| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This study analyses the press reporting in India and Pakistan of Partition-related violence in 1947 and the unsuccessful attempts by the colonial authorities to censor provocative accounts in a context of administrative collapse. Assessing the extent of bias exhibited by the coverage, the study highlights the respective roles of the press and of rumours in spreading 'news' of the violence and so contributing to its cycle. The focus is on the tactics of all the sides involved which were designed to attribute responsibility to a hostile 'other', while playing down each community's involvement in violence as merely defensive. The study presents a modest contribution to the wider notion of the role of 'blame displacement' in reporting violence and the inability of what might be termed the transitional colonial state to control the press amid a general decline in governance.
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