‘Leash on Free Voice’: J&K Journo’s Award Withdrawal Reinforces ‘Threat Factor’

Safina Nabi's work foregrounds the various struggles of women as they navigate societal pressures and patriarchy.

Her work foregrounds the various struggles of women across the country as they navigate societal pressures and patriarchal value systems.

(Photo: Kamran Akhtar/ The Quint)

The decision to rescind the proposed award to Kashmiri Journalist Safina Nabi by Pune-based MIT World Peace University (MIT-WPU) earlier in October has sparked debates about whether any bold, public-interest journalism emerging out of Kashmir, where critics and media groups allege that press freedom conditions have worsened, can aspire for recognition in the country without attracting allegations of "anti-national” conduct.

Nabi, a freelancer, writes mostly about issues concerning women in India for international media outlets like Christian Science Monitor, New Humanitarian, Nikkei Asia Review, among others.

The particular story which was selected for the university’s 'Journalism for Peace Award’ was published by Scroll.in, a Mumbai-based Indian news website, in partnership with the Pulitzer Centre.

The story sheds light on the travails of Muslim women in Kashmir whose husbands have become victims of enforced disappearances through three decades of violent conflict, and as such find themselves excluded from the family patrimony on account of "selective” reading of the Islamic inheritance laws.

Withdrawal on Grounds of Contentious Opinions

Nabi told The Quint that she was informed about the award on 10 October. The email from the MIT-WPU’s Media and Communications Department, which this correspondent has read, informed Nabi that her name was decided jointly by a seven-member jury including MK Venu of The Wire, Sandeep Adhwaryu of The Times of India, Sunanda Mehta of The Indian Express and many more. 

“I did not apply for the award. It was them who approached me based on the decision of the jury members,” Nabi said.

In a statement released to The Quint, the MIT-WPU said that while the institution had a “deep appreciation for her substantial contributions to the field of journalism,” it withdrew the award after it was made aware of some of Nabi’s "published opinions and views, which have the potential to be viewed as contentious and not in alignment with the foreign policy of the Indian Government.” It refuted the reports that there was any "political pressure” on them to do so. 

MIT-WPU statement on Nabi's work

Source: Author

Reticence To File for Recognition

Nevertheless, the decision appears to have precipitated a sense of wariness among journalists in Kashmir who are contemplating whether they should pitch their stories on human rights for various awards in the future, for it risks casting them in an “unsavoury” light. 

"No institution is immune to various pressures that are being brought to bear upon them,” one Kashmiri journalist told The Quint, referring to the 2020 decision by the Ramnath Goenka Foundation to drop the category of 'Conflict Reporting’ from Excellence in Journalism Awards. “Kashmiri journalists would almost certainly feature among the awardees every time the Ramnath Goenka Award was announced. But that’s not the case now.” 

Such recognition would bolster and reaffirm the integrity of journalists in Kashmir and make it difficult for the authorities to randomly pick them out as targets because of their critical work, he said.

“The standard of journalism that will be produced in Kashmir will fall a few notches further as a consequence of this action. It sets a new precedent.”

A 28-year-old female journalist from Kashmir told The Quint that she consciously does not file for an award for her stories on human rights. “There’s an unspoken consensus that while we might earn recognition for our gender-sensitive work, it is out of the question to assume that we will be rewarded for stories that are critical of the government,” she said.

'Totally Scandalous'

Free speech advocates insist that the act of revoking Nabi’s award was connected to the “scare factor" being generated in the media about the discourse surrounding Kashmir. “The narrative promoted in media and through a few Hindi films is very demonising already,” Geeta Sheshu of the Free Speech Collective said. “Journalism schools are supposed to teach prospective journalists how to do good journalism. That’s why an award like this is so important. That they withdrew the award is totally scandalous.”

Sheshu, however, dismissed the view that Kashmiri journalists should feel discouraged from applying for national-level awards. “Just two days ago, the journalist in question won The Laadli Media Award for Gender Sensitivity for the same article,” she said. “I don’t think we should assume everyone thinks in this manner. That the country’s top editors took this decision means that people everywhere are concerned about press freedom and about the good journalism coming from Kashmir.”

'Political Pressure' 

The award ceremony felicitating Nabi was supposed to take place on 18 October. But one day before the event, Nabi received a call from an unknown number, and a female voice from the other end of the line informed her that the award had to be revoked on account of the “political pressure from the right wing camps.”

Nabi first thought someone was playing a prank with her. "I had a single point of contact with the university so far. Now suddenly, a different person was calling me to tell me that my award has been withdrawn,” she said, recalling her sense of disbelief. 

Immediately, she rang the person at the university she had been liaising with. “He had no clue about it. He hung up and called back after sometime to confirm that what I had heard was indeed true,” Nabi said. 

Her request to the university officials to communicate the act of withdrawal of the award in writing was not honored. “About an hour or so later, I received a call from the director of the department. He too spoke about this political pressure but refused to commit anything in writing,” she said.

Instead, the university officials offered her a sponsored visit to their campus in January where she was to be a "presenter, speaker and guest of honour," she said.

Angered at the “impertinence” of the institute Nabi texted one of the jury members and enlightened him about the developments. “The jury shared my annoyance over the issue,” Nabi said.

None of the jury members mentioned above eventually attended the award ceremony as a mark of protest. “They boycotted the ceremony,” Nabi added.

Personal Experiences Shaped Her Story

Nabi, who has received fellowships from the US State Department, Reporters Without Borders, Pulitzer Centre, and Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma, said that she wasn’t really concerned about having lost the award. "I have so much to my credit already,” she said. Nabi is also a recipient of the Fetisov Journalism Award. 

For much of her career as a reporter, Nabi has never been in a newsroom as she chooses to freelance so she could afford a greater degree of editorial freedom for herself. Her work foregrounds the various struggles of women across the country as they navigate societal pressures and patriarchal value systems.

“In my reporting, I am trying to create spaces where these struggles are recognised and debated. To suggest that my reporting is controversial is a setback for all other similar efforts,” Nabi said.

She is very cognisant of the reality that all societies, irrespective of the religious beliefs they are rooted in, are capable of being unjust towards women. “Islam has given women considerable autonomy. But there’s a difference between what it enjoins upon its adherents and how they perceive, practice, and execute it,” she said.

The idea of the story came from Nabi's very own experience. “I am the only child of my parents, and now my father has passed away too. It impacted me emotionally when I discovered that I was being told to follow certain things that I didn’t want to do just because I was daughter and not a son,” she recalled, not opting to elaborate on the specifics of the discrimination she faced.

This feeling of being treated unfairly has registered deeply on her psyche which motivated her to look for other similar instances.

"It took me three years to work on this story and put everything into context,” she said.

(Shakir Mir is an independent journalist. He tweets at @shakirmir. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)