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Only way to give back is to tell a powerful story: Inside Barkha Dutt’s 84-day Covid journey

Barkha Dutt has been on the road covering the Covid crisis and the migrant exodus even before India was locked down. And she’s far from done.

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New Delhi: On the last Thursday of May, Barkha Dutt passed through rural Kasargod in Kerala towards Karnataka, where she would briefly halt before getting back on the road. Outside her window, the landscape was a verdant green contrasted by blue skies. The view cheered her up.

“It’s beautiful. Green, palm trees everywhere — it’s a happy feeling. Most days don’t look like this,” Dutt told ThePrint, on what was her 73rd day reporting the Covid-19 crisis in India, and 65th since the entire country was placed under a lockdown. “On most days, we see only grief and despair.”

Eleven days on, Dutt has now spent 84 days on the road, primarily chronicling the stories of those fleeing the cities to escape the threat of starvation and infection by the novel coronavirus. The lockdown was put in place to arrest the spread of Covid-19, but with earnings coming to a grinding halt, lakhs of workers and their families began walking towards their homes in villages thousands of kilometres away.

Dutt is being widely praised for relentlessly bringing the story of the migrant exodus to the social media timelines of India’s sheltered middle- and upper-classes.

When the Narendra Modi government announced the lockdown, Dutt went to the Ghaziabad-Delhi border with her producer and cameraperson to see what might be happening. She saw a stream of people, bags in hand, walking with a sense of purpose. Two months later, this movement continues.

“I set out to cover a pandemic, but what I saw was a humanitarian crisis on an unprecedented scale. I come from a Partition family, so I grew up listening to stories of hardship and migration from my parents. But I never once thought I’d see it with my own eyes,” she said.

Dutt began to move in the direction of these masses, and meandered her way through ten states — with a cameraperson, producer, and driver in tow — before landing up in Kasargod, the southernmost part of the country that she travelled to before coming back up north.


Also read: From death to life in 72 hours — my 10 days on the road covering Covid through UP, Bihar


From TV to digital platform

Dutt is among India’s most popular and controversial journalists, drawing both praise and ire for her work. When she was 26 years old, she covered the Kargil war — what she calls the most “transformative” experience of her career — and immediately shot to fame. She was admired for her bravery, but criticised for allegedly revealing strategic locations which were later targeted by Pakistan.

In 2010, Dutt was embroiled in the Radia tapes controversy, a scandal uncovering recorded conversations between prominent journalists like Dutt and political lobbyist Niira Radia. In the tapes, Dutt allegedly agreed to pass messages between Radia and members of the Congress regarding the reappointment of a telecommunications minister accused of corruption.

Dutt’s rise as a reporter had coincided with the emergence of TV news in India, and she quickly became a household name. She hosted the acclaimed debate shows We The People and The Buck Stops Here on NDTV. An episode of the latter won the organisation an Emmy nomination, and Dutt international recognition.

“I’ve always been a news junkie and a workaholic. When I first saw the migrants walk on foot out of Delhi, there was no one else around, which was a little bewildering. There were no TV cameras to capture this tragedy as it unfolded. This story had to be told from the ground, no matter what time of night or day,” she said. “It was strange that there were no cameras, because it’s such a strong visual story.”

Dutt’s experience as a TV journalist aided her in capturing the hurt, fear, resentment, and grit of the men, women, and children she met, whose numbers would swell with every passing day. Her mission became to deconstruct, or chip away at, the stereotype of the ‘migrant worker’, who has now become a symbol of the lockdown’s oversights. Her new start-up digital video platform, Mojo Story, seeks to become a source for such ground reports.

“I’m tired of the talking-heads formula that TV journalists follow. I’m bored to death by party politics. I want to stay close to the ground and continue with visual storytelling, which is what I’ve always been drawn to,” she said.

In the few months since its launch in October 2019, Mojo Story has attracted between 7,000 to over 2 lakh views per video, which Dutt says has been consistent with her TV rankings.

Critics say Dutt still claims the spotlight even as she reports the struggles of others. Her Twitter page features a flood of photos and updates of her whereabouts, and an occasional snub to the journalist fraternity that verges on holier-than-thou.

But Dutt said the criticism meant little to her in the face of the overwhelming positive response to her work.

“People can say what they want about me. I don’t see why I should care,” she said. “I never expected the kind of positive feedback we’re getting since we started off. People are not only contributing more to our platform, they’re leaving comments thanking us for everything we are covering. Isn’t that what counts?”


Also read: Warmth, food, lots of chai — 2 journalists on Covid-19 trail get taste of Punjabi kindness


An unplanned journey

“Initially, we never planned to travel as far as we did. But I realised that we had to follow the story, even if it took us beyond Delhi,” said Dutt.

Her four-member team began making day-trips to hotspots and highways in Rajasthan, Haryana, and Madhya Pradesh in the beginning of April, capturing stories and then returning home to a safe place to sleep, and a stable Wi-Fi connection that would ease editing and uploading the content to Mojo Story. But with constantly changing plans and the ambition to cover more ground, the day trips became increasingly untenable.

Barkha Dutt and the team that's criss-crossing the country with her | Photo; Twitter | @BDUTT
Barkha Dutt and the team that’s criss-crossing the country with her | Photo; Twitter | @BDUTT

“The last trip we made like that was to Indore, which is a 17-hour journey one way. We shot the footage and drove back to Delhi the same day,” she said.

“I’d get calls from Praveen who would say, ‘Why are you doing this, just find a place to stay and do your work from there’. I finally took his advice,” she said, referring to ThePrint’s Photo Editor Praveen Jain who, at the time, was travelling with this reporter in another part of the country to cover the pandemic.

Dutt and her team had packed four pairs of clothes each, not anticipating that their travels would take them further and further south. They’ve lost count of how many times they’ve washed and worn the same pairs of clothes. “I just bought a new kurta in Kerala because the shops were open for a change,” she said with a laugh.


Also read: Hope over fear, joy after despair — our 14 days in quarantine were a lesson in positivity


Lessons in privilege and governance

Dutt is 48 years old, and clearly unafraid of contracting the virus.

“Look, as reporters, we’ve chosen to cover dangerous events and have often risked our lives for it. Why should this be any different? If fear dictates your editorial decisions, why be a journalist at all?” she asked.

Every day posed three routine challenges: How to cross the border, where to stay, and what to eat. Crossing these hurdles became somewhat easier with the gradual lifting of the lockdown, but often it meant relying on the kindness of strangers, or going to extraordinary lengths. Dutt said she realised that kindness and co-operation aren’t reserved for everyone.

“I remember we were on a highway between Gujarat and Rajasthan, and we were interviewing a group of workers who were walking to their villages. Suddenly a truck passed by, and they left the interview and ran after the truck,” she recalled.

“One man climbed on and the other negotiated with the truck driver. But the driver himself was helpless, and said the police would never allow for him to carry the migrants. They had to climb out of the truck. In that moment, they were willing to give anything for some help, even the clothes on their backs.”

It’s been the second most challenging assignment of her life after the Kargil war. Unlike then, when the danger was palpable, Covid-19 is impossible to detect. Having hopped on trains and trucks, she and her team have learned that the concept of social distancing is impractical in a country as vast and populous as India.

“What has struck me, though, is the importance of local governance. A thoughtful, empathetic district administrator can go a long way in easing the burden of this crisis on the poor,” she said.

In Dharwad, Karnataka, for example, District Collector M. Deepa immediately turned hostels to shelter homes for incoming migrants, and organised a clothes-stitching drive among local residents. Even within a state, the pandemic and migrant exodus were handled differently from district to district.

“Surat handled the pandemic far better than Ahmedabad because it had prior experience with the plague of 1994,” she said.

The second time ThePrint spoke to Dutt, the exhaustion in her voice was impossible to mask. She and her team had spent over 24 hours in Mumbai helping a 70-year-old woman, who had been abused and abandoned by her son, get on a train to Delhi.

Dutt isn’t sure how much longer she will travel, only that she is both exhausted and motivated by the road ahead.

“I’ve seen a lot of death, violence and poverty in my life — but I’ve never seen what we’re seeing today. I’ve realised that the only way for me to give back is to tell a powerful story,” she said.


Also read: Reporting from Bhilwara was scary as the enemy was invisible. It was a virus


 

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9 COMMENTS

  1. Barkha is nothing but a frustreted & failed journalist. Who was pro congress & biased journalist throughout her career.

  2. A team that’s crisis crossing but doesn’t even deserve a small mention of their name. I am sure she couldn’t have done all of this alone.

  3. This lady was in JNK passing information to Pakistan, this lady was in during killing of hindu Kashmiri pandit, helping the terrorist to kill the hindues, this lady was in mumbai when terrorist attacked the Taj, sending information to Pakistan, this lady BD enemy of the hindues, now dowing a photo opp to show it to international media and make money, god save this hidiat lady.

  4. Burkha Dutt is only doing this because NDTV kept getting complaints about her and she is a ‘Congress Stooge’ fully.She has sao much venom that all politicians hate her.This story staged by Congress Party.

  5. It is good to see BD returning to journalism as opposed to political activism. My opinion may not count, but you still have a long way to go before redemption.

  6. If Congress comes to Power in 2024, Ms BD won’t get disappointed & Sure to be awarded ” Bharat Ratna”. . BD can also write a Book which US media left liberals will love it & some Western Media may award BD with Cash award..

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