Why? It’s The Money, Stupid!
Internationally, agenda-driven so-called media and research houses are candy-wrapping terrorism. Duplicitous, deceitful writing is being packaged as journalism. Prime Example: The Polis Project.
This group is described online as a “Charitable Organization headquartered in New York.” Witness the grand statement on its website: Support independent research and not for profit journalism. Here’s more info from the website. “The Polis Project, Inc is a hybrid research and journalism organization producing knowledge about some of the most important issues affecting us, by amplifying diverse perspectives from those indigenous to the conflicts and crisis affecting our world today.
Stated Manifesto: Research. Reportage. Resistance.”
In our woke times, these words sound so glorious.
Reality check: Good, responsible journalism goes far beyond flossy packaging.
The Polis Project and many other sham organizations of its tribe are candy-wrapping terrorism. The efforts of a sovereign state to control terrorism on its soil are being sold as “brutal, bloody wave of counterinsurgency violence from the Indian state”. Will The Polis Project please come forward and elaborate which nation globally has found the fight against terror to be gentle and pleasant?
Examine a news report on The Polis Project, relating to Kashmir.
Headline – Feels like death knell: In Kashmir, India wants to kill the spirit of journalism under the label of terror
Writer: Aakash Hassan. Describes himself as Independent Journalist, Kashmiri.
Hassan keeps hammering on the so-called oppression of the Indian state upon Kashmir. His litany of the supposed oppression by the Army goes on and on. In an article of 1565 words, He manages to say the word “militants” only once. There is a constant attempt to isolate Kashmir from the terrorism context. There is a constant attempt to erase the reality of terrorism. Such sham correspondents and liars are continually trying to whitewash the lived experience of Pakistan-sponsored jihadi terror in Kashmir. They are trying to bluff their way around the roots of global terrorism planted by Pakistan in Kashmir to achieve its fiendish goals.
Read the report here.
Hassan is a Kashmiri himself, but chooses to be completely oblivious to the elephant in the room – terrorism in Kashmir. This is what new-age journalism by this self-stated hybrid research and journalism organization dishes out – reporting that is blind to ground realities.
Why is he doing it? Trust the Americans to say it correctly. It’s The Money, Stupid. Global careers as journo activists are not being built by those calling a spade a spade. They are built by normalizing the bizarre. They are built by the pretence that global terrorism is “the resistance of our boys”.
Watch Hassan take high moral ground. “An increasingly authoritarian state is now blatantly stopping journalists from reporting. Conditions have been created so one cannot think freely. The critical journalistic approach has been killed. This muzzling of voices disturbs me.” You’re right Hassan. There is muzzling of voices in Kashmir all right. The terrorists are muzzling voices. They are silencing all dissent. You don’t have the spine to say it. In his article, Hassan mentions the killing of Mushtaq Ali. But you don’t stand up for that. You don’t have the spine to say that photo-journalist Mushtaq Ali was killed by terrorists who sent a parcel bomb to kill senior journalist Yusuf Jameel. What say you talk about this assault on media freedom by terrorists, and the chilling uncertainty they hang over you? But that doesn’t suit your agenda, does it eh? Global careers as human rights defenders are built by ignoring that terrorism is a smokescreen for narcotics smuggling. They are built by glorifying and romanticizing young men who are rushing to meet death, even as they terrorize the local population.
Why should this glorification and romaticization of terrorists happen? Because this is the Pakistan agenda. Terrorism in Kashmir gives Pakistan Army legitimacy and relevance. The gravy train flows from Pakistan to keep the terrorism shoots green in Kashmir. Pakistan also keeps those channels flowing from where Hassan gets the dollars to keep up the strident tone on Kashmir. The expose by the Disinfo Lab titled Kashmir Inc: A Conflict Industry, published in early August, reveals that the Facebook page of The Polis Project is run from Pakistan.
Hassan’s Journalistic Deceit
Hassan writes that since 5 August, 2019, Kashmir was under a military lockdown. He doesn’t tell you that on September 1, 2019, restrictions imposed by the government were completely lifted barring some sensitive places in old Srinagar city, Anantnag and Shopian. Hassan doesn’t inform you that after the government removed the restrictions, terrorists imposed a harsh clampdown. He doesn’t tell you that terrorists threatened Kashmiris with dire consequences if they opened their shops for trade. Terrorists threw grenades to terrorize teachers and students so that schools would not open. They killed truck drivers and farm labour who had come from outside for the apple trade.
Whitewash Terrorism. How Convenient!
Hassan ignores the daily dance of posters in Kashmir by the terrorists, threatening the local population against any ease in the clampdown. As always, Kashmir media completely ignored this daily dance of posters. It steadfastly blamed the government for the lockdown in Kashmir. The logic was simple. If the local journalists told the truth about terrorists holding the region to ransom, they would be killed like scores of other Kashmiris.
Living abroad, Hassan faces no such threat. Nevertheless, for the likes of Hassan and other sections of agenda-driven international media, the siege and the clampdown is always a government imposition in Kashmir. The deceit is so dark that they do not even utter the word ‘terrorists’.
