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India Booked | Bulletproof Stories of the Northeast
152 Plays5 years ago
In Bulletproof, journalist and author Teresa Rehman goes beyond statistics and looks at documentary evidences, and shows us how conflict impacts women, children, health etc. A first-of-its-kind account, Bulletproof is the story of a female combat journalist and her encounters with insurgency from north-east India.
In this episode of India Booked, Rehman speaks to Ayushi Mona about her experiences of being a journalist and author, and also shares the story behind the title of the book, how challenging and eventually traumatic it is to report in some of the most under-reported regions without any support system, why it's important to still do so, and much more. Listen now!
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Transcript
Introduction to India Booked Podcast
00:00:11
Speaker
I'm your host Ayushi Mona and you're listening to India Booked, a podcast where we lean into the idea of India through its literature and we speak to authors who bring this to life.
Introducing Teresa Rehman
00:00:31
Speaker
Hi everyone, I am Ayushi Mona. I am elated to have Teresa Rehman with me. Teresa is an award-winning journalist who's based out of Northeast India. She's worked for multiple outfits like India Today, The Telegraph and The Helka before she began editing the thumbprint.
00:00:50
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She's received the Wash Media Awards, the Ramana Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award for two consecutive years for her category of reporting on JNK and the Northeastern print.
Exploring 'Bulletproof' and Journalist Safety
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She's received Amriti in Honours, whether it's the Lardley Media Award for Gender Sensitivity, the Sansrati Awards, and the 7th Sarojini Naidu Prize. Thank you so much, Harushi.
00:01:14
Speaker
So, Teresa, I finished reading both the books back to back and I actually want to start off with a discussion on bulletproof because since I read that slightly more recently than the previous, bulletproof, for those of you who don't know, is a first of its kind account because it's the story of a female combat journalist and her encounters with insurgency in Northeast India.
00:01:44
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Teresa shares her story with us. She goes beyond statistics and actually looks at documentary evidence and interviews. Militants talks about conflict, brings in the local milieu and culture and how it's affecting women, children, health, environment and society.
00:02:05
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There is a, I think at this point of time, while I've summarized what the book is about, I would request you to share your experience of, you know, writing this and condensing your own experience into a book. This book is a very, very personal experience. You know, people ask me, why did I call the book bulletproof?
00:02:28
Speaker
And actually, there's an interesting story behind it. When I had gone for a conference of women journalists, women in media. It's called South Asia Women in Media. There were women journalists from all over South Asia. And we were having a session on reporting conflict. And we had women journalists from Afghanistan, Bhutan, Pakistan, Nepal.
00:02:56
Speaker
Maldives, Sri Lanka. And the moderator of the session asked me, do you wear a bulletproof jacket when you go reporting? So that was one question that actually that was a very simple question, but it rattled me. You know, I thought it just made me go back to my past about as a journalist and
00:03:20
Speaker
And I was thinking about my experiences and then I realized that I never really cared about my personal safety when I went reporting. This whole thing about wearing bulletproof jackets and
00:03:38
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helmet safety helmets these are these are things which were unheard of you know i had never heard of those things then i realized that i'm a trained journalist i i studied journalism but my media school did not teach me you know how about
00:03:53
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how to keep myself safe while reporting and especially in a conflict zone.
Documenting Experiences for Future Journalists
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And that is when I went, I thought that I had to write down my experiences. And this is where I'm trying to say that I am bulletproof.
00:04:11
Speaker
the name of the book is bulletproof. So in a sense that I'm trying to say that journalists in under-reported regions like Northeast India, I would call Northeast India as one of the most under-reported regions of the world. And so for us journalists, when we are reporting conflict, hardcore conflict, we are constantly flirting with danger. It's like we have to face the wrath of both the state and the non-state actors.
00:04:39
Speaker
And so that is where I thought that it was very important to document my experiences so that it would help some media students somewhere, some researchers somewhere. And when I'm talking about safety of a journalist, I'm not just talking about physical
Gender and Journalism in Conflict Zones
00:04:57
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safety. I'm also talking about the psychological health of a journalist who has been covering conflict, the trauma that a journalist goes through.
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and the vulnerabilities of a journalist. It is rare that a journalist talks about their own vulnerabilities. I also felt that there is this whole thing about being a female journalist and a male journalist. I always say that you can only be a good journalist or a bad journalist.
00:05:30
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but your gender does come into play especially when you are reporting from an under reported region from an inaccessible hostile terrain without any kind of support system and that is where you know and you are a you are a woman who are treading on an untrodden path you are alone in the field and you have to
00:05:54
Speaker
you anything can happen to you, you know, reporting conflict and spring surprises in every step. So I thought that, you know, it was very important and I was very young then I was always in the quest for a story. So I didn't really bother about my personal safety. And so I was only equipped with a pen.
00:06:18
Speaker
a notepad, and my intuition. I assume that I'll be safe. And I think I'm fortunate that I survived. I was not reduced to one statistic in the long list of journalists killed, wounded, injured while reporting from a hostile terrain. When I realized that some of the foreign media, especially BBC and CNN, Al Jazeera, when they send their journalists to a hostile terrain,
00:06:48
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And even while covering disasters, they make the journalists undergo a training called HEFA, hostile environment and first aid training.
Unique Perspectives and Mainstream Media Coverage
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So these are things which are unheard of for us journalists. So that is why I'm trying to say that we journalists in the northeast are bulletproof.
00:07:08
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So I think you know what you've done through this commendable work is to bring to light so many things that I mean is obviously not covered by mainstream media but also views that we get for instance when you are at National Socialist Council of Nagaland's camp and you're sharing the provisions that are there
00:07:31
Speaker
or what is being cooked, you know, as if it's a military canteen. And, you know, then when you're seeking an interview with the central public, the secretary of FIFA, these are perspectives which we don't see and don't hear about. So which of what in this journey, what incident probably something that you'd like to share with us really shook your view or made you go like, you know, made you say, wow,
00:08:01
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made me say wow about myself? Yes, absolutely. As a woman dealing with this, but more than a woman, right? As a journalist chiefly dealing with this.
00:08:14
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When you take us through these perspectives and whether you're talking about the United Liberation Front or you're talking about the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, what made you feel like giving yourself a pat on your back?
Psychological Trauma and Support Systems
00:08:30
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Actually, I never thought about all these when I went reporting. I just had to get my story. I was like after the story and I had to get my story. So now in retrospect, when I think about all that I've done,
00:08:43
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When I wrote this book, when I was documenting my experiences, I realized that I had stepped into an old boys club. You know, this reporting conflict is a very, very masculine affair. And the kind of reportage that is being done is also very masculine. It's all about the artillery, the guns and the weapons and statistics about people killed.
00:09:06
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about so much recovered but when i wanted to look at it from a different lens and also from a lens of a woman i tried to whenever i went to a militant camp i tried to sneak into the kitchen and see those female catters and i realized that many a times this they had deputed some of their female catters to around me so that i feel comfortable so that was uh and i also realized that
00:09:34
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for most of the militant groups, their publicity wing is one of the most important wings. They know the power of the media. So I have written that in one of one of the chapters as well, you know, this whole thing. But then one incident that really shook me
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was after I had reported, you know, I broke a story about a fake encounter in Manipur and that was the story that actually, you know, changed my life in a sense because I was grilled by the CBI, the SIT, the judicial commission and it was a whole long lonely battle for me.
00:10:11
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I still answer court summons. So that was the time and it also made me go through a very traumatic time and I actually had to seek professional help for PTSD post-traumatic stress disorder. So that was the time when I realized how vulnerable and how insecure we journalists are
00:10:33
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And for many people, that story was a scoop of a lifetime. But for me, that was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. And that was the time when I was also expecting my second child. I was heavily pregnant when I'd gone to the CBI office to be questioned.
00:10:53
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So I was a witness in the case. But then, yeah, so that was many people applauded the story. They felt that it plummeted me to another level altogether for, you know, I it was a heartbreaking story. But for me, it was a deeply, deeply traumatic experience.
00:11:13
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And that was when I thought that it is very important to talk about the psychological trauma of a journalist and how it really, these are things which we don't talk about. And the life of a journalist, we get all the stories, but our stories are never told.
00:11:34
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So I think I would like to pat myself for daring to write about my vulnerabilities. So that's my weaknesses. And reporting conflict has a fear factor that is real. I mean, I would there were times when I got scared and these are, you know, I would be lying if I say that I didn't get scared.
00:11:58
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So I think we should recognize our human frailties and my whole intention of the book is also to talk about how we need a support system, a legal, psychological, physical support system for journalists reporting from conflict zones. So yeah, I think that was what I wanted to convey through my book. And I just hope that it would be a document for
00:12:28
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future and you know another thing was that reporting conflict might spring surprises and there might not be any precedence to what happens. Like I might experience something which probably had never happened to anyone and which will never happen again to anyone.
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And I also realized that how I could see those some of the top militant leaders smiling when they see me, you know, for them, it was like, oh, OK, so it's not another man to man talk. Now, you know, I'm going to talk to another woman now.
00:13:00
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So, you know, and I remember this, if you remember this last lines on this in the chapter where I go to meet the NSCNIM chief, he says he tells his close eye that, you know, he whispers something. And when I asked him, what did Mr. Muiva say? He said that, oh, he said that this reporter is very cunning. I was just wondering what would he have said if it was a male reporter? Would he have called him cunning?
00:13:30
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Maybe he would have called him intelligent. But maybe he found it amusing because I started talking about the food he liked and the color of his shirt and things which usually journalists don't talk about. So I was like, what do you do when you are not? Those kind of things which I just tried to break the ice and didn't start off with those technical questions like, tell me about the Naga peace talks.
00:13:59
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tell me about what's going to happen. So he was amused and he and he realized that I'm trying to get the stories through another you know a different way. So he kept smiling all through and then he said that this reporter is very cunning. So I think that was
00:14:18
Speaker
That was a compliment, a best compliment I could get as a journalist. That's so interesting. You know, I frankly had goosebumps, even though I obviously read about your experience in Manipur and you know, with the fake encounter in Manipur and the PTSD piece that you went through. But I was just thinking, now that you mentioned it, there's obviously that uncertainty, you don't know, there's no precedent. There's dealing with constant fear.
00:14:46
Speaker
There is also a substantial amount of curiosity and luck that goes into this. So, one section where you were thinking about the list of story ideas that you wanted to send to your editor in Delhi and then one of your sources called you and said that you have to drive down to Lower Assam and then wait for instructions.
00:15:10
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And then there is this piece where, you know, you take a cab, you go on a journey, you're asked to stop between a stone quarry and a health center, and then you keep waiting and waiting, and somebody gives you a book. You're very confused because why have you come all this way for just a book, right? And what is interesting is that
00:15:33
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This ends up being a big scoop because it is a diary of the leader of the alpha. So there are these pieces that play out in terms of luck also as a journalist in conflict and especially in an under-reported area
00:15:53
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where, you know, this is so scary to be randomly told that go there, pick this up and you're by yourself and you don't know. Well, when I went reporting, you know, when somebody that person called me and said that you come here, I was very excited. I was thrilled. You know, I was I was very young then. So for me, that was like, OK, maybe there's an exciting story there. So I never really cared for my personal safety or it was only after that
00:16:23
Speaker
I had to actually confront the authorities and I was questioned, I was grilled. That was the time when I realized that, okay, it's not just, you know, there are other aspects to reporting conflict as well.
Challenges in Northeast India Reporting
00:16:38
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For me, that was when I got this diary of this alpha hitman, it was carried as a cover story in Tehelka. So I was excited. I didn't really think that, you know, when I went all the way, something could have happened. Those things never came to my mind. As I said, you know, we journalists in the North East, especially, we were never told that, you know, think about your personal safety, think about your security.
00:17:05
Speaker
And now there is this additional thing about taking care of your gadgets, this whole thing about taking care of your phone, taking care of your laptop, ensure that they are secure. So these are things which we didn't know, we didn't realize. We just went and got the story. And actually, I'm not trying to brag, but I'm one of the few female journalists
00:17:32
Speaker
in the region who actually did such hard for conflict reporting, who went to all the states, all the northeastern states and actually went and met people and both the state and the non-state actors, the victims, the people, the women, the children. I still remember this, I went to meet this in Manipur in a
00:17:57
Speaker
in a small village where this mother whose child was taken away by militant groups to be made, he was taken to be, you know, as a child soldier. So that was something I went to investigate that and I met the mother and she hugged me and she started wailing.
00:18:19
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And there are that maybe she wouldn't have done that to a male reporter. She felt, you know, she could tell she was telling her story and she started wailing and she hugged me. And so those are moments when you realize that, you know, how how conflict affects people, how
00:18:36
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how it lives are dead, you know, and there are children who have grown up seeing conflict. It's like a low intensity war going on all around them. They wake up and they see security men around them with weapons and
00:18:53
Speaker
in the evening, they might hear of a bomb blast somewhere. So there are people who have grown up, who were born into such a situation and were grown up. And in fact, we also have grown up in the similar setup because I grew up in Assam. So I know how the feeling of fear and insecurity, which is there, which lingers. And then being a media person, being a journalist,
00:19:17
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and you know going to different states and especially and you know the region is often catwise as a monolith but we are seven or more and now eight which again eight heterogeneous states with their own set of problems with their own set of languages culture
00:19:37
Speaker
And the conflict also is for different reasons. So to be able to go there, meet people, get the story. So I think then when I was reporting, I was actually on the field. I never really felt scared. But it was only after that fake encounter story that I realized that I wish I had a support system. I wish I had, you know,
00:20:06
Speaker
thought about my own personal safety, my own mental health. So this book is actually a reflection. In retrospect, I'm trying to recount the things that I have gone through. And hopefully it might serve as a survival guide for journalists aspiring to report conflict.
Socio-Political Landscape of Northeast India
00:20:30
Speaker
from this region. I actually now want to from you know taking the specific lens of your personal experience move into the larger socio-political landscape of the Northeast which you talk about both through bulletproof as well as Mothers of Manipur right so that you have described
00:20:51
Speaker
aspects such as, you know, say the Adivasi Cobra military of Assam, which is, you know, described, which is described as key tribes in Assam, right? And then Nohr recognizes scheduled tribes in Assam, though they have, you know, scheduled tribe status and say a Jharkhand. To me, every time I host an episode on this podcast,
00:21:12
Speaker
I'm constantly stuck by the plurality, the diversity, and the depth of the many Indias that live within this one India, you know. And I'm sure, because this is not a widely understood topic, there are elements, especially, and perhaps we should talk about, you know, the Armed Force Special Powers Act, which has changed the landscape of
00:21:42
Speaker
how and for the I will actually say which has changed the landscape of the authority that is exerted right and and there are obviously political repercussions to it. If you could help us walk a bit through about this situation from a socio-political lens that would be great. See both my books you know The Mothers of Manipur and Bulletproof they are both
00:22:09
Speaker
deeply personal journeys, my journey through the Northeast that I have seen. As a journalist, I was also tired of the narrative coming out of the region. It's the same kind of control narrative. And the region was often in the news for the wrong reasons. It was in the news for bomb blasts and violence and bloodshed.
00:22:36
Speaker
But if you see the book, The Mothers of Manipur, it's about that protest, that iconic protest that took place, that new protest by 12 mothers. And through that protest, I'm taking you on a journey through contemporary Manipur through these 12 women. And a contemporary Manipur, as I saw it,
00:23:05
Speaker
You know, so as an outsider, I was also an outsider to Manipur. So it was like my journey to Manipur as an outsider. And when I spoke to these mothers, I realized that these are women who grew up in this conflict and who have children, grandchildren, great grandchildren,
00:23:26
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And they have also lived the same life, they have witnessed the same kind of insecurity all through their lives. And when I spoke to these grandmothers, I realized that they were wise women and sometimes I felt like they were teasing me.
00:23:45
Speaker
And it's like, oh, this young girl, she's come here and she's asking us questions. So I realized that they had so much of wisdom in them. They had so much of grit and courage. And I think the long years of witnessing conflict had hardened them.
Stories of Resilience and The Mothers of Manipur
00:24:03
Speaker
And then I also tried to juxtapose their stories with some stories of people from Manipur, contemporary Manipur, who are
00:24:12
Speaker
either doing art, literature, music. And in fact, you know, there is this story about, you know, this young doctor in UK, he's from Manipur and he started this project called Blooming Manipur. And he, you know, why he started this project, it was like he was looking out of the window in his office in London and
00:24:35
Speaker
Not in London in I think some place in UK. So he just looked out and he saw those beautiful flower patches in the Western countries you see these beautiful flower patches all over on the streets on the road and Then he realized that how come we don't grow flowers in back home. I mean he said that only when you grow flowers you develop a love with your soil with the land and you have to tend to the flowers and
00:25:03
Speaker
It doesn't grow automatically. You have to take care of soil and you have to take care of, you have to water the plant. So he said that, let us grow flowers. So he started the project called Blooming Money Pool. And so he came back whenever he comes on his annual visits to back home. So he started this project and said, let us grow flowers in the villages, in the cities, in the schools, in the colleges, in the marketplace. Let us grow flowers.
00:25:31
Speaker
So that was, and through his story, I delve into the story of another mother. I'm trying to run after her. She's in her backyard. She's running after her pigs and her ducks. And she's busy. She's picking up those vegetables from her tiny kitchen garden. And she has no time to talk. I'm running after her and she's talking. And she's one of the mothers who's
00:25:57
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you know the strict has set so it was like it was difficult to imagine them you know those fiery moment and then now you know in their own domestic setting and you know trying to
00:26:12
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trying to lead lives as comfortably as possible and so it is true this women I'm trying to tell the story of contemporary Manipur I won't say that it's a complete story maybe you know if you go you would see a different Manipur I saw a different Manipur and my perspective as an outsider was different
00:26:35
Speaker
And coming back to my book, Bulletproof, it is true. It is, again, my journey. I go to meet the leader of the Adivasi Cobra military, a rag tech militant group formed by the Tea Drive community of Assam. And there, I meet this young chap who has come to take me to their camp. And I ride on his motorcycle. And I realize that he's a local legend.
00:27:04
Speaker
if people respect him he's a young guy which is barely out of his teens and
00:27:11
Speaker
And he asked me, where's your camera? So he was hoping for a TV crew to come and shoot them. But I told them that I'm just a print journalist. I just have a pen and a notebook. So he looked a little dismayed. And then while going there, we also see one of the relief camps where the people from his community were staying after there was an ethnic strife.
00:27:37
Speaker
So there have been children who grew up in these relief camps. So the harsh life that they lead and the dismal future. So these are things which I observed on my way to the camp. So through my journey, I'm also talking about their journey. So I don't know. I'm trying to look at things from a different lens.
00:28:02
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which probably you don't get to see when you read a book about conflict. It is usually very tough and rough things which you read. But this is something more humane. I'm trying to talk about people. I'm talking about life.
00:28:19
Speaker
I'm talking about women, I'm talking about children. And I feel that is how I try to look at conflict, how it different lives. Actually, I think, you know, I would want to summarize this as well for people listening in who don't really understand the conflict. In 2004, a girl named Manaroma was picked up by the army and she was accused of being a member of a banned outfit.
00:28:49
Speaker
and later her body was brutalized. I will not even get into details because it's extremely graphic and violent, obviously, and rightly led to a great uproar in the community. 12 women, and these are the women that Teresa was mentioning, who are mothers, grandmothers, took upon themselves to protest about this.
00:29:13
Speaker
and they gathered at the gate of the Assam rifle headquarter, which is a unit of the Indian army and they stripped to protest against the killings. They carried a banner and essentially in the process of protesting, they de-sexualized their own nude bodies to fight against
00:29:33
Speaker
sexual violence and hence nudity became symbolic. And what Teresa tried to do in her book, which is The Mothers of Manipur, is to take the stories of each of these mothers and grandmothers and individual women, you know, who have continued this protest and bought this to the forefront is something which is absolutely commendable, Teresa, to pick this up as you know,
00:30:02
Speaker
subject matter in the first place and the kind of intimate understanding you take us through. One thing that really struck me and I wanted to ask you was that you've taken this nuance of tying a
00:30:17
Speaker
the protest against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act with the story of these women. But you've also picked up examples of storytelling of women and culture and, you know, different female warriors in the chapters. Why did you decide to do that? And how did you go about displaying, you know, female bodies and human bodies as sides of struggle in the context of these protests?
00:30:48
Speaker
For me, I tried to just give a journalistic narrative. I didn't really try to judge things. I just wanted to know what happened that day. And I just wanted to talk to these women, find out who these women were. I wanted to give a face to those. I wanted to understand the women behind the faces.
00:31:08
Speaker
who had stripped themselves and I felt that it was very important to document their narrative and in fact after the book was published two of the mothers had passed away. Stories of these women I had extensively reported on Manipu so whenever I went there I used to hunt for one or two of these women and I used to document their you know the interviews and it was there in my crumpled notebooks
00:31:33
Speaker
I didn't really think that it might develop into a book someday. I just thought that they were there and maybe someday I would write about them. So that was all that I had in mind. And then this whole thing about women's bodies and shame, these are things which I asked them. I asked those women instead of me judging them, I asked them.
00:31:56
Speaker
And one of these mochi said that lower garment that they wear, which is known as fanek, this is something, you know, for them, you know, even if the ankle shows, you know, if they wear it little higher and their ankle shows it's not considered appropriate, you know, they cover their feet.
00:32:17
Speaker
And one of them said that the upper garment, which is known as enough feet. So that is something which did wrap around them, even when she wraps it around her, even when she goes to sleep. So she said that you try to imagine how difficult was it for me to remove those garments.
00:32:39
Speaker
remove them and in public in front of everyone and she said one of them said that you know this was the ultimate we could do for the daughters of Manipu and one of them even said that because I felt that this was the last day of my life there was nothing more that I could do
00:32:55
Speaker
And when they have taken the resolution, they also said that, you know, make sure that no young girl joins us. It is only all elderly women with sagging bodies will join the protest. And I tried to juxtapose stories of other people in the stories of these women because, you know, I felt that they were all from a similar background, though they didn't have similar lives.
00:33:23
Speaker
I just didn't want it to be mere biographies of these 12 women. I wanted to tell a bigger story, stories about resilience, stories about how people are coping with trying to be innovative, trying to bring up new
Journalistic Approach and Conclusion
00:33:40
Speaker
things in spite of the conflict and how we see some beautiful theatre, art, music emerging from the state. So through them, it's also my journey into contemporary Manipul. And I never really tried to delve deep into the complexities of the body and those things. It was just a journalistic narrative and I led the readers
00:34:08
Speaker
judge for themselves let them you know you know understand what happened that day and I really didn't I if academicians want to delve into it they can do that but for me it was just a narrative as a journalist that I saw and what I saw and what I felt and
00:34:31
Speaker
As I said, maybe your journey would be different if you had done the same thing. So this was my journey. Thank you so much, Teresa, for taking out the time and sharing such a detailed account of your experience.
00:34:46
Speaker
We were honored to actually have, you know, just to listen to this experience. I can't imagine the life you've led. You are an inspiration. And this episode has given me more goosebumps than I care to count. So thank you so much. I would request our listeners
00:35:06
Speaker
to purchase the Mothers of Manipur and Bulletproof from either Amazon or an independent bookstore near them. But please do read these books because they will open your eyes to a facet of India that's never really reported and spoken about, and especially with the kind of intimate detailing that Teresa takes us through.
00:35:27
Speaker
This is India Booked, a podcast where we lean into India through its literature. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. Thank you for listening.