Khabar Lahariya: India’s Only Newspaper Run by Dalit Women

Khabar Lahariya, meaning News Waves is India’s first newspaper run by Dalit women. Starting in 2002, Lahariya is not just any other newspaper. It strives to bring attention to deprived people’s causes. It is a weekly rural newspaper written, edited, illustrated, produced and marketed by a group of women - most of them from marginalised Dalit communities, in Chitrakoot and Banda districts of Uttar Pradesh in north India.

Lahariya voices out the issues of the community from the view of feminist perspective irrespective of class, caste or religion. It emerged as a newspaper of Bundeli, a district in Uttar Pradesh. The newspaper is written, edited and illustrated by women themselves. The eight-page magazine is published twice a week, by a group of 40 rural women journalists, and is distributed in 600 villages of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Started with three women, Meera, Shyamkali, Kavitha, and Sunita, Lahariya was funded by Delhi-based NGO Nirantar. It has been registered as an independent organization since 2008.

Source: khabarlahariya

Content

The eight-page newspaper covers current political news, stories on the functioning of panchayats, the bureaucracy, schools and hospitals in the region. It also gives importance to the coverage of the issues that women marginalised sections of society go through, discrimination and harassment against the Dalits and farmers' problems. Khabar Lahariya has exposed local corruption and other issues in a way that common people can understand.

Articles in Khabar Lahariya talk about women's issues and bureaucratic negligence and provided information that the community is not aware of. It also produces quarterly special issues - these could be themed around topical issues like local, state and national elections, or investigate important development issues from a feminist perspective.

Source: allabouteve

The Rural Revolution

Khabar Lahariya is closely associated with the literacy movement. It came with an initiative to increase female literacy skills by allowing women to enter and transform the public arena of media, a space that has been dominated by "upper caste men". It is the local language that is the medium of journalism. It also strengthens grassroots democracy and challenges gender and caste relations. It is not only popular among the readers but has increased transparency where people can address their issues freely.

Khabar Lahariya has evolved as a media and has achieved considerable growth. Women are now able to speak about violence and access to media has changed the conditions of women in small villages.

The film "Writing With Fire" showcases the success of Khabar Lahariya and has been nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category. It depicts the work of the Dalit women who run Khabar Lahariya, and the obstacles they overcome, from unhappy husbands and unfriendly crowds to a lack of funds and inexperience with technology.

Source: ipimedia

How This Helped the Country?

Every small contribution to the betterment of society plays an important role in the development of a country. When we talk of development, many times, we just focus on the superficial things and these small issues like unfairness towards women in rural areas, which is not actually a very small issue are left untalked about.

In this context, these small initiatives like starting a newspaper prove very beneficial for society. Let's see some of the ways in which Khabar Lahariya helped the society and thus the nation.

1. Strengthening Grassroots Democracy

Khabar Lahariya reported on national-level politics from their own locations, and women commented on macro-political events and made their opinion available in the public domain. Articles in Khabar Lahariya talk about women's issues and bureaucratic negligence and provided information that the community is not aware of. Readers have used some of these articles to demand action or greater information.

2. Changing Lives

This newspaper has changed the lives of women in many ways, Take for example Kavita, who was married at 14. In spite of much resistance to her studying and financial constraints, she studied at a residential school and completed her education. After almost ten years of being in a marriage where she had no support or respect, she was able to make the decision to leave and live independently.

3. Learning Journalism

Several efforts have been put to improve the skills of reporters working for Khabar Lahariya in various areas like editing, writing, reporting and production. These inputs have been structured to cater to the specific needs of women, who have low levels of literacy and lack access to information.

Interactions and discussions with other media groups have helped the group in learning more opportunities.

In short, Khabar Lahariya is path-breaking journalism with its grass-root works in foundational areas that media and political bodies have cared not to hear. They won an award for the ‘Best of Online Activism’ special award at Deutsche Welle’s Global Media Forum.

Written by: Prabhveet Kaur

Edited by: Nidhi Jha