New Delhi: Sunday marks World Press Freedom Day, a day significant for journalists and a reminder to the world that there is nothing worth defending more than freedom.
This year’s theme is ‘Journalism without Fear or Favour’, an idea that is especially significant in the ongoing Covid-19 crisis, when the press has been declared an essential service, and journalists are part of the frontline battle, bringing stories on everything to do with the coronavirus.
At ThePrint, our reporters have been travelling for the past month, from hotspot to hotspot across states to bring you news on the pandemic. We’ve reported from several districts across states such as Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab.
In our travels, two of our own, National Photo Editor Praveen Jain and reporter Simrin Sirur contracted the virus. They are asymptomatic, and are currently in quarantine in Vadodara.
If you’ve missed our earlier reports, here is a quick round up from our journalists on the ground.
Simrin Sirur and Praveen Jain
Covering Ahmedabad was the most difficult part of our Rajasthan-Gujarat trip, because officials were reluctant to speak to the press and the hotspots we visited hadn’t been frequented by anybody in the recent past.
Upon seeing the press, people in these neighbourhoods rushed towards us, telling us stories of lack of ration and not enough testing by authorities. It was heartening to see neighbours caring for one another, and pooling in their resources to make sure no one went hungry.
The real challenge, though, has been collecting the stories as quickly as possible while reminding others to keep their distance. The process can be nerve-wracking because you never know who carries the virus and who doesn’t.
You can read her report here.
Neelam Pandey
Apprehension, fear and uncertainty greeted me as I embarked on a journey to Uttar Pradesh from Delhi to cover the Covid-19 crisis.
While I had seen pictures of migrants being beaten up by police at bus stations, or many standing in queues to get food, the enormity of the situation struck me when I saw scores of them walking or cycling over 1,000 km to reach their homes in UP and Bihar.
The only food they were carrying were packets of biscuits and water to quench their thirst. Carrying big bags on their heads, they were determined to reach their homes.
Along with my colleague and photographer Suraj Singh Bisht, we listened to their ordeal with many complaining of blood oozing out of their blisters. Many even asked us to request the police to not beat them up.
While we faced quite a few difficulties in getting accommodation, food and were denied entry to many places, it seemed nothing compared to what these migrant workers were going through.
You can read her full report here.
Suraj Singh Bisht
In the past week, I journeyed from Delhi to Agra, on to Lucknow, then Varanasi and I am now heading to Patna. Wherever I travelled with my colleague Neelam Pandey, the common sight was migrant labourers and workers trudging along on national highways, either on foot or on bicycles, trying to make it back to their villages.
We spoke with many of them, only to constantly hear about them starving and worried about money. The lockdown, in one move, left thousands of them without jobs. Many openly wept, talking about how their families were struggling to manage two square meals a day for their children. This was particularly heart wrenching for me to see.
We helped some people out by giving them money and whatever food, such as biscuits and fruits, we had.
This has been an experience for me to see how quickly life can change.
Angana Chakrabarti
When my colleague Soniya Agarwal and I arrived in Indore, a city that has among the highest number of cases in India, we found an administration that was scrambling to implement a massive sampling exercise.
But the story that shook me the most was the drastic rise in the number of burials in Muslim cemeteries. These were mostly non-Covid patients who had been denied treatment by hospitals amid the uncertainty — a testimony of the innumerable lives that the pandemic has cut short.
Soniya Agarwal
When Angana and I were in Bhopal, we worked on a story about the deaths of people who had survived the 1984 Bhopal gas leak. While we were determined to reach different spots and report from there, for one of our daily vlogs, we decided to shoot from inside the Union Carbide factory.
After a long detour, we finally reached the site, only to be turned away by two guards. They said we would require a written permit from the District Collector. The building wore an eerie, dilapidated look and it seemed like no one had been there in ages.
After much deliberation, we managed to sneak into the premise from a hole in the perimeter wall locals had made. While it may seem mundane, the entire process took us two hours.
Sravasti Dasgupta
Covering this pandemic on the ground has meant dealing with fear first hand. At Delhi’s Azadpur Mandi, traders were scared that they had already been infected and essentially crowded around my mic when I went to speak to them. They were at least 30 of them vying for a chance to be heard. In that moment, I realised my first task as a journalist — spreading information on the ground. I put the camera and mic down and explained the importance of social distancing before I heard their stories.
You can read her full story here.
Revathi Krishnan
When the shelter home at Kashmere Gate in New Delhi was burnt down on 11 April, hundreds of people took to the banks of the Yamuna for shelter amid the Covid-19 lockdown. They had no roof over their heads, nothing to eat and survived on the daily langar from the nearby gurdwara. One person I interviewed (at Yamuna Pushta) pleaded for help and asked if this story would make his case to go back to his family in Bihar.
You can read the full story here.
Manisha Mondal
I have spent the past month covering the Covid crisis in India. One of my initial assignments was at Bhilwara, a hotspot in Rajasthan, with my colleague Swagata Yadavar. To say I was anxious and nervous would be an understatement. From then, up until recently when I was at Jahangirpuri in Delhi, another hotspot area, I’ve noticed a change in me. I am not longer that afraid, and my paranoia has gradually turned into cautiousness. These experiences helped me change my attitude towards the “invisible enemy“, and I believe I have grown stronger as a journalist.
Taran Deol
I have been working as a journalist for less than a year. So when I travelled to Punjab to cover the coronavirus crisis there, not only was I nervous since it was my first outstation assignment, but the experience was laced with the fear of being infected.
As my colleague Urjita Bhardwaj and I covered coronavirus stories in Punjab, the story of how a small district in the state kept the virus at bay for 28 days really stood out for me. In a world where bad news is most of the news, bringing out a positive story like this feels just as important.
Urjita Bhardwaj
While visiting crowded bastis and residential areas in various districts of Punjab, especially Malerkotla, one thing became quite clear — journalists on the field are one of the most vulnerable sections, coming in direct contact with people they aren’t sure are infected by Covid-19.
As people flocked around me, I could not help but think about the worrisome news of 53 journalists testing positive. So, the fear loomed large over my head every minute. Despite taking all the recommended precautions, you can never tell when the ‘invisible enemy’ will catch hold of you.
Swagata Yadavar
Manisha Mondal and I were among the first journalists from outside the state to reach the industrial town of Bhilwara in the last week of March when it had 25 cases and India had just 649.
For over 10 days, the city was under a strict lockdown and its borders were sealed and each house surveyed for possible suspects. The efficiency of the operation which would later be championed as the ‘Bhilwara model’ in isolating suspects, testing, treating and ensuring seamless supply of essentials, was impressive. I was glad we were the first ones to report from the ground on the model that would later be implemented across the country.
Read her full account here.
Samyak Pandey
Barely a few days after the lockdown was first implemented, Praveen Jain and I set out to cover the massive reverse migration of daily wage labourers. We saw people from everywhere being uprooted overnight after years of painstaking effort and hard work to build a life in the city.
However, what was most unbearable was seeing children and pregnant women, some as advanced as eight months, walk barefoot on the road that was scorched in the sunlight. Many of them had developed blisters.
At many points on our route to Uttar Pradesh, we were stopped by authorities. At these times, we noticed how social distancing wasn’t strictly followed as well as the lack of other measures such as use of mask and sanitisers.
It was also heartbreaking when were forbidden from distributing food and/or water to the migrants we spoke to. This was to avoid huge crowds gathering in one place.
This was while hundreds of migrants have been camping at bus stops, hospital and petrol pumps across cities hoping for help or a way back home.
Fatima Khan
Reporting amid a lockdown doesn’t just mean restricted movement, it also means having to face a highly hostile environment where authorities will do whatever they can to curtail access.
In mid-April, I learnt how many ‘lockdown violators’ were being kept in shelter homes meant for migrant workers and the homeless. These alleged violators had a home in Delhi, but were being kept in a hostage-like situation, away from their families. Despite repeated attempts to bar our entry into such shelter homes, we managed to report on their trauma.
Kairvy Grewal
While reporting from Nizamuddin Markaz, the coronavirus hotspot in New Delhi, it was challenging to bring out an original on-ground story amid countless reports over the government’s negligence and the communalisation of the Tablighi Jamaat’s congregation. Soon, I stumbled across a Delhi government-approved shelter which was housing over 300 migrants living in close proximity instead of practicing social distancing, despite being a stone’s throw from the hotspot. The administration’s negligence reinstated my belief that press freedom is important, especially in times like these.
You can read her full report here.
Bismee Taskin
On 30 April, my colleague Manisha Mondal and I went to cover the Bangla Sahib Gurdwara’s community kitchen, which has been cooking for and delivering food to around 75,000 people, including migrant workers and the poor. A police officer had stopped us at the entry gate, asking us to get a written permission from the deputy commissioner of police (DCP).
He refused to listen to us when we explained that the gurdwara wasn’t under the government’s administration and if the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management was allowing us, we shouldn’t need a police permit.
When we did go to the DCP’s office, we were told no such permission was required. This whole exercise meant we wasted an hour trying to chase an unnecessary permit.
We eventually had to return the next day to cover the story.
The print journalists are doing a great job in reporting on Covid -19 trials and tribulations.Hats off to them.
But I am not sure if they and their roles are recognized as front line in characters like the health workers,
police.worker maintaining cleanliness etc.Because in their opinion ,journalist often do not work in tandem with them ,though in the long run all are trying to promote public weal and welfare.
Where is the hitch ? Journalists need a deep pondering
over their role in society vis -a vis other stake holders for more value addition from their reports.
THE PRINT is doing a good job, and my congratulations to you. But let me point out one hugely surprising omission from you just two days ago: USCIFR, the USA Committee of International Religious Freedom has severely downgraded India just two days ago, and there is no article on it from you. This is an important committee, the same which has recommended against Modi’s travel to the USA after 2002 Gujarat riots..
It is impossible that it could have escaped your notice. Were you pressurized by someone, against the cardinal principle of Press Freedom?
Modi can do anything beyond your imagination.
BJP has track record of death threatening not only to Journalist, opponents etc. and involved in killing of Gori Lankesh, suspect death of Judge Lohiya in Marashtra, horse trading for loyalty change or make false cases to keep any one behind the bar, Governors interference to topple State Govts. Democracy under threat, Misuse of Constitution, Judiciary / Courts influnced, Media captured, police infected.