HIV/AIDS in News – Journalists as Catalysts - United Nations ...

Positive Voices 117
social and development indices. Yet few mainstream organisations put it on their agenda.
“If the media initiated a debate on these lines then the profile of the virus would
change. Currently there is a narrow keyhole view of HIV/AIDS that also informs the
strategies meant to counter it. Instead, it needs to be put into the larger development
context which should be tackled in a holistic way by everyone.”
Anandi claims she has rarely encountered stigma. Diagnosed as HIV positive in 1997,
she subsequently separated from her abusive husband and struck out on her own. “I
gained courage from my mother’s reply when I told her of my status. She told me, ‘When
you were born did you think you would live forever? Make the best of the time you
have.’” Educated upto college and having worked before marriage, Anandi took up a job
again. It was with an NGO working on HIV too. Eventually she joined the Positive
Women’s Network in Chennai that was involved in educating affected women about
their rights and helping to build district level networks of infected women.
“The head of the organisation
that worked for
HIV positive people, himself
objected to an HIV
positive man serving tea.
Everyone was shocked
when I intervened but
they were forced to
change their stand”
Presently working with the India HIV/AIDS Alliance, the 41-year-old Anandi is not on
medication. She tours the country and frequently presents the Indian situation at international
forums. She says, “Personally I have hardly ever experienced derogatory treatment
because of being infected. But I know what many others face. In fact I first publicly
revealed my positive status when I stood up for an infected peon in an NGO where
I worked. Can you believe it, the head of the organisation that worked for HIV positive
people, himself objected to an HIV positive man serving tea. Everyone was shocked
when I intervened but they were forced to change their stand. My parents had always
pushed me to stand on my own and that really built my self-esteem. How a woman is
treated in her own family is how she will be treated later by others.” She says it is her
education, independence and upfront attitude that elevated her from a salary of Rs 400
a month to her present job in an international NGO.
Addressing those living with HIV
The media must go into all issues around an epidemic that is presently discussed by
it in the single context of transmission and prevention, a simplistic portrayal of the
virus. “In the West, for instance, where HIV has been accepted in society, the media
has also mainstreamed the epidemic. Sensitisation issues do not make news any more
and neither is there any hype about HIV related stories. Most of the stories are related
to resource allocation for the epidemic at the global level,” says Anandi.
However, here the media fuels many of the general misinformed notions. Says Celina,
“Like everyone else, I too had the impression that as one who has HIV/AIDS I would
soon die. I waited to die...but even 12 years later here I am, completely healthy without
needing medication of any kind.”