyms, the difference lay only in the social status of the groups they described. The synonymy was finally shattered through a legal intervention by the colonial rulers when an official list of communities was prepared by them (in 1872) as...