The veteran journalist Patricia Mukhim spoke to Brut on why she resigned from the Editors Guild of India.
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00:00I think it becomes difficult for the Guild not to defend Arunabh Goswami because there are many members in the Guild who called for his defence, who agree with what he is doing.
00:13I had put up a Facebook post in July this year when some non-tribal boys, about nine of them, were playing basketball in a tribal-dominated area of Shillong.
00:36They were beaten up inside the basketball court. The basketball court was locked from the outside and they were beaten up with rods and iron rods so they got head injuries and this was reported in our paper.
00:53The next day I put up a Facebook post calling for the rule of law to prevail. I tagged the Chief Minister of the state. I also called upon the DGP to muster up the law and order so that people who assault, who try to harm others are arrested and then they don't go scot-free and they don't continue with that kind of wrongdoing.
01:19This has happened in the past as well. People are beaten up, people are assaulted and they are never arrested. So that was all that I said and I also called upon the traditional institution of that area saying that they should know who the troublemakers in their area are.
01:49It was just very, very stoic silence from their end.
02:16But they were very quick to defend Arnab Goswami who is a non-member. I'm not making a judgment here about whether Arnab had to be defended or not by the guild. All I'm saying is that here is a member who needed help. I think it becomes difficult for the guild not to defend Arnab Goswami because there are many members in the guild who called for his defense.
02:39Who agree with what he's doing although his arrest was not because of any journalistic misdemeanor or any journalistic malfeasance or whatever. All they needed was to tell me, write a single line at least, tell me that sorry we can't take up your case. But there was just complete silence and I think this is very insulting for a member and that's why I resigned.
03:09If you're in the profession of journalism, you cannot be too careful. Otherwise, if you can't take the heat then you have to get out of the kitchen. It's as simple as that.
03:39I am speaking as a human person. I'm not even speaking as a Khasi or somebody from this community or that community. We've been brought up to respect human life and to respect fellow human beings.
03:54On my Facebook posts, I generally do that. I've declared myself to be just a human, not belonging to any community because I'm so tired of this ethnocentrism.