In Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, local media have documented the decades-long conflict, but in recent months stories critical of the Modi-led Indian government appear to have disap-peared from digital archives, raising censorship concerns, said a report by Al Jazeera.
The Al Jazeera report cited Kashmiri journalists and said that their work is among thousands of news reports, many of them highlighting the human rights abuses by the Indian forces, that have gone missing from the digital archives of local newspapers.
“Scope for media freedom has been fast-eroding in Kashmir, where journalists have been criminal-ised and newspaper advertising funding has been cut since the disputed region was stripped of its special status by India’s Hindu nationalist government in 2019,” Al Jazeera added.
Some local newspaper owners term the devel-opment a “technical issue” and many are silent over it, but journalists Al Jazeera spoke to say it is a de-liberate pattern “to twist history” and project every-thing as “hunky-dory” in Kashmir.
Mudasir Ali, 37, was a well-known reporter who worked at Greater Kashmir, one of the widely read newspapers in the region. Ali from central Kashmir’s Budgam district worked at the paper, established in 1987, as a staffer from 2007 to No-vember 2020 when he suffered a heart attack and died.
He was known for his groundbreaking news re-ports, but most of his work is missing from the newspaper archives. A search shows just four sto-ries filed by Ali during three years between 2017 and 2020.
“He had done exceptionally great work in some sectors including power generation, water resources in Kashmir,” lamented one of his journalist friends who did not wish to be identified.
“We will be in very uncertain times and I see erasing of archives as a part of a larger pattern to silence not only the spoken word but the writings, too,” the journalist said.
Forced into self-censorship In the last two years, the Kashmiri newspapers, which have been a win-dow to the conflict in Kashmir for the outside world, have been forced into self-censorship as pro-prietors and editors have been hounded by Indian agencies.
Fayaz Kaloo, editor and owner of Greater Kashmir newspaper has been summoned by India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) – multiple times.
Since the local newspapers in the region are solely dependent on the government advertisements for the revenue – which has often been stopped by the Modi regime at will – many say it is easier for the regime to pull the strings.
Al Jazeera spoke to at least 15 journalists in the region whose years of reporting have been partially or completely erased from the digital archives. Many termed it as a deliberate attempt of “war on memory”.
Junaid Kathju, a journalist based in the main city of Srinagar, also worked as a reporter at Rising Kashmir newspaper for five years until 2021. He too has lost all his work at the paper except for the few newspaper cuttings that he used to save initially.
“As a reporter, you work for by-lines. It is the oxygen for your work. We took up the issue with the organization and they said it will be uploaded back but more than a year has passed, there is noth-ing,” Kathju told Al Jazeera.
“Our work has been undone and erased like we did not exist.” Like Kathju, Ahmad, who only gave his last name to conceal his identity, found his work missing from the online edition of the newspaper. Decades of his work, including with Rising Kash-mir, have been wiped out, he says.
“If I have to apply for a job or a scholarship, they ask for the links to my previous work, but I have nothing. It has become difficult for me to prove that I am a journalist.” Ahmad says he is getting calls from people who wrote opinions for the papers as they cannot find their write-ups any more.—KMS
