A story published in Mid-Day, a morning daily Indian compact newspaper, has said that through its vicious crackdowns on the journalists daring to report, the Modi-led fascist Indian government is trying to turn the Kashmiri media into its own voice in occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
The story titled ‘Hunt for Kashmiri journalists’ was chilling on many counts, not least for the credit line of its anonymous author. It read, “The reporter of this story requested anonymity, fearing reprisal from the J&K government.” When journalists do not take bylines for exclusive stories, you know they are living in a land where the rule of the ruler, not of law, operates.
The story was chilling also for its detailing of the fate of Fahad Shah, editor-in-chief of The Kashmir Walla, which had carried on its website a family’s claim that their son, gunned down by Indian occupation forces, was not a militant. This claim contradicted the police’s version, which The Kashmir Walla, too, had featured. The “he-said-they-said” stories often define the limits beyond which journalists cannot investigate. Yet Shah was tossed into prison under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
In occupied Jammu and Kashmir, the truth is what the government says it is, as undeniable as the earth orbiting the sun, a claim which Galileo made four centuries ago and was hounded for it. There are many Galileos in Kashmir. Since August 5, 2019, at least 35 journalists have been interrogated, raided, assaulted or booked, the story added.
On February 20, a newspaper reported that journalist Gowhar Geelani was absconding.
Geelani was summoned by a Pulwama court on charges relating to apprehension of threat to peace. Since he did not respond to the summons, the court asked the police to produce Geelani before it. The police failed to locate him. Geelani seems to have gone into hiding, presumably to evade Shah’s fate.
The newspaper also said posters had surfaced in Pulwama announcing a cash reward of R50,000 for anyone furnishing information on the whereabouts of Geelani. Issued by a shadowy civil society group, the poster described Geelani as an “alleged journalist” who is “a stenographer of terrorism”. The language has a menacing tone. Can we blame Geelani for going into hiding?
The shadowy civil society group’s poster on Geelani was cited by social media users as yet another evidence of how India perceives Kashmiris.
For an answer, turn to journalist Pradeep Magazine’s Not Just Cricket, which uses the sport as a lens to view Indian politics. The book has Magazine, a Kashmiri, making multiple trips to Kashmir in search of his roots. On one such trip, a paramilitary man sitting next to him in the plane, told him, “We are in an enemy territory. The locals are not with us, and no matter what we do, kill or love, they are not going to be with us.”
In 2013, Magazine travelled to Bijbehara, the hometown of cricketer Parvez Rasool, after he was chosen for the Indian team. Twenty years earlier, the Indian troops had fired upon protestors in Bijbehara, killing 31. Might have Rasool’s selection made the town rethink its relations with Delhi?
To Magazine, Bijbehara’s residents said Rasool’s selection could not make them forget the 1993 shooting, nor have them shift their allegiance to India. Their refrain: If Rasool were to come in the way of a Pakistan victory, they would not “support even him”.
Magazine’s book underscores the improbability of Kashmiri journalists effacing their own memory of the bloody past and traumatic experiences in the present to toe the ‘national’ line, without giving space to competing narratives. To tell all sides of the story is, anyway, a journalistic duty. They can, obviously, be compelled to publish only the government’s version, which, as the story shows, is driving the crackdown on Kashmiri journalists.—KMS
