“India revoked its independence,” Three Indian journalists win Pulitzer Prize for Kashmir coverage. Rahul Gandhi congratulates them

In what could have been a moment of immense pride for India, three Indian journalists from Jammu & Kashmir won the 2020 Pulitzer Prizes in feature photography. For any journalist, being awarded the coveted Pulitzer Prize is a dream come true, as it is regarded as one of the most esteemed institutional awards around the world in the field of Journalism in Photojournalism and Arts.

Dar Yasin, Mukhtar Khan and Channi Anand, three photojournalists from the Associated Press were awarded the prize this year, for their photos which showed life in Kashmir from the Pakistani viewpoint. A life marred with violence, where the oh-so-terrible Indian security forces have made it their lives’ mission to harass innocent Kashmiris. Not one of their photos showed the living hell which our security forces have to brave while in Kashmir.Not one of them showed how our jawans protect Kashmir from the claws Islamic terror, and not one of them showed our Bravehearts as they laid down their lives for the nation. Because that sort of content would not win the Pulitzer Prize, as no one would lobby for it.

Yet, the explicit bias on that front is not really what has infuriated Indians. The fact that the Pulitzer organisation had the temerity to openly refer to sovereign Indian Kashmir as a “contested territory” is what has sounded the death knell for the organisation’s credibility.

A caption on their website, announcing the three photojournalists as awardees, read: “Channi Anand, Mukhtar Khan and Dar Yasin of Associated Press, for striking images of life in the contested territory of Kashmir as India revoked its independence, executed through a communications blackout.”

The caption went on to shamelessly portray Kashmir as an ‘independent’ territory of sorts, whose ‘independence’ had been revoked by the terrible Indian state through a communications blackout in August last year. The illiteracy, or perhaps intended malice with which the organization claimed the same is rather embarrassing for them, as in India at least, their awards will not be worth a dime any longer.

Meanwhile, the liberal circles of India were exuberant across India, as their anti-India agenda had just been validated (or so they thought) across the world.

Their blue-eyed boy thought of this to be yet another opportunity to ‘arrive’ and as such, Rahul Gandhi put out a tweet congratulating the prize winners.

The BJP was quick to lambast Gandhi for his congratulatory messages, which reeked of open support to the Pulitzer organisation for their vile insinuations about sovereign Indian territory.

Rahul Gandhi, mindless as he can be, should have had the basic decency to not publicly be seen acknowledging the Pulitzer organisation’s ground-breaking propaganda on Kashmir. Yet, he did exactly the same.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press President and CEO, Gary Pruitt said, “Thanks to the team inside Kashmir, the world was able to witness a dramatic escalation of the long struggle over the region’s independence. Their work was important and superb.” 

What would have been praiseworthy on the part of the photojournalists, would be to not accept the award, and also condemn the Pulitzer Organisation for their visceral propaganda on Kashmir. That the awardees did not do so raises concerns over their loyalties, which, going by their photographs, do not seem to lie with India in any case.

The New York Times, New Yorker and The Washington Post were among the others who were awarded in the field of journalism. 

The New York Times won the awards for ‘investigative reporting’, ‘international reporting’ and ‘commentary’. The Washington Post, which employs the likes of Rana Ayyub, was awarded for ‘explanatory reporting’. Meanwhile, Reuters was awarded the Pulitzer for ‘breaking news photography’, for its coverage of the Hong Kong Protests.

A common binding thread among these publications and media houses is their vocal hatred for Hindus, as a direct consequence of which they do not shy away from peddling the Pakistani narrative over Kashmir.

The brazen insinuations which the likes of NYT and Washington Post have made against India in the past, stand as a glowing testimony to their dedication at deriding anything remotely Indian across the world.

This is not the first time that a one-sided, and Pakistan-sympathetic narrative has been peddled internationally, and one can vouch for the fact that it will not be the last either. The Pulitzer Prizes, thanks to the vile hatred of some in the organization against India, will no longer be regarded as the “most honorary awards” in the field of Journalism and Arts, at least in India. Instead, they have been exposed as a bunch of passive minded people, placing their bets solely on the reliance of lobbyists.