On my right was a media baron, and on the left, a realtor. I did not know where to look.
Up ahead, under the spotlight on the stage was Rana Ayyub, the journalist who went undercover to investigate the riots in Gujarat when Narendra Modi was chief minister. Ayyub, now a columnist for The Washington Post, is facing investigations or charges from multiple agencies, including the Enforcement Directorate. On the stage, Ayyub was asked about the atmosphere of fear in which journalism is conducted in this country now. She began to reply: “Given the circumstances, honestly, I was telling my family that I am at a threshold in my life that I really want to give up.”
I did not know where to look, not merely because of my guilt at escaping the sword hanging over newsrooms in the country but also because I was afraid my gaze might suggest that the media baron on my right and the realtor on my left had somehow played safe like me to stay out of trouble. “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality” is no longer merely a quote you come across on Instagram occasionally.
I was at a media conclave in Kochi, organised by the Mathrubhumi Group based in Kerala. Ayyub had just begun, swiftly proceeding to unpack the ugliest question confronting journalists and media investors in India today: “So, what happens to me when I get an ED notice?”
“The number of brown envelopes that I have got in the last two years... there’s a drawer in which I have kept all the brown envelopes that I get from the Indian government. The notices from the Indian government come in the Speed Post. You see the good old postman after a long time, not the courier guys. The postman, he’s the one who comes to deliver the notices so you get the income tax notice and the ED notice,” Ayyub said.
As a journalist fortunate enough to have institutional support, I know the legal department takes over from there. I am also aware of journalists who do not have a support system and who are fighting cases with the help of generous friends and conscientious lawyers.
But I have rarely thought about the trauma that afflicts citizens who can feel in their hands the tactile might of the State. And now, seated a few feet away from me, Ayyub is speaking about what the notices did to the bravest journalist of our time.
“Last year, the ED interrogated me for 13 hours (in a case alleging diversion of charity funds). My bank account statements were put in front of me.” She was asked about “one entry which was recurring.” “Why do you pay Rs 5,000 every two weeks? She (possibly the ED officer) marked it in red. So, I said: ‘Ma’am, that is my psychiatrist. If you were a journalist in India, you would also need one.’”
At another point, Ayyub points out that the top editors in the country would still get solidarity but she was worried about lesser-known young journalists. When the crackdown on NewsClick took place, a couple of young journalists messaged Ayyub. One of them, aged 24 and an excellent journalist, told Ayyub that his father had asked him to leave the profession. “He said, ‘I actually fear because my family does not have the resources for it (fighting the cases)’.” So, we also have to address the question that if tomorrow young journalists are arrested, how do they fight the cases? Do we have a set of pro bono lawyers? Do we look after their mental health?
“It is one thing to have lawyers. But please understand that a lot of us journalists are also battling this mental health crisis... The last couple of years have taken a huge toll on my mental health because every time the brown envelope comes in the Speed Post, a part of me just goes into a shell.”
Her voice heavy with grief, Ayyub continues: “I know the case is... I will fight this. But when you receive that envelope from the government, you lose your day. You cannot function that day after I come from the court. I cannot function or I cannot write.”
Ayyub also spoke of her humiliation. “If the ED asks you about your Rs 100 Swiggy bill, you know they are not just scaring you but also humiliating you.”
Her account reminded me of another I had come across a few months ago. A journalist who was picked up in Uttar Pradesh recounted how intelligence officers made him squat on the floor. Once in a while, an officer would use one of his feet to prod the journalist on a knee. Precariously perched on the floor, the journalist would keel over. The officers would laugh, deriving sadistic pleasure. The police would slap him and kick him awake, the journalist said.
The idea is not to inflict pain but to dehumanise you, to tell you in no uncertain terms that you are worse than a worm for the State. How do you seek legal succour against this? What do you tell the judge when you are asked whether you were tortured? That the officer tapped you on the knee?
At the Kochi conclave in the afternoon, Dhanya Rajendran, the editor-in-chief of the portal, The News Minute, and the chairperson of DigipubIndia, a platform that represents digital media organisations, said: “I have been working for 20 years as a journalist. And perhaps for the first time in 20 years, we actually organised a training class the day before yesterday on what journalists should do when someone comes to raid or arrest us. How should you protect your devices?”
She underscored: “This is the first time such a class has been arranged in all these years. A lot of journalists came. In the past two days alone (close on the heels of the NewsClick raids and arrests), three to four classes were held and journalists from across India attended to protect themselves and their devices.”
I recalled that a few days earlier, while taking part in the commemoration of a journalist at Kozhikode in north Kerala, I had told the audience, mostly made of journalists and journalism students, that we must find ways to shed our fear of prisons. Prison in India right now is a badge of honour.
For the benefit of media owners, editors and other journalists, I then read out an excerpt from Vinoba Bhave’s “Prison Ashrams”. “It was in jail that I experienced a real Ashram life. All I had were a few clothes, a tumbler and a bowl. What better place could there be for following the vow of ‘non-possession’?… I drew up a daily timetable for myself: ten hours for sleep, two or three hours for meditation, about three hours for eating, bathing etc., and eight hours for walking up and down. I covered at least ten miles each day, reckoning my speed at about one and a half miles an hour.
“As soon as I was released from jail after the individual satyagraha, I went to see Bapu. I remember that he said to me then: ‘Vinoba, this is not the last of your trips to jail, you will have to go again.’ ‘I am quite ready,’ I said.”
I was meeting Ayyub and Rajendran for the first time. Three journalists from three corners of India — the west, the south and the east — bound by a common concern: journalism in the age of jail, which was rarely part of the journalism syllabus in any university.
The envelopes are brown. So were the shirts — in another time, in another place.
R. Rajagopal is editor-at-large, The Telegraph
