Since its inception in 2018, the Kashmir Press Club (KPC) located in the heart of Srinagar’s Poloview Road was not just a place to ideate and network but was also a nodal centre for visiting journalists who used to land here for any assignment.
Freelancers and journalists, who worked for organisations that do not have an office in Srinagar, depended on the facilities provided by the KPC. The subsidised tea and snacks and an internet connection was life and blood for reporters. It was also a place where journalists could meet their sources and shape solidarities.
Many journalists, whom the Friday Times spoke to over the past few days, said its presence reassured them, considering that they were reporting from a conflict zone.
While all major cities in India have had press clubs operating for more than four to five decades, the press club in Srinagar was set up as late as 2018, after the then government allotted a building on the Poloview Road. The members of the club elected its first body in July 2019 for two years.
However, after the abrogation of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir, when laws were changed, the registration rules of the press club were also to change. A fresh registration application was sought under the Registrar of Societies. The club applied for the same in July 2021 and got its fresh registration issued on December 29 last year -- almost after six months. Two weeks later on January 14, the government cancelled the registration citing an adverse report from intelligence agencies.
State-managed coup
Meanwhile, fresh election dates were announced for February 15. However, a group of journalists led by M Saleem Pandit, whose members from the club had been suspended, staged a kind of government-backed coup. The coup team arrived at the club along with a posse of heavily armed policemen. When prominent media organisations raised hue and cry, the government took over the club under the garb of intervening in infighting within the local journalist community.
At the time of setting up the club, Pandit had approached the Press Club of India and wanted that the club is exempted from conducting the election. A former official of the Press Club of India recalls that he had argued that in case of elections, the club will be taken over by 'secessionist elements'. He had later described Kashmiri reporters as 'jihadi journalists', for which he was suspended from the club.
Kashmir has several journalist associations including the Journalist Federation of Kashmir, Jammu and Kashmir Journalist Association, Press Photographer Association, Kashmir Working Journalist Association, but KPC was one place that brought the fraternity under one umbrella.
The coup at KPC has brought to the fore the vulnerability of the press in Kashmir. Ever since the abrogation of Article 370, media and other democratic institutions have been facing resistance from the government. The press in Kashmir was the first casualty of the abrogation of article 370 in the valley. Most of the media houses in Kashmir that were dependent on government advertisement were forced to toe the line of the government. “While the valley was brewing with rage after the special status was removed, newspapers ran Op-Ed pages on things like the use of olive oil or political developments in Africa,” recalls a journalist. The internet services remained disrupted in the valley for more than a year.
“Journalism was never easy in Jammu and Kashmir and has always remained under government’s control. But after 2019, the government has become intolerant and cannot stand a word of criticism. State which should have protected the rights of a free press has become the biggest violator of press freedom,” said Anuradha Bhasin, executive editor Kashmir Times.
Five Ms
It is said that there are five Ms that the government in Delhi has identified and needs them to be under its tight fist. They are masses, masjid, maulvi, media and militant. “While the state has managed to control the first three, the last two continue to be a problem,” said a senior official on condition of anonymity.
Press and civil rights activists have been under constant watch ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in the centre. Raiding houses of journalists, summoning and interrogation by the police, confiscation of phones and laptops of journalists has become common in the valley these days. According to media watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists, since 2019, about 12 journalists have faced temporary detention and questioning by the government, police have raided the house of 6 journalists and FIR has been
registered for doing their jobs. Even a tweet on protest by residents over a broken road can land one in a police station.
Like everyone in the country, the media in Kashmir is under constant threat. Time and again, journalists are summoned by the police. Their houses were raided and their gadgets seized, making it extremely difficult for journalists to do their jobs. A journalist who has worked in Delhi for several years, before moving to Kashmir says that reporting in Kashmir is very different and difficult compared to Delhi.
Intimidation by governments
“In Delhi, you are more secure. You can report and tweet facts and there is a community that will back you. But in Srinagar, where it is difficult for information to get out of the valley, harassment of journalists is becoming a routine,” explains a Srinagar based journalist, who says that in this current scenario, his the family now wants him to quit journalism.
Journalists elsewhere in India have also been facing intimidation by the government. They are being charged with sedition, are being thrown behind bars without trials for months on end. Journalists in New Delhi now have limited access to the government buildings, and their access to Parliament House has been put under tight control. Even the central government’s accredited journalists have been put under scrutiny. And it will not be surprising if the Kashmir model is replicated in the rest of the country.
“What was happening to journalists in Kashmir for years has begun to take place elsewhere in India too," adds Bhasin.