conflict zone Archives - DU Beat - Delhi University's Independent Student Newspaper

In the two main areas of conflict reporting in India: Kashmir and the North-East, plagued by insurgencies,
and the states affected by political extremism, many journalists have been targeted, maimed, or even assassinated or killed as a result of their ‘living’—journalism

Attacks on journalists are nothing new, whether they take place within or outside of crisis zones. A Thakur Family Foundation investigation found that between 2014 and 2019, there were at least 198 serious
attacks against reporters in India, of which 36 occurred in 2019. According to a survey released last year, 40
occurrences of journalist deaths occurred, 21 of which were related to their profession. But given the circumstances on the ground, the obstacles are far greater in Kashmir.

As recently as 2018, unidentified gunmen in Srinagar shot and killed Rising Kashmir’s Shujaat Bukhari. Photographer Kamran Yousuf stated last year that he was wounded close to an encounter site in the Pulwama district. Senior Kashmiri journalist Yusuf Jameel claims that after 1989, completely new difficulties arose for journalists in carrying out their work. He said, “Every day is becoming difficult for us, so many things are happening. Largescale killings have started taking place, and the whole thing [has] changed. Information accessibility has become zero, entry to many places is banned. Attempts to suppress information have started.

Jameel also recounts how in 1995, while working for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in Srinagar, he and two other men were attacked. He said,

“I didn’t fear for life as such but I have faced a number of allegations of glorifying militants, [and of] being their hand. I was called an Indian agent by the militant groups. I faced six attacks. In one of the attacks, which was a parcel bomb last in Srinagar office in 1995, I, along with another fellow journalist, was injured while the third succumbed.”

It has long been believed that the worst Indian state excesses are first attempted, tested, and polished in
Kashmir before being implemented elsewhere in the nation. The same holds true for political arrests. Following the Modi government’s decision to abrogate Article 370, more than 5,000 Kashmiris were detained. Politicians, attorneys, businesspeople, activists, and journalists were jailed in remote locations or confined under house
arrest throughout the valley.

In November 2021, noted human rights activist, Khurram Parvez, from Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), a group based in Srinagar which publishes regular reports on the human rights violations
and excesses committed by security forces in the Valley, was arrested on accusations of “terror funding”. The
National Investigation Agency (NIA) took charge and he was arrested under the draconian anti-terrorism
law, making it impossible for him to get bail. Earlier this year, Kashmiri journalist Fahad Shah was detained
under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act (PSA) on the grounds that he had been “misguiding common masses by circulating fake news against the government and its policies.”

In the North-East, we observe a similar situation. The list of deceased journalists is extensive and includes
everyone from editors to lower-level reporters and camera operators. According to government data, there have been 32 deaths in Assam since 1987. Despite a clear connection to individuals in authority, none of these cases has seen a thorough investigation that resulted in the conviction of the accused.

Konsam Rishikanta, a sub-editor for the Imphal Free Press, was killed by unidentified assailants in 2008 in a
neighborhood of Imphal. Yambem Megha, a reporter for Vision North East, was shot and killed in 2002.
The Manipur News’ editor, a thenpopular English publication, was also killed in 2000. And many more unidentified cases could be added to this horrifyingly exhaustive list. Even after dangling between numerous situations of life and death, journalists in these states remain largely underpaid—from late commissions from the government to newspapers never paying the recommended wage. With media houses shutting down and their offices being sealed, there is only so much one can criticise about them.

While India drops to 150th place out of 180 nations on the World Press Freedom Index, even behind Palestine and Afghanistan, it wears the crown of “one of the most dangerous countries for media,” and according to research, a place “where journalists are vulnerable to all types of violence.” On a daily basis, those who defend free speech are either incarcerated or shot to death with metal. Furthermore, the administration remains mostly intent on denying the reality of the crisis it has created by fabricating the report’s “questionable methodology” in parliament.

Aayat Farooqui

[email protected]

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Memory is the most important tool which oppressed people have. The oppressors want us to have amnesia. The only potent weapon we have as people is memory. “Our memory will always help us to sustain the struggle against injustice,” said Khalid Parvez in an interview with David Barsmain. Indeed, between the neat beds of crimson bloom, her fragrance is like a time machine, granting me a fleeting visit to the land that clings on to nothing, but memories. To my mother’s land. To memory.

Aayat: “Appi it’s not working, why can’t click a photo?”

Mir: “Give it to me, give it to me, I know how to do it…It’s on video mode, now try it like this.”

As god sits on a Shikara painting the paradise, he paints it deep blue and green. A lake so magnificent that it reflects the willing canvas of the mountain and sky. And when he strikes the brush he weaves strings of harmony, and when he strikes the brush he writes poetic songs of the light that is played upon the wind dancing ruffles of willows and trees, and when he strikes the brush he breaks dawn in crimson and wine red, giving it a
watercolour effect. But if the kahwa in his hands slips into a tumultuous storm that wipes the sailcloth grey, was it man who did it or was it divine justice that did not come into play?

Sitting in the university garden, in the serenity of the whistling waters of Dal, our hearts tuned to the flow striking the fixated stones; it was then that I had believed so much in beauty, it was then that I had believed so much in its imposing power that transforms any human being. Every second spent in Kashmir is etched to me like a memory, that if ever revisited, redefines each moment that has ever lived in me, in my mind’s eye.

We were happy. Mountains in summer, lawasa and noon chai, spinach curry dinner on red carpets. The intoxicating smell of afternoon rain with nadru (lotus root fritters) in newspaper wraps. All year round we waited for summer, because summer meant holidays and holidays were a month-long dip into the relieving
waters of a home far away, a fernweh. And because holidays were the hugs and kisses of khala as she spoiled and stuffed us until we turned into a burrito. And because holidays were not only days spent playing
in doll houses or snow-laden balconies, but by then holidays were like a dream that kept on returning to kiss greater life into our souls.

Dated: 12/6/2019
Walking bare feet on wet grass in Shalimar does not equate to the baghs in Delhi. How can nostalgia be so weak that it can’t cling to the last pieces of what is lost? It is because so much is lost. Nothing is the same.
Jhelum boils red in the loss of mothers, endless suffering, endless pain, the endless murder of life, widows, orphans, rape, politics, law and order. Oh, the border, the border! Shelling and pelting, take the youth to detention centers so that the ‘high sir’ can do the belting, the shooting electrocuting.

Nothing is the same. Life is cheap. The winter wind comes with its hollow screams, its quiet cries. But the whispers linger on, the blood dries out, covered under the snow. Don’t let yourself show. Out in the dark, at night. A son born here is a son died. Nothing is the same. Army bunkers and barbed wires surround the roads, mental agony surrounds the people and it is grief that they breathe in. I live in Delhi now, Lucknow feels unlike home. Mir left college after his father died of a heart attack. He sits at the shop now with his elder brother. That is how they earn a living. I went back there after 7 years. Sitting on the stairs at Hazrat-Bal, I see a gamut of pigeons flying. The people often feed them. Just like they feed the hope inside. The walls are scribbled with Azaadi, of what they want, but who are they? Are they some of them or all of them, and if they are who they are, who gives them the liberty to want what they want? Who gives them thought? They are nobodies. No blood and bone. No skin and soul. They are dust. They are ashes. They are long-lost dreams. They are the wind-blown chinar leaf you step on while you walk in and out of paradise(hell) in peace.

“Jis khaak ke zamir mein ho aatish-echinar
Mumkin nahien ke sard ho wok hake arajmand

Wo arajmand ab hogaya hai sard o iqbal
Ab ro raha wadi-e-kashmir phir se ek baar.”

Aayat Farooqui

[email protected]

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