Rana Ayyub

Rana Ayyub is an Indian journalist and opinion columnist with The Washington Post.[2] She is the author of the investigative book Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up.[3][4][5]

Rana Ayyub
Rana Ayyub in 2016
Born (1984-05-01) 1 May 1984
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Occupation
  • Journalist
  • writer
RelativesAbdul Haq Azmi [1]

Background and family

Rana Ayyub was born in Mumbai, India. Her father Mohammad Ayyub Waqif,[6] was a writer with Blitz, a Mumbai-based magazine, and an important member of the progressive writers movement. The city witnessed riots in 1992–93, during which time the family moved to the Muslim-dominant suburb of Deonar, which is where Rana largely grew up. Ayyub is a practising Muslim.[7]

Career

Rana's worked for Tehelka (lit. "commotion/uproar"), a Delhi-based investigative and political news magazine. Rana has previously been critical of the BJP in general and Narendra Modi.[8] By her own account, a report done by Rana Ayyub was instrumental in sending Amit Shah, a close associate of Narendra Modi, to jail for several months in 2010.[9]

At Tehelka, Rana worked as an investigative journalist and her big assignment was to carry out the sting operation upon which her book Gujarat Files was based. At the end of the sting operation, the management of Tehelka refused to publish any story written by Rana or based on the data collected by her. Rana continued to work with Tehelka for several months more. In November 2013, her boss Tarun Tejpal, the editor-in-chief and major shareholder of Tehelka, was accused of sexual harassment by one of his journalist subordinates. Rana Ayyub resigned from Tehelka in protest against the organisation's handling of the charge against Tejpal.[10] She now works independently.[11][12][13] In September 2019, Washington Post hired her as its contributing writer to the Global Opinions section.[14][15][16][17]

In October 2020, HarperCollins India published an open letter written by Ayyub, to protest the controversial appointment of Actor Gajendra Chauhan as the Chairman of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), as part of the book Inquilab: A Decade of Protest which contains speeches, lectures and letters said to "capture the most important events and issues of the past ten years."[18][19][20]

The Gujarat sting operation

As an investigative journalist working with Tehelka, Rana Ayyub took up a project to conduct a prolonged sting operation aimed at snaring politicians and government officials of Gujarat and get them to reveal any potential cover-ups regarding the Gujarat riots of 2002. Rana Posing as Maithili Tyagi, a filmmaker from the American Film Institute, and set about befriending her intended targets. She spent around ten months in disguise, and got paid a regular monthly salary from Tehelka during this period. However, at the end of the exercise, the management of Tehelka felt that the recordings which she had made over the months did not provide any new or sensational information, that the data gathered by her was of inadequate quality, and that they could not publish any story on the basis of the new data.[5][21]

The book
Main article: Gujarat Files

In her book Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up, Ayyub documented the verbatim transcripts of recordings, made using a concealed recording device, of many bureaucrats and police officers of Gujarat. The recordings were made in the course of an undercover investigation to reveal the views of bureaucrats and police officers on the post-2002 Gujarat riots and Police encounter killings. Ayyub had been posing as 'Maithili Tyagi', a student of the American Film Institute, having an ideological affinity for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's beliefs, to enable her to make the recordings.[22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]

Dispute with Tehelka

Tarun Tejpal and Shoma Chaudhury have disputed Ayyub's claim that her story on fake encounters in Gujarat, which was the result of an eight-month long undercover investigation, was dropped by them. According to Tejpal, Ayyub's story was "incomplete".[30] According to Chaudhury, Ayyub's story "did not meet the necessary editorial standards."[30] Ayyub has responded to Tejpal and Chaudhury's assertions by noting that:

I must say I am not the only one to complain about dropped stories in Tehelka, the list is fairly big… Shoma Choudhury and Tarun Tejpal of Tehelka cited editorial decisions and gaps. The book is a bestseller and is getting rave reviews for its content. Let the reader be the judge.[30][25]

Reception

Ramachandra Guha has called Ayyub's Gujarat Files "a brave book."[31] Jyoti Malhotra has noted that many journalists have privately applauded Ayyub's courage in authoring Gujarat Files.[32] Priya Ramani has commented: "The abuses from the paid foot soldiers on Twitter bounce off her spiral curls smoothly."[33] Reflecting on the procedure used by Ayyub in composing Gujarat Files, Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay has observed: "Going undercover and interviewing many who had been in the thick of gruesome extra-constitutional operations required bravado and this must be appreciated."[27]

Ayyub's investigation of the alleged Gujarat fake encounters has been listed by Outlook magazine as one of the twenty greatest magazine stories of all time across the world.[34] In the year 2018 Rana Ayyub was rewarded the most Resilient Global journalist at the Peace Palace in Hague. Rana was given the award for demonstrating extraordinary courage and perseverance to bring the news. Each year the honour is awarded to a journalists who, despite threats, abductions and violence continues the journalistic work.[35]

Criticism

In the Haren Pandya murder case, the Supreme Court of India dismissed Rana Ayyub's book, stating that "it is based upon surmises, conjectures, and suppositions and has no evidentiary value.".[36][37][38]

Awards and recognition
  • In October 2011, Rana Ayyub received the Sanskriti award for excellence in journalism.[39]
  • The 'Citation of Excellence' was conferred to Rana Ayyub in the 2017 edition of the Global Shining Light Award for her undercover investigation revealing state's top officials’ complicity during the 2002 Gujarat Riots.[40]
  • Actress Richa Chadda claimed to have been inspired by Rana Ayyub, who is also her friend, in 2016 film Chalk n Duster, where she plays a journalist.[41]
  • In February 2020, Rana Ayyub awarded with McGill Medal for journalistic courage. She will accept the award at Grady on 22 April.[42] The medal ceremony will take place in the Peyton Anderson Forum at Grady College on Wednesday, 22 April.[43][44][45][46]
  • She is the 2020 Voices of Courage and Conscience Awardee from the Muslim Public Affairs Council of America.[47]
  • She has also been named by Time magazine among ten global journalists who face maximum threats to their lives.[48] She has been profiled by The New Yorker.[49]

Death threats on social media

Rana claims she has been at the receiving end of multiple death threats on twitter. In April 2018 she filed a complaint with Delhi Police, who subsequently decided to close the case in August 2020.[50] The United Nations Human Rights office called on the authorities in India to "act urgently to protect" her from death threats following an online hate campaign.[51]

References
  1. Muhammad Ayyub Waqif. Yaad-e-Ayyam (in Urdu) (2017 ed.). Tehreer-e-Nau Publications. p. 41.
  2. "India's Supreme Court endorses right-wing vision relegating Muslims to second-class citizens". The Washington Post (newspaper). 11 November 2019. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  3. Mukhopadhyay, Nilanjan (25 June 2016). "Gujarat Files: Rana Ayyub and stinging truths". Business Standard India. Retrieved 16 November 2019.
  4. Ayyub, Rana (25 May 2016). "A Lone Soldier In The Field: An Excerpt From Rana Ayyub's "Gujarat Files: Anatomy Of A Cover Up"". The Caravan. Retrieved 23 December 2017.
  5. Vijayan, Suchitra (4 June 2016). "An unfinished book". The Hindu.
  6. @RanaAyyub (27 November 2019). "A moment of immense joy and pride. Just discovered a list of my fathers books, digitised and sequenced on the @Rekhta website. Goosebumps" (Tweet). Retrieved 3 October 2020 – via Twitter.
  7. "Opinion: I Am A Practicing Muslim. My Concerns Right Now For India Are..." NDTV.com. 4 June 2017. Retrieved 27 September 2019.
  8. "Outrage on social media after DNA takes down article critical of Amit Shah". Times Of India. 14 July 2014. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  9. PTI (25 July 2010). "Modi aide Amit Shah arrested, jailed in Sohrabuddin case". India Today. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
  10. "Tehelka scandal: Senior editor Rana Ayyub quits in protest". Firstpost.com website. 26 November 2013. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  11. "Rana Ayyub – Author". NDTV. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
  12. "We didn't run Rana Ayyub's Gujarat riots story because it was incomplete: Tarun Tejpal". Firstpost. 31 May 2016. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
  13. "Rana Ayyub". Daily News & Analysis. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
  14. Washington, Post (26 September 2019). "The Washington Post names Rana Ayyub Contributing Global Opinions Writer". The Washington Post.
  15. "Rana Ayyub joins Washington Post to write on Indian politics". The New Indian Express.
  16. Staff, Scroll. "Journalist Rana Ayyub appointed 'Washington Post' contributor, will write about Indian politics". Scroll.in.
  17. Desk, Caravan (26 September 2019). "Rana Ayyub Joins Washington Post to Write on Indian Politics". Clarion India.
  18. Ayyub, Rana. "Opinion: Open Letter to Gajendra Chauhan from a Former Film Student". NDTV.com. Retrieved 29 October 2020.
  19. "Books of the week: From Romila Thapar's Voices of Dissent to The Best Stories of Dhumketu, our picks - Art-and-culture News , Firstpost". Firstpost. 18 October 2020. Retrieved 28 October 2020.
  20. Inquilab: A Decade of Protest. India: Harper Collins. 20 October 2020. ISBN 978-93-5357-970-8.
  21. "Gujarat Files". www.goodreads.com.
  22. "How Rana Ayyub had to become Maithili Tyagi for her investigations in Gujarat".
  23. Ayyub, Rana (2016). Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up. ISBN 9781533341525.
  24. "Gujarat Gazetteer, By Maithili Tyagi". Outlook (magazine). 11 July 2016. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  25. "On the trail of the real culprits". Frontline. 8 July 2016. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  26. "Book review: Gujarat Files". Mint. 4 June 2016. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  27. "Gujarat Files: Rana Ayyub and stinging truths". Business Standard. 25 June 2016. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  28. "Gujarat Files: Sting claims political pressure in Gujarat riots". Indian Express. 30 May 2016. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  29. "What the Silence Over Rana Ayyub's 'Gujarat Files' Tells Us". The Wire. 1 July 2016. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  30. "We didn't run Rana Ayyub's Gujarat riots story because it was incomplete: Tarun Tejpal".
  31. "Divide and win-The Sanjay Gandhi of this age". The Telegraph. 25 June 2016. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  32. "Mainstream media turns away from "Gujarat Files"". The Hoot. 3 June 2016. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  33. "The self-publishing story of dust and dreams". Mint. 1 September 2016. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  34. "The 20 Greatest Magazine Stories". Outlook. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
  35. Shah Khan, Saba (27 August 2019). "Investigative Journalist Pays the Price for Expose in India". Voice of America. Retrieved 27 September 2019.
  36. "Central Bureau Of Investigation vs Mohd.Parvez Abdul Kayuum on 5 July, 2019" (PDF). main.sci.gov.in. Retrieved 18 December 2020.
  37. "SC rejects NGO's plea for further probe in Haren Pandya case". www.dnaindia.com. Retrieved 18 December 2020.
  38. "SC rejects NGOs plea for further probe in Haren Pandya case, slaps Rs 50K fine". www.outlookindia.com. Retrieved 18 December 2020.
  39. "Sanskriti awards to Kashmiri writer, sarangi maestro". Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  40. "Rana Ayyub received Citation of Excellence in Global Shining Light Award for 'Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Coverup'". The Shahab. 18 November 2017. Retrieved 21 November 2017.
  41. "Richa Chadha to play journalist". The Indian Express. 25 June 2015.
  42. @UGAGrady (24 February 2020). "Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub), global opinions writer for the @washingtonpost is the recipient of the 2020 McGill Medal for journalistic courage. She will accept the award at Grady on April 22" (Tweet). Retrieved 13 March 2020 – via Twitter.
  43. "Washington Post writer Rana Ayyub awarded with McGill Medal for journalistic courage". Grady College. 24 February 2020. Retrieved 13 March 2020.
  44. Staff, Scroll. "Rana Ayyub wins McGill Medal for journalistic courage". Scroll.in. Retrieved 13 March 2020.
  45. "Rana Ayyub Wins McGill Medal For Journalistic Courage". The Quint. 25 February 2020.
  46. Das, Ria (6 March 2020). "Women's Day Special: Ladies You Have Made Us Proud!". SheThePeople TV. Retrieved 13 March 2020.
  47. "Building a Better Normal: MPAC Virtual Gala". mpac.org. Retrieved 2 October 2020.
  48. "Read About 10 Journalists Now Facing the 'Most Urgent' Threats to Press Freedom Around the World". Time. Retrieved 2 October 2020.
  49. Filkins, Dexter. "Blood and Soil in Narendra Modi's India". The New Yorker. Retrieved 13 March 2020.
  50. Sharma, Betwa (7 August 2020). "Delhi Police To Close Case On Violent Abuse And Threats Against Rana Ayyub". HuffPost India. Retrieved 22 October 2020.
  51. "OHCHR | UN experts call on India to protect journalist Rana Ayyub from online hate campaign". www.ohchr.org. Retrieved 24 December 2020.

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