New Delhi: Kashmiri journalist Safina Nabi, who was selected for a media award instituted by the journalism school run by the Pune-based Maharashtra Institute of Technology-World Peace University (MIT-WPU), got a rude shock as her award was cancelled on the eve of the award presentation ceremony, which was held in the institute’s premises on Wednesday, October 18. The award was cancelled by the university’s management in the face of right-wing political pressure, The Wire has learned.
The institute authorities were initially tightlipped about the incident, saying on Thursday that it took the decision not to present the award to Nabi because some of her “published opinions and views… have the potential to be viewed as contentious and not in alignment with the foreign policy of the Indian Government” and awarding her “at this time could have given rise to unwelcome controversies”.
Nabi’s report, ‘The half widows of Kashmir’, appearing in Scroll, had been chosen the winner in the category of ‘journalism that promoted empathy, understanding and inclusivity in society’. It brought out the longstanding plight of the ‘half widows’ of Kashmir who continue to be denied their property rights decades after the disappearance of their husbands. The reporting for the story was aided by the Pulitzer Centre on Crisis Reporting.
Her story had been unanimously chosen from dozens of entries by a seven-member jury comprising three members from the institute and four external members, namely Sunanda Mehta, resident editor of The Indian Express, Pune edition, Sandeep Adhwaryu, cartoonist at The Times of India, Sanjeev Ratna Singh, head of the media school at Bennett University and M.K. Venu, founding editor of The Wire.
Nabi had been informed that she had won the award in a phone call from the director, Department of Media & Communication at MIT-WPU Dhiraj Singh, as well as an email from him, on October 11.
The email Safina Nabi received.
Nabi told The Wire that the institute had made arrangements for her to travel for the award ceremony, and she was supposed to leave on October 17 for Pune. However, on the afternoon of October 16, she received a call from an unknown faculty member who said the award had been cancelled and so she should no longer travel to Pune.
“Everything was in place and for a week they kept reaching out for travel arrangements etc,” she said. “I was supposed to travel on the 17th of October and on the 16th of October around 2 o’clock in the afternoon I received a call on the other side of the phone was a woman who introduced herself as one of the faculty members of the university. She mentioned that they are canceling my award and I am not supposed to travel now. When I asked for the reasons she mentioned that there is a lot of political pressure that they are facing for awarding me. She also said it would be highly risky for me to travel or be present at the venue.”
Thinking that this was some sort of a prank call, Nabi then reached out to Rajeesh Kumar who is an assistant professor at the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism to check about the authenticity, as he had been her single point of contact till then. “To my surprise, he was clueless and requested to be given some time to cross-check,” she said. “He called me back sometime and confirmed that they were actually canceling my award and he was sorry. I requested they put all of this over email and give me the reasons as to why are they doing so. After this Dhiraj Singh called me who mentioned the same thing and didn’t agree to put anything over email. They were just calling me and giving me the reason that there is a lot of political pressure on the university not to felicitate me.”
Nabi then reached out to the jury, who too had not been told about the cancellation.
On learning about the cancellation of Nabi’s award, which was publicly announced by the institute in a press statement last Saturday, the jury members refused to attend the event where they were to participate in a discussion on “media and democracy”.
Jury members say they were “shocked” to hear about the award being cancelled. “Three jury members were in Pune to attend the event and participate in a discussion (Sunanda, Sandeep and I). On learning of the cancellation, we discussed amongst ourselves and decided that the best statement to make would be to not attend the event,” Venu told The Wire.
“Kashmiri journalists are being subjected to altogether different level of censorship and harassment which is totally unconscionable. That too led to my decision not to attend the event,” Venu added.
A statement released by MIT-WPU on Thursday, said that some of Nabi’s “published opinions and views… have the potential to be viewed as contentious and not in alignment with the foreign policy of the Indian Government”. Presenting her with an award – chosen by the jury – “at this time could have given rise to unwelcome controversies. Such controversies are something our institution, being an academic, apolitical, and non-partisan entity, should not be associated with. It is crucial to emphasize that no external political or non-political pressure has been exerted to rescind the award granted to Ms. Nabi,” the statement says.
MIT-WPU said it expresses “deep appreciation” for Nabi’s “substantial contributions to the field of journalism” and that the institute does not take want to take a “stance of either endorsing or renouncing her expressed views”.
Note: This article was updated with the MIT-WPU’s statement at 8 pm on October 18, 2023.