Once a Writer, Always a Witness: Five Decades of Reporting from the Margins

For achieving even better results, I evolved a new strategy particularly when reporting from disaster zones or special problem areas. After finishing my fieldwork, I started addressing local press conferences before returning to Delhi. Thus, even before I started my own writing in greater detail, several short news reports on my findings in different villages were already published in local pages of several newspapers, resulting in some immediate impact as local officials were sure to read these short news reports.

Such successes encouraged me to work on longer term basis with several social movements including, apart from the Chipko movement mentioned earlier, the movement of iron ore miners and industrial workers in Chattisgarh, a national campaign of construction workers, a campaign for rights of homeless persons in Delhi, local and national campaigns for right to information and right to employment in rural areas and several movements for the reconsideration of major dam projects with safety and displacement concerns and various other ecologically disruptive projects.

Some of the important social campaigns in India have centered on the demand for protective laws relating to vulnerable and weaker sections of society. As a journalist, I could contribute at various stages of these campaigns: first, for making a strong case for these laws, and later after the laws had been passed, for their proper implementation in the right spirit. Sometimes, it was helpful to bring out pamphlets and booklets in which the case for the laws could be argued more strongly and in greater detail, compared to the limited space and other limitations of big newspapers. Some of the campaigners told me that my booklets had been quite useful for them. Similarly I tried to play a helpful role in the legislation relating to the right to employment in rural areas.

The campaign for the right to information became one of the most democratic campaigns in India. I was fortunate to be associated with it from an early stage when the demand for the right to information was being raised in the context of struggles of workers and peasants in Rajasthan. This ultimately became a big national-level movement. I wrote many newspaper articles in support of this campaign, apart from bringing out several booklets, two books, and even editing and publishing a journal in Hindi on the right to information for some time. Finally, when a national committee was formed to carry forward this campaign, I was selected to be the coordinator in the initial phase.

These and other campaigns involved work continuing for several years. As an independent writer, I could sustain this commitment, unlike some other journalists who could not help it if their assignment or ‘beat’ was changed. In the case of construction workers the law that was eventually passed made available huge amounts of budget for welfare of the workers. However, this had to be followed by a long effort to ensure proper implementation, and I found myself returning to this subject almost every year.

Another regular subject related to ensuring better facilities at various slums and trying to prevent slum demolitions. Here also, in order to draw immediate attention and in greater detail, sometimes it was more important to bring out pamphlets and booklets. A very sincere woman activist, Nirmala Sharma, was very active in Delhi on this front for several years and whenever possible I rushed to help by writing on preventing demolitions and taking up other issues raised by her. She and her colleagues were constantly trying to help women who had been victims of violence, and I tried to help by writing about several such cases.

One of the most courageous struggles in India was that of the iron ore miners of Dalli Rajhara, in Chattisgarh. This struggle was led by Shankar Guha Niyogi, a trade union leader who took a comprehensive view of the welfare and social concerns of workers while also integrating their struggles with the efforts of nearby villagers to resist injustice. I visited these struggle areas repeatedly for reporting from here, particularly when the struggles faced difficult times. The trade union said my work had been very helpful for them.

These efforts included visiting this area with a civil liberties team as one of its members at the time of the arrest of Niyogi. This opened up a new way of working in cooperation with others and subsequently I went as a member of such teams to several other areas to report on important issues of justice.

Some of the more difficult reporting involved travelling to villages where the poorest people had been attacked or hurt by the powerful ones. Often the car or jeep could not go up to the homes of the poorest people and one had to walk for a certain stretch. This was a difficult time as sometimes the more powerful persons tried to stop or worse still set ferocious dogs after me.

The efforts of Ekta Parishad and some other organizations to revive land reforms and make available at least some land to the landless rural people were highly relevant and I made continuing efforts to write on these efforts.

Bharat Dogra

Some of my writings on environmental movements related to the adverse impacts of indiscriminate mining and ecologically disruptive projects. Activists who went to Supreme Court to stop highly destructive mining told me that my pamphlets were very helpful for getting a favorable decision from court and the judge had in fact referred several times to this writing.

Another important part of this work was my extended campaign to plead for ecologically protective farming and natural farming. This necessarily involved preparing a strong critique of those dominant policies which emphasized using high doses of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, or spreading seeds which facilitated these. In this and other aspects of development writing I had to struggle hard to present the perspective of sustainable and ecologically protective farming as big business interests favored other policies including spread of GM crops. My wider campaign also included efforts to retain and protect bullocks which were being discarded following the very large-scale spread of tractors and other farm machinery.

Some of these writings were also published abroad, particularly in the UK based prestigious journal The Ecologist and our family was delighted when its editor, renowned environmentalist Edward Goldsmith visited our home with his family.

In fact, one of the most rewarding aspects of working with several social movements was to have the friendship of some highly inspiring persons. There was so much to learn from persons like Vimla and Sunderlal Bahuguna and Shankar Guha Niyogi.

Bharat Dogra

Several editors who were regularly publishing my work also became good friends. The editorial offices of even some of the biggest newspapers used to be much friendlier and informal during my younger days. I was contributing regularly to the edit and oped pages of the Indian Express where we had such senior editors as Ajit Bhattacharjee, Balraj Mehta, Sumer Kaul, Ravindra Nath and Modhumita Mozumdar. They were all very friendly and in particularly several writers like me will not forget the gentle manners of Ravindra Nath who kept in touch even after going back to his home state of Kerala. As a young writer I could walk in even without appointment to briefly discuss pending and future articles or collect books for reviewing. I could say the same for The Hindustan Times, or for leading Hindi newspapers like Navbharat Times, Hindustan and Jansatta. Some of the most renowned editors of those days like Nikhil Chakravartty and Romesh Thapar were very welcoming, very encouraging even to a new writer like me. Sumit Chakravartty in fact became a close friend. Some editors based outside Delhi became friends just in the course of exchanging letters, Darryl D’Monte being the most memorable among them.

In the middle of all this my ideas were evolving so that it became increasingly clear to me that some of the more pressing problems facing the world can be resolved only if the world is based more firmly on a combination of justice and equality, nonviolence and peace, protection of environment and of all forms of life.

Such realizations led to increasing involvement in world affairs and international relations with a strong perspective of peace. My books on the Iraq war were an important opportunity for me to reflect more on the wider world issues. This also led to my realization that a combination of serious environmental problems (led by but not confined to climate change) and accumulation of weapons of mass destruction had led to the emergence of a survival crisis or an existential crisis on our planet. This realization combined with earlier work led me to taking a clear stand that while the resolution of this survival crisis must get the highest priority, this must be sought to be achieved within a framework of justice, democracy and peace.

As this realization became more and more important for my understanding of the world, I concentrated more on taking forward this work and wrote five books in English and Hindi on this issue. Apart from asserting the very high importance of resolving the survival crisis I raised a more specific demand that the next decade should be declared as the decade for saving earth at world level, finally turning this into a campaign.

Realizing the importance of giving more time for this work, I decided to give up the several honorary positions I had taken up on the request of several social movements and campaigns, including for tasks such as extending help to social activists and helping homeless persons in Delhi in various ways.

Bharat Dogra

I now became more conscious regarding the need for alternative paths of development, more specifically about what the policies and patterns of development should be in order to achieve the objective of resolving the survival crisis within a framework of justice and peace. When I visited villages for field work, even then I was thinking more along these lines. The questions in my mind were more and more like this—how can the sustainable livelihoods of small farmers be improved in such a way that increasing climate resilience is also achieved.

In addition, I was increasingly more concerned about peace in international affairs and nonviolence in daily life. A lot of my writing now is related to this. This includes a lifetime of work on the unity and harmony of people of different religions and faiths, which is of great importance in South Asia where we often refer to such work as the promotion and protection of communal harmony. My booklets on communal harmony were very widely used in these campaigns and had to be reprinted time and again.

I also realized that in my new framework of working in a campaign mode, and the campaign being entirely devoid of any funding, my earnings will be reduced further. Despite some early recognition of my work in the form of awards, the greater part of my decades of writing had been carried out in the middle of economic difficulties. This appeared set to increase now. So I looked around for how I could increase my earnings.

As we realized early on that not all that we want to say can be published in media, we had set up our own cottage scale publishing house called Social Change Papers. Madhu had helped a lot in this, and so had our daughter Reshma Bharti. Both of them contributed with writing as well as other help so that despite being short of resource we could participate several times in the World Book Fair in Delhi as well as in other book exhibitions and also could supply orders to several libraries. The helpful role of my office assistant Ishwar Singh was also of great value, as was that of the printer of most of our books Kuldeep Kulshrestha. Soon our books became well-known among social activists. Madhu helped also to combine these with other books to supply readymade sets of books to set up community libraries in many places. We tried to increase sales of our books. We also started a press clippings service. However these efforts declined during the Covid pandemic. Many payments due to us were never made. The book storage place we had been able to rent had to be vacated in a hurry, creating a crisis situation.

We gradually recovered, helped by the work I took up to document the many-sided achievements of several social organizations. While I continue to write regularly even now on daily basis at the age of 70, economic viability is getting increasingly difficult.

A remarkable aspect of my writing for over five decades is that I have never experienced a ‘burn-out’, never found it difficult to write and never was at a loss to decide about what more to write. In fact even in old age I am still full of ideas in the morning regarding what to write today. I am fortunate that my writings continue to be well-received even today, not just articles but also short stories and poems, as judged from the feedback I receive from several readers, including eminent scholars.

Myself and Madhu are devoted grandparents now, and happy to accept the responsibilities that come with this. However still I am as keen as ever to utilize whatever time I get for any writing that is of high social relevance. Very recently young friends told me these are times more of videos than of articles, and helped to start my YouTube channel. I am still in the early stage of learning how to take forward this channel (Bharat Dogra| Save Earth Campaign).

Looking back at the nearly 12,000 published articles, reports and features, several short stories, poems and novellas and about 400 books and booklets, their usefulness is of course entirely for others to judge and evaluate, but what I can assert with confidence is that it has always been my effort to contribute writings of high social relevance. More information about my books and booklets can be seen at my web-site (bharatdogra.in).

Bharat Dogra

Independent writers have an important role in media and democracy. My own experiences of over five decades have strengthened this belief with which this journey started. One hopes that the conditions in which independent and unbiased writers work can improve and some important initiatives can be taken in my country as well as at the world level for this. In particular in present conditions it is important to support writings related to justice-based peace and nonviolence.

My over five decades of experience as an independent writer can be useful for young people who have similar aspirations, and this is one reason for writing about this. Another reason is that this can hopefully inspire some efforts for providing more encouraging and conducive conditions for independent writers.

Despite difficulties, my efforts continue. Once a writer, always a writer.

Bharat Dogra