In ways that the national press is least likely to take note of, the fortnight was marked by a section of the Hindi press offering it a crash course in how not to jump the gun in its zeal to weave fables of heroism.

As if looking for a Manmohan Desai script of inter-faith camaraderie while reporting on a tragedy or crisis, a section of the national press, usually its English variant, has always been in a hurry to seek a face to hinge its narratives on. So if Mohammad Kaif, the man of the match of NatWest Trophy cricket final in 2002, was the unlikely poster boy of post-Gujarat riots secular therapy in the pages of English press, more recently a Muslim bus driver was their pick for the saviour’s role in the terrorist attack on Amarnath pilgrims which claimed many lives in the Kashmir Valley (one may still wonder what else is a driver supposed to do but speed away when the vehicle is in the line of fire).

While reporting the recent deaths of children at Baba Raghav Das (BRD) Medical College Hospital in Gorakhpur, the costs of seeking a hero in paediatrician and head of encephalitis ward at the hospital, Dr Kafeel Khan, are becoming increasingly apparent. A good measure of credit for that should go to India’s second most read daily, Dainik Bhaskar. Though the primary inquiry report submitted by the Gorakhpur District Magistrate is being interpreted as a reprieve for Dr Khan, the reported recommendation of a high-level probe into allegations renews the significance of Dainik Bhaskar’s ground report.

The national dailies caught the contagion from a report in the English daily DNA which talked about Dr Kafeel Khan saving the children by arranging a few oxygen cylinders on his own. Though it’s still contentious whether lack of oxygen was the real cause of deaths (a three-member central probe committee has ruled it out as the cause), the report didn’t have material to corroborate its bid to build Khan’s iconography. Swati Goel Sharma, news editor of ScoopWhoop.com, identified the holes in the report, as she observed in a piece on the news portal, “Curiously, the report doesn’t cite a single source for narrating the events of the night, except for one “eye-witness” Gaurav Tripathi mentioned only in the last paragraph. The report also has no quote by Khan, not even a line suggesting an attempt to get his response.”

Looking through the prism of Hindi press, what is more significant is what Sharma reveals later in her piece. She informs that the news portal contacted “two journalists from Hindi media to ask them about the story, both said the story reached them too, but they did not file a copy as they could not verify it despite efforts.” Even without the benefit of hindsight, a major section of the Hindi print space (with exception of Navbharat Times) were not keen on buying the saviour theory. Meanwhile, national media outlets – print and digital – had found the face they were looking for the human interest anchors for Gorakhpur hospital reports.

Going beyond merely doubting the story, the Lucknow edition of  Dainik Bhaskar had a front page report on August 14, under the slug “Bhaskar Partal” (Bhaskar Investigation), which claimed to have found that that along with working for a government hospital, Dr Kafeel Khan was also involved in an illegal practice in a private hospital in the city, Medispring Hospital and Research Centre. What, however, was more intriguing is that a person working at the hospital told the reporter on August 13 that Dr.Khan had taken three oxygen cylinders from his private hospital a night  before. On being asked whether Dr. Khan had brought those cylinders from the medical college at the first place, the staff didn’t reply. The patients at the private hospital confirmed that they come to get their children examined by Dr Kafeel Khan. Dr Khan refused to talk to the reporter citing work pressure. The report also has two photographs – one of Dr Khan’s name prominently figuring on the hospital’s wall before the reporter questioned the staff and one with the part carrying his name disappearing under whitewash after the questions.

The report also quotes the proceedings of a closed-door meeting between Chief Minister Yogi Adiyanath and hospital staff in which the CM reportedly reprimanded Dr Khan for creating a crisis and then seeking cheap publicity out of it.

Before this report was published, social media space was filled with a wide of allegations against and in defence of Dr Kafeel Khan, which ranged from allegations of rape and impersonation in examination. Even if such staple diet of muckraking and committed defence is ruled out, the specifics of Dainik Bhaskar report on his conduct or misconduct in the latest Gorakhpur tragedy brought his overnight heroism under critical scrutiny. The state government attributed his subsequent sacking, from the position of nodal officer and in-charge of the encephalitis ward of the BRD Medical College, to dereliction of duty and doing private practice.

This, obviously, was followed by a torrent of reports contesting charges against him (even ascribing them to a smear campaign) and also by reports substantiating the charges. For instance, a report on News18.com explored the chances of him being made a ‘scapegoat’  while reports in India Today and The Times of India are now taking his saviour act with a handful of salt and, in the process, reinforcing allegations that accused Dr. Khan of stealing cylinder for his private hospital.

It’s significant that Dainik Jagran, reporting on the basic inquiry report submitted by Gorakhpur District Magistrate, says that though the report clears him of grave charges, it has recommended a high level inquiry into allegations against him. Summing up the same report, NDTV says, “Dr Kafeel Khan, the head paediatrician, who was the only one to have been sacked apart from the principal, however, has not been indicted in this report. The report, however, did say there were gaps in coordination between four top doctors including Dr Khan.” What, however, should be kept in mind is that since it’s a basic inquiry report, conclusions should await higher level probe.

The question is not whether Dr Kafeel is innocent or guilty, though the case of private practice against him still stands in good measure while other allegations might be subjected to high level probe. But, what was the tearing hurry to have an instant icon amid tragedy without the due diligence of examining the claims? Here the Hindi press, keeping its skeptical guard on, has reasserted the sense of the local in journalistic accounts.

What, however, even the Hindi press needs to guard against is the vice of deification and valorisation of public officials, which includes doctors in public hospitals. That sets the bar really low for the public expectation of services which they should be offering as part of their work. That’s something the author had addresses in a piece on this site earlier. The glorification of public servants is something one finds regularly in the Hindi print media’s engagement with government-citizen equations in the heartland. To its credit, however, it remained unscathed in Gorakhpur this time.

The author can be contacted on Twitter @anandvardhan26.

[opiniontag]