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Shooting the Messenger
- The world’s largest democracy continues to fear being questioned about its actions in Kashmir.
- The manner in which David Barsamian, the award-winning American journalist and founder-director of Alternative Radio, was sent back from New Delhi airport on 23 September is one more illustration of the Government of India’s undemocratic mindset.
- Fluent in Urdu and Hindi, he has also commented critically on India’s handling of the Kashmir issue as well as on other controversies such as adivasi struggles against mining companies.
- Barsamian landed in Delhi with a valid visa on 23 September. He never left the Indira Gandhi International Airport. Within two hours, he was on a plane back to the United States, deported for “misusing” his tourist visa.
- The SHRC’s report as well as the earlier International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-Administered Kashmir (IPTK) report on unidentified and unmarked graves in Kashmir have already been widely reported in India and outside.
- Barsamian had planned to interview the families of disappeared persons who have long suspected that their kin might be in these graves.
- In May this year, journalist and convener of the IPTK Gautam Navlakha (who for many years was editorial consultant to EPW and continues to be associated with the journal) was not allowed to leave Srinagar airport on his visit to Kashmir and was sent back to Delhi. The reason cited was that his presence could create a disturbance to peace and tranquillity.
- According to the statement, “the government should not allow people like Ram Jethmalani to enter the state during the summers because they do not want a solution to the Kashmir issue, instead they come here to misguide the people, hoodwink them and derail the process of peace in Jammu & Kashmir”.
- The statement illustrates the self-delusion under which the state government continues to operate.
- You can deport and expel critics, you can shut down the internet, you can restrict access to information, but the truth will come out.
- By preventing people like Barsamian from visiting the state, the government has once again taken a giant step backwards, where freedom of expression and access to information have been sacrificed in the name of the specious argument of “security”.
