Justice is essential for a feminist (re)imagination of society. One that forges a just world for all across the spectrum of gender identity. For critical feminist scholars, gender has to also co-exist with understandings of class, race, and in the Indian context, caste. Justice is not one-dimensional. Intersectionalities of caste and class influence gender relations, and gender relations influence caste and class realities. But how do we better understand the lived realities of those of us seeking justice, outside of a gaze dominated by patriarchy, colonialism or capitalistic ideals? We do this through stories. 

The mainstream media however, cannot be entrusted with these stories. Our media continues to be controlled by political and corporate pressures, even as some journalists struggle to uphold the ideals of journalism. In a report published by NewsLaundry with UN Women and Hyatt, only about 20% of panellists across prime-time debates in English were women and only 10% of panellists across prime-time debates in Hindi were women. Across newspapers, three in every four news articles were authored by a male journalist. In a situation like this, wherein the representation of women in media is minimal, a hermeneutical wrong is committed. The same is true of representations of caste, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, rural realities, and any experiences outside of carefully controlled, mainstream narrative. If there is no representation of their marginalised experiences, there will be no vocabulary, or understanding centering these experiences, thereby constraining our ability to make sense of them and to rally for change, or justice.  

When the powerful dominate the media, it takes a lot to undo the damage of this, to question the stories they tell, and to claim one’s space as a woman. But people who need to tell their stories are taking back the narrative. One such example is the organisation Khabar Lahariya, run entirely by women, for the representation of women, and their dreams for a just society.

Khabar Lahariya first started as a local newspaper by Nirantar, a Delhi-based NGO, and is now a media network with a worldwide digital presence. It is run by an all-women team of reporters, editors, and media practitioners, ‘reporting on media geographies of the northern Indian hinterland.’ Despite its global reach, Khabar Lahariya is one of the very few platforms in India dedicated to grassroots reportage that challenges the status quo prevailing in media ownership controlled by upper-caste men. 

The first edition of the newspaper was published in Bundeli language in 2002. It currently has six editions being published in six districts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. It aims to foster not just gender equality but also caste, class, and linguistic equality. Khabar Lahariya radically challenges existing patterns of media ownership and, by bringing women to media, has brought media to women. From the written word to oral stories through videos taken on mobile phones, they make use of multiple formats of reporting. They bring to the forefront not just news that is economically conceived as ‘important’ but even document small acts of everyday livelihoods and leisure. This contributes to the discourse surrounding not just women, but questions gender as interconnected with caste and livelihoods. 

In ‘Laugh of the Medusa,’ Cixous writes,

“I wished that women would write and proclaim this unique empire so that other women, other acknowledged sovereigns, might exclaim: I too, overflow; my desires have invented new desires, my body knows unheard-of songs. She must write herself, because this is the invention of a new insurgent writing which, when the moment of her liberation has come, will allow her to carry out the indispensable ruptures and transformations in her history.”

Providing a space to women to express their dreams and desires, Khabar Lahariya has not only contributed towards the emancipation of the women working with them, but also to the liberation of the women who read them. To attempt to undo the hermeneutical harm done to women by mainstream media is to not just return a sense of selfhood to women, but for it to be created in the first place, by women themselves.  

Their everyday journalism, acknowledgment of women’s labour, and documentation of everyday acts of leisure asserts women’s space as being both inside and outside the boundaries of their homes. To borrow from Virginia Woolf’s conception of “A Room of One’s Own,” inside the newsroom and everywhere outside of it, a woman must have a Mic of Her Own. 

The role of a feminist, community-based media platform advocating for a just society cannot be overstated. From Khabar Lahariya’s daily reportage that lies in rural areas of India to their critical analysis of intersections of caste and gender, the possibility of such a dedication arises only with adequate representation; when women have a mic of their own. Representation of both dreams and realities is a radical act of justice. Kavita Devi, its co-founder and editor-in-chief, became the first Dalit member of the Editors Guild of India.

Community media allows individuals in communities to see beyond the isolation of social phenomena. As Audre Lorde reminds us, there is no liberation without community. We have a long way to go in undoing the harm done by epistemic injustice taking place daily, but meanwhile, songs of justice are sung in spaces of one’s own, spaces like Khabar Lahariya, through a mic of one’s own. In the words of bell hooks,

“The heart of justice is truth telling, seeing ourselves and the world the way it is rather than the way we want it to be.”

References:

 1. UN Women. (2021). Gender Representation in Indian Courtrooms.

 2. Khabar Lahariya. (n.d.). About us. 

 3. Cixous, H. (1975). The laugh of the Medusa. L’Arc, 61, 39-55.

 4. Woolf, V. (1929). A room of one’s own. London: Hogarth Press. 

 5. Menon, A. (2023, January 30). Dalit women journalists’ resistance against the caste bias & discrimination. Feminism in India.

6. Miranda Fricker describes a certain injustice wherein a wrong is done to someone in their capacity as a knower, calling it ‘Epistemic Injustice.’#