Truth is hard to speak. And harder to live. No one knows that better than a journalist. After 16 years of working in the media and assorted newspapers, I have no illusions left about the purpose of reporting. The hunger for truth does not alone drive the media houses. They tell little but sell a lot more.

 Yes, new stories are broken routinely about how political favours are bought and sold, public resources misused and much more that we would not have known otherwise but a journalist who can put his job and his life on the line for truth is a miracle rarely to be found. I did not know Jyotirmoy Dey but would have liked to know him.  And see for myself what that extent of fearlessness and courage looks like. How does a man with a family of his own, goes to work everyday knowing he may be a marked man and still continues to do what he is driven to? This level of courage is no different than that shown by a soldier who patrols a sensitive post knowing he could be blown to pieces any time.

One would think there would be a difference between fighting a war and reporting but in Dey’s case and earlier in the case of Pakistani journalist  Saleem Shahzad, there wasn’t. It is believed that Dey was gunned down for working on a story about the links between Dawood Ibrahim and one ACP Anil Mahabole. If that is indeed true, we are officially living in a country where there is a price if not a bribe to pay for just doing your job conscientiously.

Another news report says that an informant had told Dey about one Jafar Kasim and his sandalwood consignment and Dey had been offered a bribe of Rs 10 lakh to not do a story. When he refused to take the bribe, the threatening calls started and there could be a possibility that he was killed for saying ‘No’ both to money and to fear. 

Having personally seen, the level of dignity some journalists display in media events where there is free food and booze (I was told once by a PR person how a scribe on a paid holiday asked for a deepam in the lobby of a resort, to be packed and given to her), this level of professional integrity is frightening. Whistle blowing is a dangerous activity in India and RTI activists would tell you that. It is not surprising at all that so many politicians have their own news channels and stakes in the way news is presented to us.

Not surprising at all also that so many of them have stakes in illegal mining, land grabbing, deforestation, in abuse of power that they are supposed to wield for us and not against us. It is only now that the tip of the iceberg is being revealed to us. The scams we don’t know of yet may outnumber those we know about but who is going to tell us about them?

The whole circus involving Baba Ramdev’s fast has effectively bleached the anti-graft movement of its credibility. Is it just a co-incidence that the surge of support for Anna Hazare will never again have the same sense of righteousness because of the recent developments? And doesn’t it tell us something about our news gatherers that while scores of reporters were covering Baba’s descent into the realms of political buffoonery, Swami Nigamananda Saraswati remained unnoticed for his almost four month long fast against illegal mining? It is his death on Monday that finally made  news.

In other instance, a country where even filing an FIR report is sometimes made impossible, it is only when a 14-year old is raped, strangled and hung on a tree inside a police station that we know to what extent power has corrupted those who have even a semblance of it. Sonam was found hanging from a tree inside Nighasan police station in Lakhimpur on Friday night and her parents alleged she was raped by the cops, her body dragged by a dupatta around her neck and then hung. Any bets how soon those cops will be booked and brought to justice?

In the 1970s, the rape of 16 year old girl Mathura by two policemen in the compound of Desai Ganj Police Station in Chandrapur district of Maharashtra had brought sweeping changes in the way the law makers and enforcers address sexual crimes against women but as Sonam’s case proves, not much has changed. Many of my FB friends are putting up a post that India is the fourth most dangerous place in the world for women. It is also a dangerous place for whistle blowers, truth loving scribes, tigers, forests, rivers, natural resources of any kind, for the poor, for lovers in Khap dominated villages, for artists, authors, children (if you care to look at the statistics of child abuse), old people, stray animals and counting.

The point is however, what are we going to do about it? Tragedies like Dey’s killing and Sonam’s rape and murder should not be seen as news events but as symptoms of the rot within us and not just the system we tut tut at. And something should change and shift in our conscience and make us a little braver the next time we are asked for a bribe or see a woman in distress or smell a wrong in our neighbourhoods, streets, forests because when the numbers of those who speak the truth increases, a Jyotirmoy Dey will not be so easy to kill. And a 14-year old will not be raped and killed in a police station with no one standing up for her. It is a given, isn’t it? If we don’t stand up for what is right today, tomorrow we will be wronged too.  

Reema Moudgil is the author of  Perfect Eight (http://www.flipkart.com/b/books/perfect-eight-reema-moudgil-book-9380032870?affid=unboxedwri )