By Kashif-ul-Huda, TwoCircles.net
“Are there enough news stories on Indian Muslims to do a daily news portal?” This was one of the first question that was asked when I was contemplating starting a daily news website for Indian Muslims. I must confess, the question startled me. I mean, how can a population of about 150 million people not have enough stories to be told?
Such questions firmed my resolve to do the daily news site to show the world that there are many stories about Indian Muslims that remain untold. After 10 years of focused reporting, all I can say is that we are still just scratching the surface, trust me, there is no dearth of stories. There are many news tips, story ideas and articles that come our way that we are unable to follow up. We are actually constrained due to lack of resources rather than stories.
But the question posed a deeper challenge. It was a reflection of how little even Indian Muslims knew about themselves. Not just the depth but the geographical spread of the Indian Muslim community – if this diverse lot can be called a community – had remained underreported, has continued to remain underexplored. The diversity of practices, culture, language, history, and not to forget, opinion amongst Indian Muslims, defied any stereotypical image imposed on them, including stereotypes that Muslims themselves thought to be true.
Muslims as a social group and not Islamic group
An important contribution of TwoCircles.net or TCN as it is called in short, was to create a ‘Muslim’ beat in Indian journalism scene. Before us, there was no dedicated journalist covering Muslims of India. By investing in dedicated resources in covering Indian Muslims, we found a way to cover a group of people that have been so far only identified by their religious identity. TCN treated Muslims as a social group and that opened up new ways of doing stories of/on them. For the first time, we could look at them without the religious blinkers.
Islam is an important part of Muslim identity but that doesn’t mean that is the only identity that matters to Muslims. Also, this doesn’t mean that religious establishment governs even the minutest aspects of our lives. Media go gaga over any new or, even for that matter, weeks-old controversial fatwa but that doesn’t mean that Muslims rush to change their lives every now and then when a new fatwa is issued. In fact, our survey found that if not for media reports, most Muslims will actually never find out about these fatwas. We also tried to critique media reporting and also put things in perspective when it comes to fatwas.
Delinking religion with social condition allowed us to cover rape of Muslim women not as an attack on Islam but attack on women who were Muslims, a marginalized community. This changed the discourse from an emotional response to a rights-based and justice-seeking language. When you treat Muslims as a social group, it becomes liberating to reimagine them with new identities, like this series on Successful, Young, and Muslim did without invoking Islam.
Changing the narrative with positive image building
This brings me to another important point, Muslims have been living in this land for over a thousand of years but information about Islam or Muslims amongst non-Muslim population is either deficient or in some cases actually wrong. Journalists are no exception and I should add some Muslim journalists too are deficient in their understanding about Islam and Muslims. Lack of knowledge is made up by pushing stereotypes: we are indeed all too familiar with lazy journalism. This in turn creates misinformed readers whose main source of information about Muslims has traditionally been the mass media.
And for the mass media itself, their attention turns to Muslims only when it is in the negative context. When covering stories about terrorism, communal violence and, not to forget, controversial fatwas, it will be stereotypical images of Muslims that will find its way to the front pages of newspapers and/or be flashed on TV screens.
We challenged this by two things – one, by doing positive stories about Muslims and, two, changing the narrative of stereotyped visual representation by putting out different photos about the Muslims as a social group.
Search for Ramadan pictures on the internet and most will be about food, shopping, and praying. As if in the month of Ramadan, Muslims pray all day and eat & shop all night. With the help of young photographer Natisha Mallick, we took a challenge to take 30 photos but without focusing on the food. It was again a way to drop all the stereotypes and have a fresh look at the community. We have since repeated this experiment in three different cities with three different photographers and have a body of work that is now beginning to inspire – and dare I say influence – others.
Reporters on ground
Indian Muslims had a rich tradition of journalism, from Muhammad Baqar of Delhi Urdu Akhbar, who was killed by the British to Hasrat Mohani, who was the first Indian journalist to be imprisoned for publishing anti-government articles to the famous Mohammad Ali Jauhar and Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, who started their careers as journalists. But post-independence, Muslims confined themselves to Urdu and other regional languages with no significant presence in English and Hindi print media. Muslims lagged behind when electronic media boomed in India. A few magazines and journals in English were all one could find that had dedicated coverage of Muslim issues in the beginning of this millennium.
Lacking resources, these publications were full of opinion pieces, but the focus of TwoCircles.net has always been on-the-ground reporting. Impact that series such as Forbesganj police firing and Azamgarh speaks have had would not have been possible without a reporter on the ground.
Tracking the past 10 years of TwoCircles.net will be incomplete without a mention of our reportage on terror cases. TCN was born at a time when India was facing bomb blasts on a regular intervals. With the help of ‘anonymous sources’ many journalists were quick to point to Muslims as source of the terror; commentators would ask why Muslims do not condemn terrorism (implying that Muslims as a community support these inhuman acts); and investigative agencies’ officials were all too happy to frame Muslims and win awards and promotions. The situation was so overwrought that no one was willing to stick his neck out and talk about and question the obvious gaps in the police stories. Front page headlines screamed terror, which only furthered the label for whole community and areas as “nursery of terror.”
In such an environment, TCN not only poked holes at the police stories, but also critiqued media on its coverage. And for the first time for any media house, TCN gave space for families of the accused to tell their version of the truth. While terror-accused youths languished in jails waiting for years to prove their innocence, we told the sufferings of their families who struggled to survive with the stigma.
We were telling an uncomfortable truth and government used its might to block our stories. Arrests of Muslim youth on terror charges were prominently displayed on the front page but their acquittals months or years later was tucked away in inside pages or not covered at all. We focused on telling those stories of acquittals, we also profiled brave defenders and organizations who were on the ground helping out with legal challenges. All this is documented on our special page called Terror Tales.
Our sustained reporting may have helped in that now at least few journalists seek out the family of the accused when covering terror stories. Recent prominent coverage in the elite media of the acquittal of Malegaon blast accused may have been unthinkable few years ago.
Muslims’ own platform – the new normal
TwoCircles.net biggest contribution and achievement has been that “it has helped Muslims of India articulate themselves” as a former TCN reporter Mohammad Ali states. He now works for The Hindu and publicly says that some of his best work was when he was with the TCN. Like Ali, TwoCircles.net provided a platform to thousands of Muslims.
Finally, here was a space for diversity of Muslim opinion to find the light of the day. Muslim voices were always filtered in the mainstream media, TCN provided an avenue for all these opinion to come through without a gatekeeper. We were writing as a Muslim about Muslim and writing from a position of strength.
Gone were the older generation of Muslims who thought that talking about Muslim issues would make them appear communal. The new generation of Muslims are proud of their Muslim identity – they are not confused about Indian identity either – and are all the while carrying their multiple other identities on their person. TwoCircles provided them a home and introduced them to thousand others like them and told them that you are the new normal, now say what you want to say, unfiltered and unhindered.
This is what has become our strong point. Nature of ‘for-profit’ business models of new and old media make them produce controversial, entertainment and articles that are click-baits. TCN being a non-profit can look beyond the traffic data and go where the real stories take us, stories of the marginalized.
Not always easy
But the journey was not all rosy. We reached here with a lot of stress and difficulty. We struggled to win each reader, one by one. There were people who gave us time, expertise and money to help us survive thus far. But there are also a few who could have helped us reach the next level quickly but chose not to.
There were countless others who sought us out and provided help when we thought all doors have closed.
There have been moments of doubt and weaknesses but we survived all because an initiative like TwoCircles.net is need of the time.
Kashif-ul-Huda is the founder editor of TwoCircles.net. Last month TCN completed ten years of daily operation.