"Our job as journalists is to speak out. If we don't preserve that, I think we are not being true to ourselves." After the Kashmir Times offices were sealed allegedly without notice in Srinagar, executive editor Anuradha Bhasin is ready as ever to fight for press freedom.
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00:00Silence is not an option. They can put padlocks on my office, they can impose bans, whatever they do, they cannot kill my voice.
00:30Silence is not an option. They can put padlocks on my office, they can impose bans, whatever they do, they cannot kill my voice.
01:00So anyway, they made them come out, they put a padlock, and with all our infrastructure and everything, our machinery, everything inside, our computers inside, our printers and heavy-duty equipment, everything is inside.
01:30There was no explanation or any clarification.
01:57Nothing was told to us clearly whether or not there was any such process in the making.
02:04Somebody said, yes, we have an order, but we don't have a copy, so we can't give you.
02:09There was no procedure. The government has the right to evict any person they want to any time in a government accommodation, but a due process needs to be followed.
02:21Valid reasons need to be given, and as per the government rules, they need to serve a cancellation order and give valid reasons and give time to the occupant to file objections, if any, and then move on to the eviction stage.
02:45Then they need to serve an eviction notice and give time for eviction and so on and so forth.
02:50That process has been completely eliminated. One person comes walking and just puts a lock over there and that's it.
03:50There is an attempt to control the media and control the media voices. Through controlling media voices, trying to create a narrative of normalcy, that everything is normal, so that people do not remain informed, so that people's voices are not brought into the public domain, and nobody is there to ask questions to the government.
04:17The police were losing lives. They were being kidnapped or arrested and detained and beaten up.
04:44I mean, there were so many stories. It was the most difficult time. Until now, in the 90s, even though there was deep-rooted fear of being physically intimidated, of even being killed, there was a certain sense of confidence in the government that the government was accountable.
05:09It was responsible. We could hold them, we could ask them, we could ask them questions. Today, that is not allowed. Today, there is a huge communication gap between the media persons and the government functionaries at the top.
05:39Many of us are scared today, media persons, whether our organizations are going to be able to survive in the kind of onslaught on media that is prevailing today. Should we say certain things and should we not say certain things because we want to save our organization, we want to save our institution and we want to preserve ourselves?
06:09Our job as journalists is to speak out. And if we are not preserving that, that basic principle, that basic voice, I think we're not being true to ourselves. Leave alone the profession.