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Journalism of Courage
Veteran journalist Harinder Baweja’s absorbing book chronicles a four-decade-long journey reporting from various conflict situations. Some of her revelations are relevant even today for understanding insurgencies affecting India. Baweja rushed to the epicenter whenever militancy broke out in India and its neighbourhood. Her in-depth coverage of Punjab in the crisis ridden 1980s, Kashmir, POK, Afghanistan Pakistan, Azad Kashmir and Kargil are testimony to her unflinching courage and steely determination to get the story, no matter the odds.
The author even managed to make it to the Lashkar -e – Taiba headquarters in Muridke by convincing then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s minister Mushahid Hussain that it was in Pakistan’s interests to show that it had nothing to hide, even though the country’s foreign office protested vehemently. Baweja’s visit was in the wake of the Mumbai 26/11 terror attack, as Ajmal Kasab, the only surviving terrorist, confessed, when caught, that he had been trained there. Muridke was a fortress but operated in the name of a charity, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa. Her reports were embarrassing for Pakistan. There was a 60-bed hospital without any patients or doctors. Escorted by Waleed Saeed, LeT chief Hafiz Saeed’s son-in law, she witnessed first-hand state and non-state actors working in tandem, with the latter clearly in command.
Incidentally, the Indian Air Force blasted Muridke, during Operation Sindoor earlier this year.
When the Taliban forces took over Kabul on September 27, 1996, and executed former president Mohammed Najibullah, Baweja was determined to reach the war-torn country. She flew from Delhi to Lahore and onwards to Peshawar. Hitching a lift on a small Red Cross aircraft, she reached the Panjshir Valley all wrapped in a chaddar draped to her head. Amidst the debris of the war, she interviewed turbaned Talib gunmen. Surprisingly, the soldiers, except one, shed their inhibitions about talking to an unescorted woman, perhaps because they were far from Kabul. One militant confessed that he had visited Kashmir and was trained, and worked, with Masoor Azhar, the imprisoned terrorist who was later released by the Indian government in Kandahar in exchange for passengers from the hijacked IC 814 flight. After the Taliban victory, the turbaned Talibs who had sheltered in Pakistan, emerged out of hiding to found the group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Lately, the group has begun targeting its former benefactors in the Pakistan army and vice versa. In conflict zones, friends can turn enemies overnight when objectives suddenly clash, she reflects.
The author began her career in Punjab in the late 1980s when violence was widespread, the law enforcing agencies had a free hand and there was a deep Hindu-Sikh divide. Baweja had a baptism by fire. She determinedly followed Director General of Police K P S Gill into the Golden Temple in Amritsar during Operation Black Thunder when the NSG was flushing out the last batch of militants from the holy shrine and it was uncertain whether they had laid deadly booby traps.
One of Baweja’s favourite stomping grounds was Kashmir in the throes of insurgency when there was a high degree of radicalisation while successive state governments ruthlessly tried to crush recurring agitations. She interviewed many of the wanted terrorists, including the JKLF’s Yasin Malik, who earned notoriety after kidnapping Mufti Mohammed Sayed’s daughter. It turned out that the JKLF leader was more interested in discussing poetry. After the Babri Masjid demolition, when L K Advani claimed as a counter that no one mentioned the 40 odd Hindu temples destroyed in Kashmir, the author criss-crossed the state, despite the danger, to meticulously check if Advani’s claims were in fact true. After several hazardous trips, she concluded that almost no temple had been damaged deliberately and just one or two in cross fire.
What stands out in Baweja’s reportage is her objectivity, in situations where emotions are prone to be high and judgments often blurred in favour of one or the other, depending on one’s predilections. She recalls the stealth and subterfuge — cutting off electricity and internet and arresting politicians overnight — with which the central government overnight disabled Article 370 in August 2019, ending Jammu and Kashmir’s special status. The government can claim that not a single bullet was fired on that day but, she points out, the people have not accepted the sweeping changes thrust on them through draconian laws. At the same time, when 26 tourists were gunned down in Pahalgam this year, Kashmiris took out tiranga yatras, something never seen in the Valley since 1989. Kashmiris sent out a message to Pakistan they should not kill innocents in their name for the sake of the state.The writer is contributing editor, The Indian Express
