From rural India to global audiences: the women behind Khabar Lahariya speak out

The ones whose heels arenrsquot cracked and achingHow will they understand anotherrsquos painrdquo is the dedication with which The Good Reporter A Memoir of Journalism in the 21st Century Simon and Schuster begins Written by Disha Mullick with Geeta Devi Harshita Verma Kavita Bundelkhandi Lakshmi Sharma Lalita Meera Devi Nazni Rizvi Shyamkali and Suneeta Prajapati the book seeks to change the stoic face of journalism by using the power of vulnerabilityAs the female reporters of Khabar Lahariya KL ndash Indiarsquos first rural media network mdash narrate the pain pleasure and challenges they faced as an allwomen led newsroom through this collective biography they kickstart a revolutionExcerpts from the interviewKhabar Lahariyarsquos journalists learnt to find strength in the closeness they felt to their stories What did they unlearn to reach this pointDisha Mullick DM In the beginning we felt the need to prove that we were capable of being reporters who are objective and balanced and who never brought their own feelings and past into a story We thought that including our personal anecdotes would discount our journalism that people would say that this is not how reporters are supposed to operate So we never believed that we could bring ourselves and our experiences into our storiesKavita Bundelkhandi and Disha MullickIt is only after many years of experience and hardships that we now have the confidence to say that there is no such thing as objectivity mdash whether you are a journalist or an author one always carries a part of their history inside them Normally what happens to those memories We repress them and do not allow them to reflect in our writings I think we have now gained the conviction to tell the world about what goes on behind that objectivity and what we bury to prove ourselves as journalistsSuneeta Prajapati reports from Chitrakoot in 2019We learn of the tightropewalking between being a good woman and a good journalist and how KLrsquos journalists find a balanceKavita Bundelkhandi KB We still donrsquot have it all figured out but the effort has come with challenges To this day it is scandalous to not wear sindoor Wersquove had countless discussions at the KL office about the archaic nature of wearing sindoor or a mangalsutra and even after those discussions women would go back to practicing those protocolsThings havenrsquot changed a lot yet we have managed to break many rules in our personal lives mdash my inlaws wouldnrsquot let me wear a salwar suit for reporting assignments but I told them that it doesnrsquot make a difference since a saree probably shows more skin anyway laughs But I still find myself wearing sindoor whenever I visit to keep them happy We donrsquot want to mislead people by saying that we have found a balance yetSeveral stories discuss the failure of Westernliberal feminism and call for intersectionality How did KLrsquos reporters from rural India and lower caste families bring experiences into their reportingDM I believe that Western feminism has also changed in the last couple of decades but feminism from all across the globe mdash Latin America Africa and North America mdash has influenced our reporting A more localised version of feminism is important because you canrsquot impose rules of feminism internationally onto a local bodyMeera DeviI feel that looking at the world through the lens of local women and folk in general has been most important for us When yoursquore engrossed in the lives of locals for decades you understand that no one is attached to one identity No woman is just a woman mdash she belongs to a certain caste class and religion These identities are hard to let go of We want to wear all of those lenses while reporting Itrsquos crucial that we do not simply adopt a foreign lensThis book could be hailed as a feminist handbook as it discusses a womanrsquos pleasure and pain as a tool for revolution How far have we actually comeKB Any revolution demands sacrifice and we have made many We have left our villages and pursued an education in the city We decide what to eat what to wear we buy our own land own our homes All of these leaps reflect in our writingreporting and helps keep the revolution alive There is happiness anger and curiosity but I keep using the word revolution ever so often because it must never stop There is no finish line and if it has to stay alive for another 50 years or more the shackles of patriarchy must be broken by the women of every village every state and every countryAVAILABLE Leading bookstores and estoresThe digital shiftOur stories have reached other countries However we had to sacrifice the connections we made when we met people in person mdash the local nature of the newspaper was lost Another challenge was anonymity At the time it was important that our identities remained unknown but going digital would mean showing our faces on camera Our biggest challenge was within the team because many werenrsquot willing to let go of print because of its local fabric and languageThere was a time we felt that moving to digital would be impossible But there were issues with funding as well so it was necessary Shifting peoplersquos preferences from print to digital was also difficult and for many years print and digital worked together Till date some members want to resume the print editionMeera Devi and Kavita Bundelkhandi