The Dalit-Founded News Site Challenging India’s Mainstream Media

When Meena Kotwal joined media juggernaut BBC Hindi in September 2017, she thought that she finally had broken into mainstream media, a professional space largely inaccessible to Dalits. Her career looked bright then.

But in the two years that she worked there, her pitches were habitually rejected, and she was impeded from her work on more than one occasion, she’s alleged, because of her caste identity. And of the eight-person cohort with whom she was hired, only her contract was temporary. Her contract wasn’t renewed, and she was eventually let go. She was the only Dalit in the newsroom.

Dalits, who constitute 16.6 percent of the population, were considered “untouchables” and placed at the bottom of the country’s rigid caste system, perhaps the world’s longest surviving social hierarchy. At best, they are targets of routine discrimination in every social sphere; at worst, they are regular victims of extreme caste violence.

“I was caricatured in a way that people in the office began believing that I was not meant for this job,” she told The Print in 2019. “I was on an anti-depressant and tried committing suicide twice.”

According to a 2019 report by media watchdog Newslaundry and Oxfam India, around 88 percent of leadership positions in Indian media houses are held by upper-caste journalists. Consequently, more than half of the stories on issues related to caste in Hindi and English newspapers are reported by the upper castes.

The over-representation of upper castes in Indian media has led to the emergence of Bahujan media (Bahujan, meaning “the majority”, is an umbrella term for people belonging to lower castes) that primarily focuses on caste discrimination in the country. Her experiences with both mainstream and Bahujan media led her to start her own venture.

In January 2021, Kotwal founded The Mooknayak, an independent online media outlet that reports on caste oppression and systemic violence against marginalized communities across India. It takes its name, which translates to “the leader of the voiceless,” from the newspaper of the same name launched by Dalit leader Babasaheb Ambedkar in 1920. Nearly all of the journalists writing for The Mooknayak come from marginalized backgrounds themselves.

The Mooknayak has grown rapidly in its first year, with more than 87,000 followers on Twitter, and was the recent recipient of two international awards: the HRRF Journalism Award 2022with Article 14 and the AANA International Award 2022.

Women Under Siege spoke with Kotwal about her journey with the organization and in Indian media.

Women Under Siege: How did the idea of The Mooknayak come into existence?

Meena Kotwal: After my contract was terminated by the BBC, I applied for jobs but was rejected because of my series on Facebookregarding casteism in the BBC newsroom. Some media houses offered me freelance work, but it didn’t pay enough. And that was when I was working extensively for Bahujan media. In 2020, during the Hathras case, I saw that even in the media organizations that primarily work for Dalits and other marginalized communities, women didn’t hold any decision-making positions. A Dalit woman is doubly marginalized.

I wanted to fill that gap. In a way, the idea for The Mooknayak came out of this anger. We started it on January 31, 2021 — the same date Ambedkar established Mooknayak in 1920.

Can you say more on Dalit women being doubly marginalized?

A woman will never have the same rights or social privilege as a man. And when a woman comes from a Dalit background, she has to go through layers of oppression that eventually decide her place in society. In her professional and social life, she has to prove her worth and navigate her way, firstly as a woman and then as a Dalit.

For example, a 2018 report from UN Women said that the average Dalit woman dies 14.6 years younger than women from higher castes. Why does that happen? Because her family background decides the kind of life that she is going to live.

You have been vocal about your experiences with casteism and the upper-caste hegemony of Indian outlets. How does The Mooknayak disrupt the landscape?

We are a very small team of around 15, but we have journalists from different marginalized groups, such as Tribals, lower-caste Hindus, Christian Dalits, Pasmanda (lower-caste) Muslims, women, and journalists from the queer community. Many who work with us have no idea how journalism works but they have a passion for it. They see journalism for what it should be — a means to serve society.

There is a vegetable seller who has done many stories with us. Being from a lower-caste Muslim background, who is at the receiving end of exploitation, he didn’t have any confidence to talk to officials for stories. When we gave him a platform, he spoke up. We taught him how to approach a story, how to avoid issues of plagiarism, and how stories are fact-checked editorially.

All of this helps to reach the places that have been overlooked by mainstream media.

Almost all mainstream media organizations in the country are corporate-fundedand have been co-opted into hyper-nationalism. Even the seemingly independent ones fall into the narrative of the “Hindu majority.” Your organization — with its focus on caste and tribal atrocities — doesn’t appear to engage with this narrative.

I think Hindu-Muslim issues gain a lot of political relevance because political parties work on such strategies. Whenever a communal case (Hindu-Muslim communal violence) comes up, mainstream media peddles the same pro-government agenda. Then the independent ones take up the issue and make it anti-government. It’s an endless cycle where one community becomes the enemy of another. We try to avoid politics and pick up socially relevant issues.

But what about caste and tribal atrocities that have been overlooked for centuries? I want to work on these issues that have always been left unaddressed — even by journalists.

Do you see yourself as Hindu?

No.

You can see that Dalits are considered Hindus by upper castes — they are not. They are [only] Hindus when it comes to gaining votes, but they are Dalits when it comes to giving positions of power. We need to understand Dalits are largely uneducated and do not see this issue of the Hindu majority. Once you see how caste matters, you would not want to be called Hindu but Dalit. The label of Hindu is just to pit one community against the other.

Freedom of the press has been constantly under attack since the Modi government came into power. How does your organization operate in this hostile environment?

We are already a targeted organization because of the kind of work we do. So, we always keep recordings of the interviews, check facts multiple times, and do not give any kind of opinions in our news reports. I am always aware that if we ever make a mistake, there will be consequences.

Journalists, activists, and protesters in the country have been known targets of surveillance, presumably by the state. Have you had any experiences that have challenged your sense of safety in your work?

Sometimes, the police threaten me to delete my tweets whenever I am critical of the government and where India is heading.

But I [regularly] receive rape threats, death threats, and a lot of online trolling for the work that I do. My social media is filled with them. And because I am a Dalit woman, it becomes even easier for people to abuse me. I have filed [first information reports] just to keep a record of the threats I receive.

As for the state, there is no direct threat, but there is always the fear of getting lynched or some other public assault because I do not assign to the ideology of the ruling party.

It doesn’t feel like your work offers much respite: you’re a Dalit woman reporting on minorities and marginalized communities — including the violence against them. It must be challenging for you on a personal level.

Of course, everything becomes emotionally challenging because I am from the same caste. It becomes even more challenging when we try to highlight issues of caste atrocities, and people treat us as if we are spreading casteism. I am just holding a mirror to the society that is already casteist. If the society is full of hatred and violence, there is no point in blaming the mirror.

Sometimes I report on caste crimes, and I imagine what could happen to me or my daughter, who is just three years old. But this also keeps me devoted to my work.

And yet, in spite of the state of press in India today, The Mooknayak only continues to grow.

The Mooknayak only grew because people had faith in us and our reporting. This is also the reason they keep supporting us — even those who earn daily wages. I believe this is only going to get better; we may perhaps be competing with what we call mainstream media someday. We are already winning international awards just in one year.

As for the state of journalism in India, we all know people don’t trust journalists from mainstream media anymore. It is no longer the fourth pillar of democracy. The reporters from such media houses even have been boycotted

because the public does not trust them. I believe the future of journalism in India lies in the hands of small media houses like ours — the ones who speak truth to power. No matter how many attacks we receive, this is something we will continue. I can promise that this will continue.