Assembly polls: J&K at the cusp of another change. Is its media free enough to report it?

Jammu and Kashmir is set to hold assembly polls after a decade in October, but it seems that not every journalist will be able to cover it freely – the past five years have been especially difficult for the press in the valley.

Dozens of journalists have reported harassment, some have been imprisoned, and at least two still remain incarcerated. Sources refuse to talk or meet, and official statements on specific stories or incidents are rare. The excitement to report a story has nearly vanished. Writing opinions has become more dangerous. And facts, as sacred as they may seem, now have to be weighed carefully to avoid backlash.  

There is little that journalists in Kashmir can rely on these days, even the proposed reopening of the Kashmir Press Club announced earlier this month. 

From Kashmir Press Club to Press Club of Kashmir

For a lot of Kashmir-based journalists, the shutting down of Kashmir Press Club on January 17, 2022, was a major setback. Established in 2018, the space in a government building in Polo View, Lal Chowk, remained abuzz especially during the lockdown and the internet blockade that followed the abrogation of Article 370. Many young journalists liked it for the opportunity to network and get guidance from seniors.   

The club was shut following a controversial incident in which a group of journalists were accused of “forcibly” taking over it in the presence of armed guards – allegedly part of the security detail of Times of India correspondent M Saleem Pandit. That group has since been refuting the claim, saying they were only taking over as an interim body until the elections – pending from months – were held.

Pandit denied the claims of a “forcible takeover”. “It was bizarre to even call it a ‘coup’ as if we were military generals claiming power. There was no force from our side. We did not shut it down, the government banned it. We just want to establish a press club and hand it over at the time of the elections. We are applying for a fresh one and it has nothing to do with the old press club. It is a temporary arrangement for now and then the new elected body will find the permanent space and manage it,” he said. 

The union territory administration in an official statement had cited concerns over the club’s registration and management as reasons for its closure. The administration termed the situation as an “unpleasant turn of events involving two rival warring groups using the banner of the Kashmir Press Club”. 

The KPC was subsequently closed, its registration put in abeyance, and all its accounts frozen by the authorities. The select group led by Pandit was denounced by most local journalist bodies and political leaders, who accused them of being pliant and taking over the club in a manner akin to a “coup”. Though the outrage was gradually replaced by acute silence amid more raids, intimidation, and arrests.

More than 30 months later, a press release popped up in the inbox of all former press club members, stating that the media fraternity in Kashmir will “soon have a press club in Srinagar under the name of Press Club of Kashmir”. 

The email was sent on August 12 by an interim “executive body”.

“The functionaries of the UT administration assured the executive body of every possible help in the establishment of press club in Srinagar in the shortest possible period,” the press release read.

The executive body included M Saleem Pandit, interim president and a Times of India journalist, Zulfikar Majid of Deccan Herald, as general secretary and Farzana Mumtaz of News Kashmir, as treasurer. Members of this group earlier stated they had been unfairly targeted after the 2022 closure of the club and accused of being state-backed. 

Zulfikar Majid, who had unsuccessfully ran for the club president in 2019, said the government had no role to play in the incident on KPC premises in January 2022 and that his life changed completely after being subjected to “unfair” targeting. “I was displaced from my home that night and I have not been able to go back,” said Majid, who has been provided personal security and now lives in a government accommodation. He said the reason why authorities became involved in the developments at KPC was a statement from the Pakistan foreign office. 

Majid claimed that the registration for the new club as “Press Club of Kashmir” has been completed with seven members verified and cleared to run it as a society. “We have taken the space on rent for which we are contributing so I don’t understand where the state is involved – not then and not now.”

The interim office-bearers of the newly formed club held a meeting with several journalists on August 16 at this club’s rented premises at Amira Kadal. “Our objective is simply to hold the elections as soon as possible and no one should have any objection,” he said. 

However, Khalid Majeed, Director, Industries and Commerce, Kashmir, said the registration is still underway. “We have received an application for the registration of Kashmir Press Club. I have no idea about any entity or society called the Press Club of Kashmir. The registrar societies will follow the due process in the registration of the KPC which includes verification from the CID police.”

The prisoners 

Majid Hyderi, a senior journalist with nearly two decades of experience with local media outlets, accompanied Pandit and his team during the interim takeover. However, Hyderi is not part of the new club body because he was arrested by the police and later booked under the controversial Public Safety Act.

Before his arrest, Hyderi would frequently appear on shouting matches that have come to replace television debates on mainstream Indian TV news – including with the likes of Arnab Goswami on Republic World. But the police accused him of using “the cover of journalism” to “provoke, instigate, and extort the masses against the government of India”. 

Zulfikar Majid, who is Hyderi’s close friend, claimed that he was jailed only because he was “vocal and criticised the administration”. “I request the government to release him. He is not anti-national. He may have criticised the government, may be in a crude form, but he does not deserve the punishment he is facing. He can be released on humanitarian grounds. There is no one to look after his old mother,” Majid said.  

Since November last year, three Kashmiri journalists, including Fahad Shah, Sajad Gul and Asif Sultan, have been released by the authorities. While Shah and Gul spent nearly two years in jail, Sultan was released after more than five years. And among those who are still languishing in prison is Irfan Mehraj, who was arrested in March 2023 by the NIA for his brief association as a researcher with the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Societies, a human rights group accused of terror funding activities.

“Kashmir has been experiencing a low-intensity war for more than three decades now and Irfan’s work, at JKCCS and as a journalist, has been in the pursuit of truth, justice and empathy in Kashmir, to humanise those affected by the conflict and to facilitate aid and assistance to those in need…they say truth is the first casualty of war. Perhaps the second is empathy for your fellow human being,” said a close relative of Irfan Mehraj.

Besides the arrests, journalists have also been affected by phone calls and summons. 

Many local journalists considered it as part of the occupational hazard that the media in Kashmir has been facing since the early 1990s with the outbreak of the armed insurgency. The work in the 1990s was worse, many from the older generation of scribes believed, and filing a story “required a warrior’s heart”. But  many others feel that it has gone from “worse to unprecedented”. 

“There is little scope for that kind of work and journalism has been made even more difficult,” a journalist with an experience of over 20 years said on the condition of anonymity. (Not many journalists were willing to go on record for this piece.) 

A false equivalence?

There are many in Kashmir who have raised questions about the new club, including the National Conference, whose vice-president and former chief minister Omar Abdullah is amongst the strongest critics of Saleem and his cohort. 

The party asked the administration to clarify several aspects about the new club, including when the interim election notification was issued, the participation of journalists, and the date on which these elections were conducted. 

Majid said he will respond to the NC once they clarify their stance on party elections, questioning why the party’s leadership is limited to the Abdullahs and not extended to other senior leaders like Ali Mohammad Sagar or Abdul Rahim Rather, who have dedicated 50 years to the party.

But many feel the questions around the club are genuine since it has come up when most social and political activism, and press freedom and rights groups have been “silenced”. 

“As a journalist, claiming equivalence with a political party's manoeuvres and that of a body meant to support press freedom and journalistic neutrality is disingenuous. A coup may happen in a party, even sometimes supported by a regime but a coup within a media body with the ostensible support of a regime is utterly inimical to journalistic interests,” an editor based in Kashmir said. 

Those expressing their reservations with the new club also find it hard to believe that the conditions for the media will improve even after the assembly polls. 

Parties on press freedom

Despite his advocacy for press freedom in Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, during a recent interaction with several journalists on the sidelines of a press briefing, expressed his disappointment over the pursuits of the media. 

He mentioned Bashir Ahmad Bashir, a top cartoonist active since the 1970s and popularly known as BAB. Omar said his cartoons have been critical of all the successive governments but not of the situation under the Lt Governor. In his last 100 or so cartoons, BAB has tackled various themes, from weather to inflation to regional political dynamics, but seems to have displayed strong caution when it comes to the L-G.

Meanwhile, the PDP has also spoken about the agenda to protect press freedom. Its election manifesto has vowed to “protect free speech” in the face of what they have termed as an “unprecedented government repression”. 

“Our effort will be to free the press club, which is currently completely under their control, from their clutches and place it back in your hands,” Mufti told the press while unveiling the manifesto last week. 

A journalist, who works for the international press, believed that the elections are significant as each party has promised relief, a check on atrocities, and respect for freedom of expression. “We are hopeful for increased freedom and space to report, but this will depend on whether the elected government has the mandate and power to address press freedom concerns and law and order matters so we maintain a cautious hope,” he said. 

There are doubts whether the election will be able to radically change the local press – many of which have deleted their newspaper archives and which over the last five years have primarily featured press releases from the UT administration and stories that align with the governing party’s perspective.

The election buzz is clear in headlines, but another Kashmir-based journalist said a non-BJP government in the union territory can’t be powerful enough to advocate strongly for press freedom “simply because they will not share total autonomy over policies or institutions like the police force which has been at the forefront of curtailing press freedoms. Then there is their own bad track record of dealing with the press.”

‘Anti-national element’ excluded 

As the election draws closer, not every journalist will be able to cover it freely. 

During the parliamentary elections, some of the journalists who had applied for passes were denied so by the Department of Information and Public Relations. (The Jammu and Kashmir police’s CID wing had not cleared them on the basis that some of the reporters had covered “anti-establishment” stories. At least one was found “vulnerable to be influenced” by an “ANE” or anti-national element.)   

The DIPR recently completed the accreditation process and finalised the accreditation of a total of 262 news media personnel. As many as 412 professionals had applied – 205 applications were received from Kashmir division but only 128 have been cleared. While there can be multiple reasons, including incomplete documentation, and the failure to submit salary-slips, there is also a list of journalists especially from the foreign media who have not been cleared by the CID – around 30 names simply mentioned as ‘ANEs’. The accreditation list has not been made public yet. 

Many journalists who have been accredited multiple times before have been left out. And a few working for national newspapers had decided against applying this time. 

The Election Commission of India will issue passes for the election coverage separately and documents for the same have been collected by the DIPR. These passes will be issued before the first phase of assembly elections on September 18.

There are at least six journalists from Kashmir who have earlier been denied permission to travel abroad. This includes Sanna Mattoo, who won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in 2022 but was not allowed to attend the award ceremony in the US despite having valid travel documents. 

“For the past many years, there have been numerous lists issued by both state and non-state actors. There seems to be an obsession about the media in Kashmir and I find it disturbing how these efforts are increasingly being used to profile Kashmiri journalists,” a young journalist said. 

The writer is a Srinagar-based independent journalist.

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