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No phones, no internet & little freedom: Why I took part in Srinagar journalists’ protest

It was a message to powers-that-be that we may have been left battered, but we are still here to see, to feel and to write about things the way they are.

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This Thursday, I participated in a protest by journalists in Srinagar against the communication clampdown in Kashmir since 5 August.

But for me, it was more than just another protest against the government’s curbs on press. The protest was a message to the powers-that-be that our freedom may have been curtailed, we may have been left battered, but we are still here to see, to feel and to write about things the way they are. Nothing can prevent that, not even a communication blackout.


Immediate demands

The protest took place at the Kashmir Press Club in Srinagar’s Lal Chowk area, which has become a hub of activity in the last two months.

Journalists in Srinagar often joke that with no elected government in Jammu and Kashmir for over a year now, and leaders of major political parties in the Valley under detention, the Kashmir Press Club (KPC) is perhaps one of the few elected and non-partisan organisations left in the region.

Journalists stage protest at the Kashmir Press Club | Photo: By special arrangement

In the last 60 days since Article 370 was scrapped and communication blockade was imposed, the KPC as well as several journalists in their individual capacity have approached the administration officials with the request to restore internet services. Another request has been to restore mobile services for state-accredited journalists and KPC members.

No action has been taken on both these requests.

Although Thursday’s protest was organised at short notice, more than 100 journalists turned up for it.


Also read: Requiem for a dream: Kashmir needs a heavy dose of post-nationalism


Reporting the truth

In the last two months, journalists in Kashmir have faced several pressures, and lack of internet services is just one of them.

Some of my colleagues have been summoned, some even detained for hours. Some of us were not allowed to even step out of our houses in the first few days of restriction while those with ‘Delhi press credentials’ moved around Srinagar freely.

Therefore, our first reaction to the news of the authorities opening a media facilitation centre in the Valley was a sense of relief. But it soon gave way to a feeling of being at the mercy of the government to do our job.

My colleagues in Srinagar suggested that even this move was a result of the national (read Delhi) press building pressure on the administration to set up a centre with internet facility so that they could file their stories. That journalists in Kashmir enjoy little leverage compared to Delhi-based TV channels is a fact well-known.

The day the centre opened, 10 August, more than 300 media professionals queued up to use the four computers placed there. The desperation was unparalleled.

Any sense of privacy that I as a journalist ever had was torn apart in the first few minutes, with a dozen others standing next to me, waiting for their turn and eyes fixated on my computer screen.

The centre has a mobile phone too, but before we can use it, we need to enter the names and the numbers we would call.

Senior officials from the government and the police, who often visit the centre, ask us if we are “happy” with the facility. A question like that only adds salt to our wounds. The media facilitation centre is actually an attempt to disempower and disarm the press. A placard at Thursday’s protest described the media centre as a ‘sub-jail’ – showing exactly what we feel about working under these circumstances.

I would have liked to describe all of this as sheer humiliation, but by doing so I would invariably undermine the humiliation that many in Kashmir, who are not as privileged as journalists, are facing on a daily basis. Such is the climate in Kashmir that people I talk to for my reports ask me if I will be able to write what they tell me.

Therefore, I took part in the protest to tell the world that reporting unvarnished truth is our right and it is the right of the readers to know this truth.


Also read: Teargassed, restricted, alienated – stop saying Shias in Kashmir are on Modi govt’s side


 

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21 COMMENTS

  1. Don’t you think life is more important than communications. Halting of communication systems are required to ensure no terrorist activites are done and lives are saved

  2. It is a sad fact that JP movement even though had its merits legitimised RSS in its sheer blind anti congressim.We do not have to go back that far into history as even the anti corruption movement intially was filled with RSS cadres
    But once it gained traction RSS cadres left the platform.But one of the dangerous side effects of JP movement was it produced eminent leaders for voluntary sector.These leaders because of their clout visibility eliminated alll voluntary sector who belonged the minority community.They sat in dharna against Kurien of Amul,whey they knew that they have structured their organisation that they will be president even after their death

  3. Regarding demand of press reporters for internet and phone, Kavi Kumar Biswas already gave answer long before standing on British land that a brain tumar has been operated recently, it will take time be normal. First, patient will remain at ICU, then he will be shifted at general bed , after that he will checked up by the doctors thoroughly and if doctors found them satisfactory, then only patient will be released from the hospital. Unless otherwise, the patient may be prescribed for another surgery. So please wait for some time and have a Patience, Kasmir will be normal very soon. If you remember, in 1971 ,Pakistani foreces fired so many rounds of bullets on Bangladeshi since six months and killed more than 30 lakhs people and raped more than 10 lakhs ladies and displaced more than 2 cores of people. In 1990, Kashmiris killed more than three lakhs Hindus, raped more than one lakhs Hindu ladies and displaced more than 7 lakhs Hindus. But so far after abrogation of 370 article, not a single bullet has been fired against any civilian and not single civilian has been died by bullet fire. You should appreciate our soldiers and government s for these credit. When you should try to establish peace in Kasmir, you are rather trying to disorganized the situation. This is not true jurnelism. If you see the war at 1990, between American forces and Sadam Husen forces at Iraq, no American jurnelist tried to go to Iraq to find the truth, even not your jurnelists and neither you have tried to write any story on Pakistani aggression on Bangladeshi at 1971 or Kashmiri Muslim aggression on Kashmiri Hindus at 1990 and American aggression on Iraqi s on 1990-1991. So please be peaceful, have patience and help government to bring normalcy at Kasmir.
    I believe that normalancy will prevail at Kasmir because , You people, must believe that all this happened that is for the betterment of Kashmiris only.

  4. Kashmiri Muslims seriously need to stop their pathetic made up sob stories. There is NO communication “black out”. Nor is there curfew.

    Are all landlines not working in the valley? How did you manage to send this anti-India propaganda without the internet?

    How did you used to manage your life in pre internet and mobile era? Saving lives more important or your whatsapp and FB?

    Shame on you for writing anti-India rant.

  5. 48 yrs old, history of Bangladesh revisited, only the hero & villain roles are reversed and on more modern destructive scale, missing are Indira Gandhi & the general Manekshaw from both sides, Modi-Shah are no replacement. Let’s wait when war starts, nothing less than war will solve the impassé, the sooner the better.
    It’s dull with killing unarmed Kashmiris, it’ll be interesting only when two mighty military fight eachother tooth & nail like hockey match, me & you either evaporated sitting with God or run away to safe havens with cunning politician friends waiting for smoke to settle & rekindle the fire on residual life.
    Kashmir conquerors whoever might be, congratulations, meet you in hell or heaven depending on how true or false you & we had been.
    Buddies attack, or be attacked don’t be dull.

  6. Had you all come out against agenda of Pakistan and shown solidarity, courage and support in operating schools and routine public activities, there would not have been any requirement for such a protest. Everyone in India want things to get normalized at Kashmir. We do pray for that but positive intentions and support are to be shown and practised by people like you.

  7. This is truly incomprehensible. A way to trigger some kind of protest or movement by bringing these kind of untrusted and seemingly politically motivated moves will do only some good to this of news. Why can’t you decide what r u up against. If there is no internet, then why the hell u feel “the print” has been able to gather the news. Please stop spreading such kind of false rumors or else even Allah won’t be able to save you.

  8. Not clear why internet is required to file stories from the Valley of Kashmir, unless one is doing some deep research. By the way, can The Print do some stories on how the Kashmiri media covered the ethnic cleansing of Hindus from the valley in 1989/ 90, particularly of the fateful night of January 1990, when loud speakers from mosques had this chilling message for Hindus and Sikhs “Ralive, Tsaliv ya Galive (either convert to Islam, leave the land, or die)”?

  9. Most of section of Society in Kashmir has been getting many undue previlages which is stopped now. Being the Print a congress supported media it is trying to create a narrative against center.

  10. In Iraq 100 protesters were killed in police firing in last few days. ( All are Muslims ! ) . Government of Iraq has suspended internet. Compare this with Jammu and Kashmir. Please.

  11. AZAAN JAVAID disguised as journalist is an over ground worker of anti India forces working in India. He is using ThePrint to run anti government propaganda with exaggerated falsehood and Shekhar Gupta is allowing him to use space in ThePrint. This way SG is helping anti India forces.

  12. Your hypocrisy is astounding. Go get a life fake journalist cum jihadi brother.Sheds tears for moslems only.
    Rest of us are Kafirs just to be slaughtered.White Italian lady pay master for this platform.
    Go figure it

  13. You are not a journalist. Just a partisan moslem jihadi pretending to be one. Don’t u have any shame?
    What about your true jihadi feeling towards non moslems? Shame on u and the print giving u a platform?
    Hindus also have feelings when driven out of their home and killed for their religious belief?
    Go to Mecca and do penance.

  14. Fast internet is not a human right, slow or no cell internet will do. Setup internet cafes monitored against misuse and public phones like it used to be 20 years ago.

  15. Whether or not journalists are able to report freely, the world is getting the message. Senator Elizabeth Warren is the most recent distinguished voice to be raised on this issue.

    • Agree with you. The world is getting the message. They will keep asking questions
      and the narrative of everything is normal will not wash.

    • Senator Warren is a proven liar. she claimed to be of Red Indian (native American) and got all her benifits . It was proven that she has nothing to do with Native Americans other than that her ancestors may have killed some of them…so stop treating her words as gospel..

  16. The way this journalist describes his “suffering” – there was no journalism before the internet or news published before cell phone connectivity!
    To quote Shakespeare – The Lady doth protests too much…
    The nefarious intent behind this is plain for all to see , especially when the cost of relaxation is so high and the supposed “rights” ( rights that are self appropriated as Internet is neither a right nor a necessity for a free press in most of the world still ) demand would only mean a degree of less effort required. 8 million Kashmiris are not generating so much news every minute that it’s immediate reportage is either critical or earth shattering. On balance the cost of human life that would be jeopardized would be far greater.
    Also, for Kashmiris, whose full time occupation is the cultivation of humiliation and grievance, the internet and cell phone shutdown can be a blessing in disguise as they are insulated as far as possible from the “humiliation” of listening to all the myriad commentary about them .

  17. That’s better than violence and loss of life. It is perfectly legitimate to curtail Internet for a while in the larger interest of national security and integrity.

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