“The Muslims in India are at the cusp of genocide and none of the journalists can afford to look away. If you look away each one of us in the world is complicit in it. I stand here not as a journalist but also as a Muslim citizen of this country who feels persecuted. I don’t know what will happen once I go back.” This was the truth spoken by Rana Ayyub a female Indian journalist addressing the International Journalism Festival, Perugia in April last.        

In her historical videotape being run on social media, Rana Ayyub stated: I went undercover as a Hindu American girl with a fake name, a fake identity, and a fake American accent with eight cameras on my body and this was in 2010. I infiltrated the rank and file of Modi’s government for eight months. I did a sting operation on all the top guys in the Modi administration where they spoke the truth about the genocide of the Muslims and the extrajudicial murder of Muslims. When I came back to my organization they refused to publish the story citing political pressure. 

I was only 26 then; it was a lot for a journalist to take to put her life in jeopardy and for her investigation to not be published. I went through a lot including a nervous breakdown, seeing a psychiatrist, and of course, I am reliving those days back again. But I went to every journalism organization back in the day and they refused to publish and then I went to publishers saying can you publish the transcript of my sting operation and they said it’s too risky as a book. 

So, my mom had some gold kept for me, it’s a tradition that when you are about to get married the family gives you gold, I got some gold for my marriage. I pawned, took a gold loan, and self-published my book which was called “Gujrat Files: Anatomy of a cover-up”. There was no media coverage but social media which can also act has been weaponized against us also has kind of democratized the space for us to speak. It became a great platform for my book to be an international bestseller selling 750,000 copies in 14 languages.  But the courts in India have still not taken or asked me for my tapes for investigation. After Mr. Modi came to power I have literally been an independent freelance journalist because editors who wanted to offer me a job in their publications before 2014 pretended I do not exist. Friends who would meet me for coffee in the cafeteria would prefer to meet me at home because they did not want to be seen with me in public. Why is that because I chose to tell a truth without sugar coating it and the way it should be unlike what you see of well-meaning people these days who refused to call fascists by their name, who refused to call dictators by their name, who refused to call demagogues by their name? That’s what I wanted to do and that’s what many unsung journalists in India are trying to do right now in the face of everyday persecution of the Indian minority which is about 220 million the third largest population of Muslims in the world. Where the prime minister of India himself issues dog whistles against the Muslim community. 

Yesterday, a Hindu priest in front of a massive crowd asked the people to rape and abducts Muslim women. Cops were present and they did not do a thing. This is everyday life for each one of us, one of the reasons why the prime minister of India and his agencies did not want me to board the aircraft to come here. Because I am one of those journalists amongst many others who are speaking this raw truth that the world needs to know, the world needs to act now whether it is America. I just tweeted a couple of minutes ago to Kamala Harris referring to her in the tweet that when she was elected as Vice President of America we expected her as somebody of Indian origin to speak up. The world is silent about what’s happening in India because you want to have a strategic relationship with India vis-a-vis China and other nations. So let us not ignore what is happening in India. You cannot afford what’s happening in India the Muslims in this country are at the cusp of genocide; none of the journalists can afford to look away and if you look away each one of us in the world are complicit in it. I stand here not as a journalist but also as a Muslim citizen of this country who feels persecuted. I don’t know what will happen once I go back, Rana Ayyub concluded. 

Published in The Daily National Courier, August, 25 2022

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