Through the viewfinder

BENGALURU: The Pulitzer Prize has drawn mixed reactions after three photojournalists from Associated Press got it this year for their coverage of Kashmir after Article 370 was revoked. While many hail the recognition for bringing the issue to light, others are calling it driven by a certain narrative. Eminent Bengalureans weigh in

‘We should take pride in national awards’

Many Indians have a big insecurity complex. They crave Western awards or recognition, thinking that it’s a big thing because Westerners often use this award as the measure of patronage to further their political ambitions and views. For example, Pakistan has spread this lie that India has taken away Kashmir’s freedom and autonomy and the Pulitzer Prize this year has tried to showcase this by using these photographs to show how people in the Valley are resisting the Indian government. 

Now it’s obvious that the whole thing is a lie. Kashmir was never independent and is very much a part of India. It had been given some autonomy in the Constitution. It is obvious that there are many forces behind these decisions. For example, the Magsaysay Award is given mostly to Leftists. The Nobel Peace Prize is given on the basis of race and power. Former US President Barack Obama got it, though people don’t know why he got it.

In the Indian society there is a fetish that if I get an overseas award I am a great writer or artist. When most people overseas give awards outside the home country, it is to show people that they are global, that they practise diversity.  As Indians, we should take pride in the Jnanpith award and other National awards. A national award in a large country like ours is more prestigious than those received from a small country, because in the former, so many more people are vying for it. 

For that, we must set up an independent mechanism to judge people and give awards. The process of judging is often vitiated by favouritism, cliques or ideology. India must create a robust system to prevent this. For instance, the Infosys Prize created by us has become prestigious within and outside India. We put in place a transparent mechanism. The tendency to look for foreigners to talk about us is wrong. So the RBI governor should look at forecast of GDP of India from Indian economists, not from IMF.

‘The prize this year is biased’

This year, the US-based Pulitzer Prize for the best feature photography has been awarded to three Associated Press photographers for their “striking images of life in the contested territory of Kashmir as India revoked its independence, executed through a communications blackout.’’While I have no problems with the selection of photographs, the Pulitzer Prize board has questioned India’s legitimacy over Kashmir. This year, the award is distorted, biased and prejudiced.  

Apart from questioning India’s sovereignty over Kashmir, the board also stirred another controversy by giving the best commentary award to Nikole Hannah-Jones of the New York Times “for a sweeping, deeply reported and personal essay for the ground-breaking 1619 Project, which seeks to place the enslavement of Africans at the center of America’s story, prompting public conversation about the nation’s founding and evolution”.

The 1619 Project is a series of controversial essays and reports on the history of different aspects of contemporary American life, which the authors believe have “roots in slavery and its aftermath.” Several US civil war historians like Gordon S. Wood, James M. McPherson and Richard Carwardine have criticised it for misleading and incorrect claims.

This is the same here also, if not harsher and more myopic. Such recognition that interferes with the sovereignty and dignity of a nation has to be condemned. India is the largest democracy and follows the rule of law and adheres to a written constitution that is acclaimed as the best in the world. There is an independent judiciary that has no fetters. 

An obnoxious and grave blunder that was temporary in nature, which has outlived its utility, has been corrected by the law-making body -- the Indian parliament -- after due discussion and procedures. The matter is before the apex court and its decision awaited. So a foreign body giving some awards to people based on distorted facts is reprehensible. More so when they haven’t studied the issue of ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits by a planned conspiracy in 1990.  It only blurs the prestige and reputation of such institutions that decide these awardees. It has hurt all of us. It is an insult to a great nation which is making wonderful strides of progress.

‘Furore is obviously about politics’

Much has been written and said over the past few days about the Pulitzer Prize won by three Jammu and Kashmir-based photojournalists – Dar Yasin, Mukhtar Khan and Channi Anand – working with the international news agency, Associated Press, for the striking images of life in Kashmir under lockdown that they managed to capture on camera and transmit despite the extraordinarily difficult circumstances prevailing in the Valley since August 2019. 

It is immature and mean-spirited to turn the recognition they have received for their professional work into a nationalist debate fuelled by whataboutery of the expected, tiresome kind.  It is important to remember that the Pulitzer Prizes were established over a century ago primarily to incentivise and reward excellence in the American press. The prize won by Yasin, Khan and Anand is in the Feature Photography category, introduced more than 50 years ago. The fact that these prizes have come to be internationally recognised as prestigious is a testament to the quality of the work they have called attention to over the years.  

It is petty to turn the beleaguered photographers’ rare moment of glory and gratification into an irrelevant, crude debate based on narrow, distorted notions of patriotism. Only the incurably blinkered can fail to see the passion, drama, poignancy and, yes, truth-telling in the images they have caught and used to effectively tell the story of life in Kashmir over the past nine months. Any political disagreement with certain words used in the citation for this particular award can be brought to the attention of the Pulitzer Prizes organisation.

The Pulitzer board makes its decisions about prize-winners on the basis of criteria they have established over the years. There have been controversies over their selections before, even within the US, but those have focused primarily on the professional quality of the chosen work. Decisions about awards invariably stir up emotions among those lucky enough to be selected and those who feel unfairly overlooked. This is true of Indian media awards as well.  So the uncommon furore in India over this particular American award is obviously about politics, not professionalism.

‘Pictures don’t lie, captions do’

I would like to congratulate the three Jammu and Kashmir-based photographers for winning the Pulitzer, which is one of the most prestigious awards for excellence in journalism. The awards are well deserved as the pictures have a haunting quality that speaks volumes of the situation on the ground in Kashmir, following the dilution of Article 370. 

While stressing that Kashmir has been and always will be an integral part of India, we have to recognise that the conditions at that time were less than ideal for journalists in that part of the country. While Kashmir has always been in the heart of turmoil, there was a curfew that lasted more than 200 days, and phone and internet services were shut down, which is the lifeblood of photojournalists around the world. 

Working under difficult conditions is also a given for photojournalists as the profession is fraught with danger and uncertainty, but having said that, this was still an unusual situation. The photographers managed to not only shoot bold and telling images but also send them out of the Valley in a hark back to earlier times before the advent of the internet. 

The criticism that Pulitzer is an award given for a certain slant to the stories favoured by Western media, and the unfortunate way the US-based award committee refers to the Valley as a contested territory cannot, and should not, eclipse the stellar work produced by these photojournalists to show the reality. Pictures don’t lie. Captions do. The pictures bear their own merit and tell stories of a life that we would not be able to see otherwise. I am grateful to these lensmen for sharing these stories with us.