What Lies Beneath, A Feminist Exhumation
In November 2021, a group of eleven women found themselves sitting together in a room in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. Three of us (Anushi, Ekta and Angarika) had traveled from Bangalore, and the rest from different parts of Madhya Pradesh. There was a nervous energy in the room. “Why do you think we’ve all come here?”
The fourth episode features Neha Dixit who claims that journalists need their legs more than their brains. As she narrates experiences from sting operations and press releases, she demystifies investigative journalism and reveals how it’s not one mysterious tip but rather mundane legwork that breaks the biggest stories.
The third episode features Nidhi Suresh who takes us to Lakhimpur and Hathras, and makes visible the violence that takes place on the scene post the crime. She negotiates quid pro quo with local reporters and highlights the importance of slow and quiet questions even (and especially) when hordes of reporters are covering one story.
Among the many gifts that the classroom throws in my face, one that I am equally envious and enamored by is the beehive of female friendships all around me.
Prisons are taken for granted within ‘civilised’ societies; we often do not think of the what and why of the institution. Often, we find ourselves at one of three points on a continuum: being oblivious and uninterested, feeling secure in knowing that there is a prison, or being concerned about the people who reach prison.
The second episode features Neetu Singh, who built her career with Gaon Connection, and by consistently challenging the notion that a journalist’s job stops at the report. With tremendous insight into how to work with local structures to get a job done, Neetu Singh reminds us that it all begins – and ends with – details, details, details.
The first episode features Priyanka Dubey, who talks to us about her journey of documenting violence and crime, her inner life and mental landscape after doing this job for the last 14 years, and how she carries grit and poetry to every scene of crime.
Nirantar Radio introduces a new show featuring F-Rated conversations aka, Feminist Rated Conversations. In Season 1 of F Rated Interviews, meet India’s intrepid women crime reporters, on journalism, ethics, gender, conflicts and some thrilling night rides under the sky.
When we started our discussions on crime at the Learning Lab, one thought lingered—if we commit a wrong against a person, that can be called a crime; but if our environment is being harmed, can that be classified as crime as well?
We know very little about the life of the ordinary woman prisoner. She is either non-existent in popular imagination or made out to be an extraordinary deviant, transgressing all codes of social morality. But what constitutes the ordinary woman prisoner’s ‘criminality’? What lies at the heart of it? What are her dreams, desires and fears? What does a post-prison life look for her?
