Rajeev Khanna | India Tomorrow
LUDHIANA, FEBRUARY 12–A relatively unknown aspect of the ongoing Kashmir crisis is the struggle of the local journalists in disseminating news. While discussing the news from the valley over the six months, the painstaking agony of the messenger or the local journalists over there is forgotten. It is all the more pertinent to know about this aspect of news dissemination since the present dispensation under Narendra Modi, whether in his avatar of Gujarat Chief Minister or the present day Prime Minister, is known for attempts to gag free media.
If one can borrow senior Kashmiri journalist Jalil Rathor’s quote it can be said, “When media is supposed to be the part of the problem, no one can solve the problem of media. A bad precedence is being set by going after the journalists by intimidating and harassing them.”
Rathor was the key speaker at an event in Ludhiana to mark the eighth anniversary of Punjabi website Suhi Saver. This secular and progressive news portal is unique since it is being run by public donations. Rathor is the first Kashmiri journalist to have come out of Kashmir and bare what the local media has been going through since the night intervening August 4 and 5 last year when the government went ahead with the abrogation of Article 370 and 35 A in Jammu and Kashmir.
Since then, the local media has been the target of intimidation and harassment. The journalists say that in the last three decades of turmoil, media persons have often been on the receiving end, but the causality were often the rivals involved in the conflict or those innocents, who fell prey to the situation, just because they were in a wrong place at the wrong time.
Thankfully after the abrogation of article 370 on 5thof August last year, there was no major causality of security forces or any protester but media was the only section that received the main brunt of the aftermath.
They point out that previously certain spontaneous situations like the ones in 2008, 2010 or 2016 were used as the reason to put curbs on the media as a preventive measure or curtailment of advertisements or to ban the publications just to make the newsmen fall in the line but this time around it was the state which created an event which it said is for the good of the people but simultaneously blocked the news and newsmen from the region to stop the flow of news about the aftermath and consequences of this self created event.
The difference between the past and this time was that never before were there curbs to stop journalists them from performing their professional duty and reporting the real happenings on ground.
This time around internet became the casualty since it was blocked for almost six months. “Thus a chapter has been created, which in future may be called blank chapter of Kashmir history. Today journalists have yet to see lights of their routers blinking,” said Rathor.
The story of media strangulation is full of horrors. For initial five days no newspaper could be published as there were stringent curbs in place wherein not even journalists were allowed to move. The restrictions were such that showing I-Card was a sufficient reason to send them back.
Local journalists say that apart from adversely affecting medical fraternities, students, travel organizations, trade start-ups, online services and others, the blockade reduced majority of media persons virtually into useless creatures.
“One can imagine the seriousness of the situation, when no phones, landlines or cellular was working, when there was no internet and the only facility for more than 300 hundred journalists, including the visiting media persons, was the one provided by the J&K Information Department in a local hotel initially with just four desktops and a reduced speed of 2G. The government called it Media Centre and we the ‘Sub-Jail for journalists’ but reaching there was also a challenge with the worst kind of restrictions in place,” Rathor disclosed.
The only source available was the government spokesperson who would brief media, initially on daily basis, then twice a week, then on weekly basis and then rarely without any means like phone or free moment available to countercheck the government monologue, he added.
Journalists say that the situation is still the same, except that this centre has been shifted from the hotel to Information Department premises and a few more desktops have been added.
While Rathor delivered his talk on Sunday, his journalist colleagues too broke their silence on Monday when the Kashmir Press Club convened an urgent meeting to discuss physical attacks, threats and intimidation being meted out to the journalists in Kashmir by J&K Police.
They expressed their concern over media not being allowed to operate freely from the valley and pointed at the physical attacks, threats and summons to journalists being employed by security agencies to intimidate them.
They pointed that the summons and harassment of journalists has become a routine exercise. They added that questioning of journalists in Kashmir on flimsy grounds by the police for their work is in fact a damning verdict on the appalling condition in which the media is operating.
The restrictions on internet and forcibly seeking undertakings from news organizations for allowing limited internet access, constant surveillance by police and physical attacks and summons all are the tools designed and aimed to ensure only government-promoted version is heard outside. However, the meeting reportedly made it clear that journalists are within their rights to report about the happenings from Kashmir impartially and truthfully.
In his talk, Rathor gave several examples about reporters from reputed national dailies being summoned to not one but more police stations and asked to reveal their sources that do not violate Official Secrets Act. There have been instances of young reporters of prominent portals being beaten up while covering a protest staged by college students in Srinagar.
Journalists alleged that apart from the police, the Information Department has also been closely monitoring newspapers to ensure no one gets too ‘ambitious’.
“It is painful to say these kinds of practices have been seen in countries like Pakistan, Erstwhile USSR and lawless states like Uganda and Rwanda, just to crush the news. I am proud to say that despite all these curbs and restrictions, the journalist of Kashmir have set an example for the media world. We, the native journalists, are narrating the Kashmir story with professional integrity, courage and honesty of purpose. Media outlets are the platform and storytellers are Kashmiris,” Rathor said.
He underlined that none other than Kashmiri journalists understand what it means to report from Kashmir, where surveillance is unprecedented and challenges are unending. “I would say, if any aspirant in journalism wishes to specialise to report in toughest kind of situations, I guarantee that he would learn it in Kashmir. Only thing that cannot be guaranteed is the safety, due to the risks involved to do journalism in Kashmir,” he said.
