Even the most cursory look at English media shows that while some media houses are extremely pro-establishment when it comes to Kashmir, others have long taken the stand to speak for the marginalised sections. However, the situation is a lot more lopsided in Hindi, where the pro-establishment narrative has long become the default setting. Whether it is celebrating the abrogation of Article 370, the covering up of atrocities on civilians or negating the voices of Kashmiris, Hindi journalism has long shed the robe of honest reporting.

In such a scenario, Kashmir Khabar, a Facebook page, is a small but important step towards challenging the Hindi media. A group of people came together after the August 5 decision to abrogate Article 370 to establish Kashmir Khabar, which seeks, in their words, “to translate the writings that present the reality of Kashmir and its history in Hindi in order to counter anti-Kashmir propaganda to the best of our capacity.”

Here is a detailed interview with the founders.

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What prompted you to start a Facebook page called Kashmir Khabar in Hindi? Was it because Hindi media has predominantly carried pro-government, anti-Kashmiri news and continues to do so?

On August 5, the decision of the Indian government turned the de facto occupation of Kashmir into a de jure occupation and it was desperately defended by false claims of economic development, women empowerment, and even misappropriating the struggles of the oppressed castes. The level of misinformation fabricated by the State coupled with an absolute communication blockade prompted us to respond to the scale of the crisis.

When we started this initiative, our aim was to translate the writings that present the reality of Kashmir and its history in Hindi in order to counter anti-Kashmir propaganda to the best of our capacity. Authentic information and literature on Kashmir have been primarily available in English, which is out of reach of most people in India. We started using WhatsApp and other social media platforms to disseminate our work because these are the medium through which the rulers have been spreading venomous fake news. We hoped that this could, in some small way, challenge the state-manufactured myth machinery and create room for a fact-based conversation on Kashmir. More importantly, we wanted to amplify the Kashmiri voices which were articulating against the occupation and the ongoing siege.

In the initial few weeks, the news was trickling out only from a few international media houses, while the Indian media maintained absolute silence on the ground situation, except relaying the statements of the ruling party and its stooges. Our translations, therefore, focused on every authentic news available on Kashmir and the testimonies of Kashmiris who were somehow managing to come out of the valley. We spent the first month feverishly translating and disseminating each and every verifiable news, day and night. Using Facebook, WhatsApp, and other alternative media portals, we wanted our readers to be armed with facts and updates from the ground.

Yes, there is a stark, unsettling absence of Kashmir in Hindi media that remains largely controlled by the dominant caste interests. Even the little coverage Kashmir has received is either an ill-informed perspective of an Indian or is a rushed tick mark in the right editorial and ‘progressive’ columns. We feel that there is no need for compensatory favour by carrying out miserable stories on Kashmir – lacking both factual and editorial competency. This unimaginable cruelty meted out to the people of Kashmir has been, for decades, carried out in the name of every Indian citizen, with or without their knowledge.

Submission to authority, we believe, has completely erased the most basic principles and values of journalism in India.

What are your expectations from this page?

This idea was more of a spontaneous response to a crisis whose horrors unfolded at an incalculable speed, and not a well-designed plan.

However, we want to continue reaching out to a wider audience base, expanding our readership to areas outside the big metropolitan cities. There could be nothing better than our small efforts leading to cementing networks of solidarities between struggling, marginalized groups/movements in India and the people of Kashmir.

We are now working on compiling a website that will function as an information resource pool on Kashmir in Hindi, and can be of use to activists, academics, journalists, and general readers alike.

How does the team of Kashmir Khabar work? We see links being shared, infographics and posts which often translate other articles. Could you tell us a little more about how you source your information?

There are two aspects of our work:

One, we identify trustworthy news networks and select an article for translation based on its theme, urgency, and relevance. One of us volunteers to translate it, and another volunteer takes over to proofread and edit it. Then, permissions from either the author or the media house are secured, and finally, the article is sent to a relevant Hindi media portal that agrees to carry it. We even pay attention to translating the captions that accompany the photographs in most of these articles, so that nothing is misrepresented from our end. We decided to get the translations published on these websites so that it can reach a wider audience than was possible from our WhatsApp circles. Here, it is important for us to thank Jan Chowk, MediaVigil, The Margin, JanJwar and Samayantar for their cooperation in tirelessly carrying all our translations.

Two, further, we have been sourcing information from the testimonies of Kashmiris and from the verified updates from the ground which sometimes did not even find a place in news portals. We then prepare suitable photo-graphics and circulate them via Facebook and WhatsApp. However, Facebook has been censoring politically sensitive content and limiting our reach.

In fact, we also ran audio bulletins during the horror-filled first few weeks of the siege and aimed to reach out to those who cannot read or access the written word. However, owing to acute resource crunch, we could not take it forward. Be it our infographics where we try to make data-intensive information easier to comprehend or our photo-graphics where every image is selected carefully without diluting the complex nodes of Kashmiri political assertion, we try to maintain best possible consistency and accuracy in our work. For some graphics, facts were sourced from the reports published by Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) and Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) as well as the reports by some of the recent fact-finding teams of Indian activists.

So far, we have translated over 150 articles and reports, and created over 75 graphics. And we always mention the information source while circulating our work knowing fully well the existence of fake news and trolls.

You have said that you do not wish to reveal your identity and profile but would it be possible for you to tell us a little more about yourself? Are any of the founding members Kashmiri? Do you have Kashmiris who are contributing in any manner?

We are a few individuals from different streams of work, who came together after August 5, with perhaps only one thing in common – opposition to the Indian state’s latest move to trample the political rights of Kashmiri people.

As the days passed, word spread and more people joined us from several other cities, volunteering whatever little time they had apart from their other commitments. In fact, some of us have never even met each other! Owing to the atmosphere of fear, many people wish to contribute anonymously, therefore our insistence on keeping the identities hidden. Besides, this is a collective effort in every sense and spirit. The willingness of people to help in any way possible has been heartening. For example, we were contacted by an elderly person from another city who could not type in Hindi, but was so eager to contribute that he would translate by hand, and send a photo of each handwritten page to us every day.

We do not have any prior professional experience in media and are mostly learning on the go. Another thing to clarify is that this work is completely voluntary and unpaid. We are not funded or employed by anyone, as some people have assumed!

None of our members is Kashmiri, and that is for a reason – we believe that it is not the work of Kashmiris to educate Indians in their regional languages about the question of Kashmir. This is the long-pending work of Indians themselves. But Kashmiris have a major presence in our work, in the sense that our focus has been to translate the writings of Kashmiris. We have been in touch with several Kashmiri journalists, academics, and writers who have been extremely kind and cooperative in giving us permission for the translations, and some have even provided us with more resources and guidance. In one instance, the idea and data for an infographic were painstakingly put together by a Kashmiri journalist who even made the effort of translating the content in Hindi. Almost all the Kashmiris we have spoken to have expressed happiness to have their writings translated, in the hope that it would help break some of the exasperating ignorance prevalent in India over the question of Kashmir.

We do not seek to speak on behalf of Kashmiris. The Kashmiri people have been courageously and loudly speaking for themselves since the past many decades.

What, according to you, needs to be done to change the way Kashmir is covered in national (Hindi) media?

They need to do only one thing: learning to honour and speak the truth.

In any coverage on Kashmir, it is the Kashmiri voices that should be foregrounded and facts, demands, and insights from the ground need to be presented without any bias or fear of the State. They need to stop viewing Kashmir from the convenience of ‘nation’ and nationalism – that is what stops them from looking at, understanding and empathizing with the reality of Kashmir. This cannot happen unless our media makes efforts to educate themselves on the history of Kashmiri people and their political demands. They need to unlearn the violence injected by the Brahmanical Rashtra – and we all need to learn that only killing a Kashmiri is not violence; patronizing or exoticizing a Kashmiri is also violence. Similarly, looking at Kashmir solely from the lens of the Indian constitution is also limiting and inaccurate; it does not do justice to the demands and history of Kashmir or other nationalities.

Kashmiris should not be pushed into a predetermined frame, and their right to self-determination should be respected.

Apart from this, if you would like to share anything else with our readership, feel free to do so.

We would like more people to disseminate Kashmiri political demands and fight the state-sponsored propaganda in their languages, dialects, and expressions. If we can be of any help in facilitating this, we would consider that to be an honour.

We want our readers to make Kashmir a part of their everyday conversations and not limit it to social media debates or panel discussions alone. Indians need to ask their conscience several important questions. We should know that under the present regime, Kashmir will be subjected to further violence and newer, crueller means of repression in the coming years. Already we see that Kashmir is going out of people’s memory, the repression has been normalized, after some initial shock. We wish to play a part in keeping Kashmir alive in our collective memory. Reading and remembering are, after all, acts of resistance.

The Kashmiri struggle for self-determination and for dignity is connected with several other struggles in India pertaining to class, caste, gender, regional, and linguistic identities, and is critical for lasting peace across South Asia.