Language and Media

Twinkle’s Lane

A few days ago, an IGTV video went viral on Instagram. The video was of a lady named Suchitra speaking about two brutal murders in South India. Suchitra started off with the words that many South Indian crimes are often buried in the world, and even national news, because they aren’t spoken in English. With India being a country with many different languages in many different regions, South Indian languages are more often than not confined to South Indian people and are not common in other areas. Hence the news about South Indian crimes are not given enough attention.

This shows the impact that language can have on the media. Once spoken in English, the news immediately went viral and the whole of India was informed about it. But while it was still in a language that most people did not know, the news, despite being of immense nature, was subdued.

While it is near impossible to learn all languages in the Indian nation, one only wishes that more people like Suchitra will be there to spread important news, while the government sits on their warm cushions and debates on monetary issues.

The murder of the father-son duo, who were killed in police custody was so gruesome that I had to pause the video with trembling hands to get over the vivid description that Suchitra was giving us. While I will not be going into graphic detail here, owing to content regulations, I only wish that people be more aware of their surroundings.

Let us take a moment to consider how many such detestable crimes are being buried in the news just because they are not occurring in mainstream cities – or because of a language barrier – not only in India but throughout the world.

Let us take a moment to consider what the government is doing not only to spread the news but also to bring justice to those crimes.

Needless to say, while the people of the world may not be able to take legal actions against such crimes, they sure can educate themselves and spread news about heinous offences in such areas, and help bring justice.

I will leave Suchitra’s IGTV link describing the crime here

WARNING: contains verbal descriptions of violence.

Suchitra’s Instagram account contains two to three more videos about the same topic with the hashtag #justiceforjayarajandfenix

Thank you.