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brajeshupadhyay · 5 years ago

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In Bareilly jail, I was the guardian of all Kashmiris, says journalist Qazi Shibli after 9 months of detention under PSA

Shibli, who runs online news portal The Kashmiriyat, says that he was summoned by a local police station on 27 July last year, after he reported, and later tweeted, a leaked government order on additional troop buildup in the Valley.

The questioning continued for four days, explains Shibli on his website, "I was in the police station and my family was assured that I would be released on [4 August]," he says, "However, then the abrogation [of Article 370] happened, communications were snapped and the rest is history." On 8 August, he was booked under the Public Safety Act and later lodged in a jail hundreds of kilometres away from his home, like hundreds of other Kashmiris — he was among the 412 others also booked under the draconian law.

His PSA charges were revoked on 13 April in an effort to decongest the jails during the COVID-19 pandemic.

His release comes on the heels of news of two Kashmiri journalists — Gowhar Geelani and Masrat Zahra — being booked under the anti-terror law, Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. The Committee to Protect Journalists that had reported on Shibli's detention and run a campaign for charges against him to be dropped, welcomed his release and called on authorities in Jammu and Kashmir to release award-winning journalist Asif Sultan and put a stop to the misuse of laws to target journalists.

Following his release, Shibli spoke to this journalist about his ordeal, the future of journalism in the Valley and more. Edited excerpts of the interview follow:

Why were you jailed?

Journalistic freedom in India, especially after the BJP came to power in 2014, has been shrinking a great deal. There are many cases like those of Gauri Lankesh and Prasoon Bajpai — whose journalistic freedom was curtailed. In fact, Gauri was killed for her brave journalism.

You are not given any space or grey areas. The government wants us to follow a certain path and tells us to do only one type of journalism.

How did you react after you learned about the PSA against you?

I have done many stories on the PSA and tried to understand what the Act is all about. So, I always had a sense of watching developments from the outside; however, being booked under the PSA gave me a much better idea of the Act from the inside.

I felt very strange. I couldn't believe I had been booked under the PSA. Initially, I had tears in my eyes, but then there was a minor with me and he was smiling. That's when I felt embarrassed that this kid was smiling and I was crying, so I thought it was best to face whatever has to come.

There was a despair that till the previous day I was writing stories about the PSA, but now, I was being detained under the same Act. But that kid brought me out of the despair.

When were you shifted to the Uttar Pradesh jail?

On the morning of 9 August last year, we were taken to Srinagar airport and we had no idea about where we were being taken. For the first two months, we weren't even told where we were lodged. [Later we learned] it was Bareilly District Jail.

Your imprisonment came at a time when communication was snapped in Kashmir.

Our families did not know where we had been taken; they had come with lunch to the police station and were told that we weren't there. It was a time when you wanted to call people and seek help, but that was not happening. And the biggest concern was about how the families would know [of our whereabouts], because is the first thing that comes to your mind during these times.

How difficult was it for your family to come to terms with you being jailed for nine months?

To be honest, I cannot tell you how they coped, because only the one who gets burnt feels the pain. However, inside the jail, I knew that the local police would not have told them about my whereabouts, otherwise my family would have travelled to meet me. Since no one turned up, I understood that the police must not have told them.

When was the first time someone familiar came to meet you?

It was after 57 days in the jail when I got to see my brother and sister. That was the first time that I was able to see and meet someone familiar; it was a surreal experience.

How did you spend your time in jail?

I understood the need to be a guardian of all Kashmiris who were with me, as I saw a lot of worried faces. 'Worried' is an understatement. This feeling came right after we had boarded the flight from Srinagar. And it was inside that air force plane that, despite the loud sounds, we sang the Nazms of Faiz, and that helped people a bit.

Describe your cell/jail?

It was a high-security prison. Nobody was allowed either out of their own cell or inside one another's cells. I was in solitary confinement. Twice every day, for a half hour, we were allowed out. Everything was scrutinised.

Initially, voices from outside and from the distance were very haunting. And then there would be silence again, which was even more haunting. There was this curiosity to see the origin of those voices.

All the walls and bars were white. White used to be my favourite colour, but I was so tired of it that I wanted to see something other than white, and it was three months later that my clothes arrived and I finally saw something that was not white.

Also, you could not even see other prisoners. I spent my time imagining the good times, like my college days in Bengaluru or being with my family. And then you open your eyes and you are in the same jail. That cell again starts haunting you.

Were you able to read or write inside jail?

I started reading only after eight days. I had a book by Noam Chomsky and some books by other authors, but they took them away, as they did not allow printed books there. So I sat on hunger strike for two days, following which I was given books. The jail authorities were actually very good and I was later given access to a lot of literature, including some in Hindi.

However, a pen was something I was never allowed, and whenever the police came to me, I would literally beg them to give me a pen. What made it worse was that those cops always carried pens, but I was never given one. It was after three months that I got to touch a pen for the first time.

Did being a journalist help inside the jail?

Yes, it was helpful, because there was a general notion among inmates — that is created by the national media — of Kashmiris being negative. So much so that even a civilian killing in Kashmir is not condemned by people in India.

As a journalist, I had a bit of an idea of how things are in India and how the national media portrays us. Also I had some knowledge about caste politics and politics in general, so this helped me to connect with them in terms of local issues.

And among them the biggest misconception was about Kashmir, so as a journalist I was, to an extent, able to dispel those myths about us. That was evident by the fact that when we reached there, many people were scared of us and there was a special force to manage us. As they did not know about us, there were many assumptions. But when we left, many policemen escorted me and told me that they would visit Kashmir and love to be hosted by me. I can say that, to an extent, I was able to cure the ill of indoctrination.

What kept you going when inside the jail?

For a long time, I thought I was dreaming but there were people who had more haunting stories than me inside the jail. For example, one man was to be married two days after his arrest, and yet, he was jailed. Another man, in his 60s had married late in his life and had little children to look after. Such stories made me stronger.

Then I realised that I had to put on a brave face, as these guys would always cry. And I thought it was my job to keep them motivated and, in fact, alive. That was my first priority, because we were in social isolation for nine months.

People are maintaining social distancing now, however we have been maintaining it for over nine months now.

Tell us about your health, especially your mental health?

My health was fine till the onset of winter, however after winter came, my leg started to hurt and that's something I have carried with me till now. I had just one pair of trousers, a T-shirt and a Rs 10 note in my pocket. I had worn that shirt for 52 days, and when I came out, I counted that it had 119 holes.

My mental health was very much intact, because I was reading a lot, and when I was tired of reading, I would sing a lot and then others would join from their cells. We would usually sing Faiz and many Kashmiri songs. And the policemen would enjoy it. Music was a panacea for affliction. Also music helped bridge the gap with the authorities, and many times we were told, "Aap bhi hamari tarah ho, aap bhi hamare gaane gaate ho (you are also like us, you also sing our songs)."

I had developed a technique to prevent my mental energy from draining. In such places, you don't want your mental strength to drain. I read a lot of Munshi Prem Chand and that's what I would read for people there. Faiz and Chomsky were not allowed though.

Two of your colleagues have been booked under UAPA; what do you make of that?

It is very drastic and unfortunate that such major journalists have been targeted. If journalists like Gowhar Geelani have been targeted, what will happen to minor ones like us? But there is a pattern in this. It is not happening only in Kashmir, journalists like Gauri Lankesh have been targeted in other parts of India.

The State does not want to provide any space for what they call "bad journalism". It doesn't want to provide space for facts.

So how do you see it affecting other journalists?

It will, of course, affect others. There is a feeling of fear that we might be targeted. There is a line that has been drawn to ensure you can only report certain things. It is very unfortunate though that your journalistic freedom is being taken away and you are being scrutinised. Even your social media space is being scrutinised.

Tell us about your plans for the future. Will you restart The Kashmiriyat?

We will start working afresh soon. The web portal will also resume in a very professional and ethical manner. We will be better than what we were. We will carry on with the journalism on which we have focussed.

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thewrosper · 5 years ago

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Backstory: In Parallel With the COVID 19 Pandemic, We Now Have a Pandemic of Arrests

Lockdown – the word that best describes our present physical and mental state – has now acquired a vicious new meaning. As if in parallel to the COVID-19 pandemic, we now have a pandemic of arrests, with prison gates clanging shut on those marked by the state as anti-nationals. Consider, for a moment, this last fortnight. It began with Gautam Navlakha and Anand Teltumbde, prominent intellectuals and political activists, being jailed. Both marked their impending incarceration with letters that held up a mirror to their country. Navlakha pointed to how the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act has turned jurisprudence upside down: “No longer is it the axiom that ‘a person is innocent unless proven guilty’. In fact, under such Acts, ‘an accused is guilty unless proven innocent’” (‘‘My Hope Rests on a Speedy and Fair Trial’: Gautam Navlakha Before His Surrender’, April 14). Teltumbde begins with the observation that he is aware that what he writes may be drowned in the “motivated cacophony of the BJP and RSS combine and the subservient media”. Sure enough, large sections of the media blanked out all news of the arrest (‘Hindi Newspapers Look Away as Anand Teltumbde Is Arrested’, April 15). This deliberate deletion is part of the larger strategy to erase any evidence of state repression, as Teltumbde’s letter points out: “An individual like me obviously cannot counter the spirited propaganda of the government and its subservient media. The details of the case are strewn across the internet and are enough for any person to see that it is a clumsy and criminal fabrication.” A analytical piece in The Wire (‘Why Is Anand Teltumbde So Dangerous for the Narendra Modi Government?’, April 14) argues that it is his stance as a “progressive intellectual wall against the neoliberal Hindutva of the RSS-BJP”, that makes him such an important target. Similarly, there are excellent reasons why credible, argumentative journalists also invite the displeasure of the powerful. The Wire has had a taste of state repression. On April 10, one of the founder editors of the portal was visited by the UP Police (‘Attempts to Muzzle the Media’: More Than 200 Journalists Condemn FIRs Against The Wire’, April 12) for allegedly causing panic by reporting that the UP chief minister had attended a religious event on March 25. That, of course, is a matter of public record and a wrongly attributed quote in the report had been duly retracted along with a corrigendum. Yet none of this served to halt the UP police from driving all the way from Faizabad to Delhi amidst the lockdown, to serve a notice on Siddharth Varadarajan. This is by no means the first instance of police high-handedness. Over the last year, over a dozen cases have been filed against journalists by the UP police, according to a recent report filed by Kunal Majumder of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Hunting journalists down has now become part of active policing in these COVID-19 times. Over the course of a week, at least four mediapersons in Kashmir have had FIRs filed against them. Two of them were booked under UAPA, photojournalist Masrat Zahra (‘Kashmiri Photojournalist Charged Under UAPA for Unspecified Social Media Posts’, April 20) and author-commentator Gowhar Geelani, who in an interview to The Wire interpreted the move as a bid to criminalise journalism in Kashmir (‘The Assault Is on Journalism’: An Interview With Kashmiri Journalist Gowhar Geelani’, April 23). The case against Masrat Zahra has been registered under Section 13 of UAPA. Revisiting this Section is educative. The key reason why UAPA is so effective as a tool of state coercion is the broad manner in which the offence is framed and this Section lays down that not only are persons who take part in “unlawful activity” liable for punishment, anyone who “advocates, abets, advises or incites the commission of, any unlawful activity” can be imprisoned for a term which may extend to seven years under the law. We need to remember here that we are now seeing the results of the amendment to UAPA, passed in parliament in August 2019 shortly before the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5. Through that amendment, the government and its police assumed the power to take action not just against organisations deemed as terrorist, but against individuals, too. Union home minister Amit Shah not only piloted that amendment in parliament but justified it forcefully, arguing that acts of terror are done by individuals, not organisations. The logic inherent in that argument has now led to the scary outcomes that we are witnessing today, with the police drawing up elaborate conspiracy theories in a bid to make the charges stick. Journalists should be alert to the consequences this holds for others, because the same could wreak havoc on their own lives as well. Today it may be the Jamia students who had come out in protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (‘‘Terrorism’ Charge a Lesson for Jamia Students that Democratic Protest Carries Heavy Cost’) and are now being imprisoned under a draconian law which has no provision for anticipatory bail; tomorrow it could be their colleagues or themselves. It appears that while we wear our masks and stay at home under the lockdown, the Modi government and assorted state governments under BJP rule are displaying an uncommon appetite to place all those it has marked as “enemies of the state” – even if it is just a comment they put out in the public domain – under lock and key. They may not have an UAPA hammer smashing down on them, but they and their families have to contend with the terror of impending imprisonment. Over the last few days, we’ve had the Manipur government locking up Mohammed Chengiz Khan, who is doing his PhD at JNU, for critiquing the state’s government’s anti-Muslim policies. The Gujarat police booked Prashant Bhushan, well-known lawyer, for a tweet. A spirited, socially conscious former bureaucrat, Kannan Gopinath, and a news editor, Ashlin Mathew, have invited police action from the Gujarat state government for their responses to a government order (‘FIR Against Prashant Bhushan, Kannan Gopinathan in Gujarat’, April 15). As if to indicate the pan-national nature of such aggravated police action, we now have the Coimbatore police march Andrew Sam Raja Pandian, founder of the news portal, ‘SimpliCity’, to jail for highlighting the looting of ration shops and lack of food for students (‘Coimbatore: Founder of News Portal Arrested for Reporting on Government’s Handling of COVID-19’, April 24). Please note that none of the above had Union ministers rushing to defend them, or the Supreme Court keeping aside urgent matters in order to provide them a patient hearing, as was the case with the editor-in-chief of Republic TV (‘SC Allows Hate Speech Probe Against Arnab Goswami to Proceed, Stays Multiple FIRs’, ‘SC’s Interim Protection to Arnab Goswami: What It Does and Doesn’t Say’, April 24). Is this just state paranoia that is playing out, or does this portend a new cycle of ever-deepening, ever-inexplicable state tyranny? COVID-19 is set to alter forever the political and social landscape of the country at multiple levels (‘What Will Politics Look Like in the Post-Pandemic World?’, April 13; ‘The Economy Needs a Survival Strategy – and Not Just Stimulus – to Recover From COVID-19’; ‘Children Will Be More Vulnerable to Trafficking After COVID-19’, April 13), but how alert are we to the permanent damage this phase will wrought on our rights and liberties? How alert is the Indian media to this? Incidentally, India’s free fall in terms of the World Press Freedom Index – it currently stands at 142 in a tally of 180 countries – is a story in itself. Even Bolsanaro’s Brazil is streets ahead. As the writer of the piece, ‘If We’re at ‘War’ With the New Coronavirus, We’re Doing It Wrong’ (April 15), observes, the way we use language to define COVID-19 needs attention.The war metaphor is not useful: “In this conception, the virus becomes an agile enemy, the national leader’s actions are shows of strength, the suspension of civilian rights becomes a matter of necessity, and every citizen is seen as a soldier with well-defined orders and a quasi-duty to self-censor.” Gulshan Ewing: the most glamorous was also the kindest When news that elderly patients in UK’s care homes were succumbing at an alarming rate to COVID 19, I didn’t imagine for a moment that the disease would also take away 92-year-old Gulshan Ewing, editor of two Mumbai staples, Eve’s Weekly and Star and Style. A resident of a care home in London’s Richmond area, she succumbed to the disease on April 21, a few days before her daughter, Anjali, had tweeted: “My mother is NOT receiving the same level of care in her care home as Boris did in hospital. We are all equal and all in this together. Aren’t we? @BorisJohnson @10DowningStreet @DominicRaab @MattHancock @tnewtondunn @bbclaurak @BBCHughPym @GuidoFawkes” Gulshan’s era was certainly kinder to those who helmed media institutions than is the case today, but what must have helped her longevity as an editor was the kindness and teamship she brought to her long innings. Glamorous she may have been, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Cary Grant and Raj Kapoor, Alfred Hitchcock and Nargis Dutt, partying with beauty queens and supping with the crème-de-la-crème of Bombay society, but within the office she remained cool, unflappable in her brightly patterned chiffons and chunky rings – even when her celebrity columnist, Devyani Chaubal (clad at all times in embroidered white organzas), threw a tantrum and would need to be coaxed to write up her next column. By the 1980s, second wave feminism had made an emphatic entry and the new generation of women journalists who landed up at Gulshan’s desk disdained much of what she took great pleasure in. They loathed the beauty contests that sometimes brought instant international fame – Reita Faria, India’s first Miss India, was Gulshan’s catch, make no mistake – and they even found the very name ‘Eve’s Weekly’, an affront to their senses. But they realised that the matrix of the women’s magazine was a great trojan horse to smuggle in feminist ideas. Along with recipe spreads and knitting patterns, many radical notions would make their way into unsuspecting households. Household hint: squeeze out a little Colgate to clean the family silver and, while you are at it, remember that you, yourself, are not a beautiful object to be displayed at home. Use a little foundation under the eye to cover up those dark circles, but also remember being beaten by the “lord and master” is a criminal, unacceptable act. Gulshan was too intelligent a woman not to recognise the changes that were taking place, and somewhere she made the decision that while she would continue with her social whirl and beauty contests, she would allow her junior colleagues to mould parts of the magazine to their liking. In fact, she also knew how she could make feminism work for her. Among the questions she asked as she interviewed me – a Times of India sub-editor – for a job as chief sub, was what my plans of being a mother were about. When I shrugged away the intrusive query, she smiled, “Yes, you are a modern woman and don’t believe in rushing to have children I am sure!” This live-and-let-live approach helped her to negotiate an unbroken run as editor from 1966 to 1989, possibly making her India’s longest serving woman editor. Lockdown and I In the last column, readers had written in about their experiences of lockdown. This time Khubrooh Siddiqui had this to say: “These are my circumstances during this abrupt and insane lockdown. I am stranded in Ghaziabad, which has been my home city for the last 15 years. My husband is stuck in Kolkata. His father is in his late 70s and is mentally unstable, making life impossible for my husband, continuously shouting and throwing things around. At one point, he almost threw down my husband’s laptop, which is crucial for his work. I feel helpless because I cannot reach out to him at this time, knowing that he himself is often seized by extreme anxiety, and his doctor has recently modified his medicine dosage knowing that I am not there to help him. I dread to think what may happen over the next days. I don’t know if I am in a better position than others who may not have food to eat, but I can say, for sure, that I am absolutely desperate to reach Kolkata. I can only urge the authorities to let stranded people like us go to our respective destinations.” Attack on press freedom A letter from Satish Mahaldar, chairman, Reconciliation, Return & Rehabilitation of Migrants, New Delhi: “In these difficult times of a pandemic, when people associated with essential services like the Media, Health workers and the Police are doing everything they can to save people, certain vested interests are trying to cause harm. The responsibility to disseminate news in an atmosphere where rumour mongering and fake news is the order of the day, there have been attacks on media personnel. I wish to draw attention to acts of intimidation by certain elements against the reputed news service, Indo-Asian News Service (IANS). Its subscribers and journalists are being threatened for its reportage on the issue of Tablighi Jamaat and its role in the spread of the corona virus. As these threats were persisting, IANS has been forced to file three criminal intimidation cases against individuals who claim to be the members of the Jamaat. The attempts to muzzle IANS and other media organisations are not only criminal but an attack on the freedom of the media. Such acts should not only be condemned but the perpetrators must be held accountable for their anti-democratic activities. We urge stern governmental action against such miscreants.” Songs for the Migrant Kaushik Raj, who described himself as a poet and activist, wrote and recorded this poem on the “plight of migrant workers who had to walk hundreds of kilometres after lockdown in their bid to reach home”. He sent across the IGTV and Facebook links of the two-minute poem: The same topic inspired Poojan Sahil, to compose and perform this three-minute song. He asks why we as a society has always neglected this section of the population: Read the full article

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brajeshupadhyay · 5 years ago

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On 25 April, Qazi Shibli, a south Kashmir-based journalist and editor, returned home after nine month in a prison in Uttar Pradesh's Bareilly. It was also the first day of the holy month of Ramzan, bringing much needed joy to the family and to the 28-year-old himself. Shibli, who runs online news portal The Kashmiriyat, says that he was summoned by a local police station on 27 July last year, after he reported, and later tweeted, a leaked government order on additional troop buildup in the Valley. The questioning continued for four days, explains Shibli on his website, "I was in the police station and my family was assured that I would be released on [4 August]," he says, "However, then the abrogation [of Article 370] happened, communications were snapped and the rest is history." On 8 August, he was booked under the Public Safety Act and later lodged in a jail hundreds of kilometres away from his home, like hundreds of other Kashmiris — he was among the 412 others also booked under the draconian law. His PSA charges were revoked on 13 April in an effort to decongest the jails during the COVID-19 pandemic. His release comes on the heels of news of two Kashmiri journalists — Gowhar Geelani and Masrat Zahra — being booked under the anti-terror law, Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. The Committee to Protect Journalists that had reported on Shibli's detention and run a campaign for charges against him to be dropped, welcomed his release and called on authorities in Jammu and Kashmir to release award-winning journalist Asif Sultan and put a stop to the misuse of laws to target journalists. Following his release, Shibli spoke to this journalist about his ordeal, the future of journalism in the Valley and more. Edited excerpts of the interview follow: Why were you jailed? Journalistic freedom in India, especially after the BJP came to power in 2014, has been shrinking a great deal. There are many cases like those of Gauri Lankesh and Prasoon Bajpai — whose journalistic freedom was curtailed. In fact, Gauri was killed for her brave journalism. You are not given any space or grey areas. The government wants us to follow a certain path and tells us to do only one type of journalism. How did you react after you learned about the PSA against you? I have done many stories on the PSA and tried to understand what the Act is all about. So, I always had a sense of watching developments from the outside; however, being booked under the PSA gave me a much better idea of the Act from the inside. I felt very strange. I couldn't believe I had been booked under the PSA. Initially, I had tears in my eyes, but then there was a minor with me and he was smiling. That's when I felt embarrassed that this kid was smiling and I was crying, so I thought it was best to face whatever has to come. There was a despair that till the previous day I was writing stories about the PSA, but now, I was being detained under the same Act. But that kid brought me out of the despair. When were you shifted to the Uttar Pradesh jail? On the morning of 9 August last year, we were taken to Srinagar airport and we had no idea about where we were being taken. For the first two months, we weren't even told where we were lodged. [Later we learned] it was Bareilly District Jail. Your imprisonment came at a time when communication was snapped in Kashmir. Our families did not know where we had been taken; they had come with lunch to the police station and were told that we weren't there. It was a time when you wanted to call people and seek help, but that was not happening. And the biggest concern was about how the families would know [of our whereabouts], because is the first thing that comes to your mind during these times. How difficult was it for your family to come to terms with you being jailed for nine months? To be honest, I cannot tell you how they coped, because only the one who gets burnt feels the pain. However, inside the jail, I knew that the local police would not have told them about my whereabouts, otherwise my family would have travelled to meet me. Since no one turned up, I understood that the police must not have told them. When was the first time someone familiar came to meet you? It was after 57 days in the jail when I got to see my brother and sister. That was the first time that I was able to see and meet someone familiar; it was a surreal experience. How did you spend your time in jail? I understood the need to be a guardian of all Kashmiris who were with me, as I saw a lot of worried faces. 'Worried' is an understatement. This feeling came right after we had boarded the flight from Srinagar. And it was inside that air force plane that, despite the loud sounds, we sang the Nazms of Faiz, and that helped people a bit. Describe your cell/jail? It was a high-security prison. Nobody was allowed either out of their own cell or inside one another's cells. I was in solitary confinement. Twice every day, for a half hour, we were allowed out. Everything was scrutinised. Initially, voices from outside and from the distance were very haunting. And then there would be silence again, which was even more haunting. There was this curiosity to see the origin of those voices. All the walls and bars were white. White used to be my favourite colour, but I was so tired of it that I wanted to see something other than white, and it was three months later that my clothes arrived and I finally saw something that was not white. Also, you could not even see other prisoners. I spent my time imagining the good times, like my college days in Bengaluru or being with my family. And then you open your eyes and you are in the same jail. That cell again starts haunting you. Were you able to read or write inside jail? I started reading only after eight days. I had a book by Noam Chomsky and some books by other authors, but they took them away, as they did not allow printed books there. So I sat on hunger strike for two days, following which I was given books. The jail authorities were actually very good and I was later given access to a lot of literature, including some in Hindi. However, a pen was something I was never allowed, and whenever the police came to me, I would literally beg them to give me a pen. What made it worse was that those cops always carried pens, but I was never given one. It was after three months that I got to touch a pen for the first time. Did being a journalist help inside the jail? Yes, it was helpful, because there was a general notion among inmates — that is created by the national media — of Kashmiris being negative. So much so that even a civilian killing in Kashmir is not condemned by people in India. As a journalist, I had a bit of an idea of how things are in India and how the national media portrays us. Also I had some knowledge about caste politics and politics in general, so this helped me to connect with them in terms of local issues. And among them the biggest misconception was about Kashmir, so as a journalist I was, to an extent, able to dispel those myths about us. That was evident by the fact that when we reached there, many people were scared of us and there was a special force to manage us. As they did not know about us, there were many assumptions. But when we left, many policemen escorted me and told me that they would visit Kashmir and love to be hosted by me. I can say that, to an extent, I was able to cure the ill of indoctrination. What kept you going when inside the jail? For a long time, I thought I was dreaming but there were people who had more haunting stories than me inside the jail. For example, one man was to be married two days after his arrest, and yet, he was jailed. Another man, in his 60s had married late in his life and had little children to look after. Such stories made me stronger. Then I realised that I had to put on a brave face, as these guys would always cry. And I thought it was my job to keep them motivated and, in fact, alive. That was my first priority, because we were in social isolation for nine months. People are maintaining social distancing now, however we have been maintaining it for over nine months now. Tell us about your health, especially your mental health? My health was fine till the onset of winter, however after winter came, my leg started to hurt and that's something I have carried with me till now. I had just one pair of trousers, a T-shirt and a Rs 10 note in my pocket. I had worn that shirt for 52 days, and when I came out, I counted that it had 119 holes. My mental health was very much intact, because I was reading a lot, and when I was tired of reading, I would sing a lot and then others would join from their cells. We would usually sing Faiz and many Kashmiri songs. And the policemen would enjoy it. Music was a panacea for affliction. Also music helped bridge the gap with the authorities, and many times we were told, "Aap bhi hamari tarah ho, aap bhi hamare gaane gaate ho (you are also like us, you also sing our songs)." I had developed a technique to prevent my mental energy from draining. In such places, you don't want your mental strength to drain. I read a lot of Munshi Prem Chand and that's what I would read for people there. Faiz and Chomsky were not allowed though. Two of your colleagues have been booked under UAPA; what do you make of that? It is very drastic and unfortunate that such major journalists have been targeted. If journalists like Gowhar Geelani have been targeted, what will happen to minor ones like us? But there is a pattern in this. It is not happening only in Kashmir, journalists like Gauri Lankesh have been targeted in other parts of India. The State does not want to provide any space for what they call "bad journalism". It doesn't want to provide space for facts. So how do you see it affecting other journalists? It will, of course, affect others. There is a feeling of fear that we might be targeted. There is a line that has been drawn to ensure you can only report certain things. It is very unfortunate though that your journalistic freedom is being taken away and you are being scrutinised. Even your social media space is being scrutinised. Tell us about your plans for the future. Will you restart The Kashmiriyat? We will start working afresh soon. The web portal will also resume in a very professional and ethical manner. We will be better than what we were. We will carry on with the journalism on which we have focussed.

http://sansaartimes.blogspot.com/2020/04/in-bareilly-jail-i-was-guardian-of-all.html

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