Rana Ayyub speaks during the The Juggernaut Summit 2023 at Spring Studios in New York on Sept. 22, 2023.Roy Rochlin/Getty Images
Investigative journalist Rana Ayyub, who was honoured Wednesday by Canadian Journalists for Free Expression with one of its 2024 International Press Freedom Awards, has faced threats, internet trolling and a number of court cases in her home country of India because of her work.
There are several reasons why the Hindu nationalist government is sensitized to criticism from Ms. Ayyub. Not only is she a woman, but she is a Muslim woman.
She recently had to return to Mumbai from a reporting trip because of a court hearing. “I spend more time fighting cases than I do reporting on stories,” the 40-year-old told The Globe and Mail from her home in the city.
Ms. Ayyub, who is a columnist for The Washington Post, is lauded in the West for her reporting on the persecution of minorities, state-sanctioned violence and intercommunal conflict in India.
Her 2010 investigation into the Gujarat riots of 2002 – where extremist mobs killed approximately 1,000 people, mostly Muslims – was instrumental in the arrest of Amit Shah, who currently serves as Minister of Home Affairs in the Narendra Modi government. The investigation would later become the basis of her 2015 book, Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up.
Ms. Ayyub said journalists are often indicted with defamation cases if they’re critical of the government. And a new tactic is employed: allegations of tax evasion and money laundering. “There’s a pattern in India of raids by authorities on independent journalists who are critical of the government. They slap you with sham charges,” she said. The government has also frozen her bank accounts.
She believes the root of the government’s smear campaign against her began when she went undercover for Gujarat Files. She met with bureaucrats, officers, police commissioners, and secretly recorded videos. They told her that Mr. Modi, who was Chief Minister of Gujarat during the riots, “looked the other way because the riots promoted his image as a Hindu leader under attack from Islamists. Officials who helped Muslims were penalized. This was all said on camera.”
Ms. Ayyub said the government initiated a campaign, which went viral, that she slept with officials to get her story. “This was also around the time they did a deep-fake of my image on a porn video, which was circulated all over the country,” she said, adding that someone in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party alerted her about this.
She said that Gujarat Files compelled the government to show her her place. “I had taken on two of the most powerful men in the country: Amit Shah and Narendra Modi. I had interviewed officers for their roles in the Gujarat riots – so I knew at some point they would come against me.”
There is also her writing about foreign policy and what is happening in India in international publications such as The Washington Post and The New York Times. “I think what really affects Mr. Modi is any criticism about him in the international press,” she said. In 2021, she wrote a Time cover story during the peak of COVID that was critical of Mr. Modi’s leadership during the health crisis.
During the pandemic, India had one of the highest number of deaths. The government accused Ms. Ayyub of spreading falsehoods: They said because she worked for foreign publications, she was promoting their narrative. “They had already been harassing me but that’s when the big cases started coming at me. The message was: ‘If we can do this to a journalist, we can do this to anyone.’”
She believes it’s one thing for the government to file defamation cases, charges of tax evasion, or claims that she’s funded by foreign agencies. “But the kind of sexualization of my work where I’ve been projected as a woman who is morally corrupt is something else entirely. They know that my journalism is about the morality of politicians, so the best way to deal with me – a Muslim woman – is to prove me as the one who is morally corrupt.”
The U.S. State Department’s 2020 Human Rights Report mentioned the online trolling and death threats Ms. Ayyub has received. Reporters Without Borders also called on the Indian government to stop harassing her. In 2022, when a money-laundering case was brought against her, The Washington Post ran a full-page ad as well as multiple statements in solidarity with her.
Even though the incessant backlash and endless cases have taken an emotional toll – three months ago she suffered a seizure from the stress – Ms. Ayyub says won’t stop reporting the truth.
“I will also never leave India. That’s exactly what the Indian government wants,” she said. “I love my country. Even though I fear for my life, these are the stories I must tell.”