READ ALL ABOUT IT: Khabar Lahariya’s journalists often multi-task as its marketing executives as well

If you catch 28-year-old Kavita during one of Khabar Lahariya’s intensive production workshops, chances are she hasn’t slept much, hasn’t been home in a few days and is still not biting the heads off those around her. It’s a phenomenon you’re not likely to see during the production of any publication anywhere. But then, chances are that Khabar Lahariya is a publication unlike any other you know.

If ever you do happen to visit the impoverished and dacoit-ridden badlands of Chitrakoot and Banda districts of Uttar Pradesh, you’re likely to happen upon this fortnightly paper that’s making news across the region. Khabar Lahariya — literally, ‘news waves’ — is a newspaper entirely produced by a group of women, the majority of whom are Dalit or Kol tribals. The paper was conceptualised by Nirantar, a Delhi-based feminist organisation that works largely on the issue of gender and education; the group supports Khabar Lahariya by providing regular editorial and production support, training the reporters and providing financial assistance. Many of the women who work on the paper are neo-literates, exposed to literacy relatively late in their lives, but who have honed their skills with steely will, along with or in spite of the pressures of marriage, family and a largely discriminatory community. And they are journalists now, in the fullest sense: they travel (by foot more often than not) to get stories from villages cursorily labelled ‘inaccessible’; they put up with stony resistance to get the ‘facts’; they write and painstakingly edit their stories; they stay up through power failures and technical breakdowns to lay out and then print the paper. And at the end of a rigorous four-day (often candle-lit) production workshop ‘somewhere’ in the rural North Indian hinterland, they churn out an eight-page newspaper, complete with news from and beyond the region, and opinion, entertainment and information as well.

Pride: Receiving the Chameli Devi award

Everything about the paper centres around the local: it’s written in Bundeli; it’s produced by women who live the issues they write about

The mainstay of Khabar Lahariya is its intrinsically local flavour. It interrogates the view that the rural readership needs its material to be produced elsewhere, by an ‘educated’ authority. Everything about Khabar Lahariya centres around the local: it’s written in the vibrant Bundeli spoken in these districts; it’s produced by Dalit women who live the issues they write about; while it investigates local news, it is also known for its sensitive handling of gender and caste issues. In addition, there are pages on national and international news, and entertaining stories for a rapidly expanding readership – farmers, panchayat members, schoolteachers, shopkeepers, anganwadi workers, labourers, government employees, journalists, housewives and school drop-outs.

Khabar Lahariya has a print run of about 2,800 copies now, and is distributed across Banda and Chitrakoot by a network of agents, local shopkeepers and, most importantly, the multi-tasking journalists themselves! Shanti, who has been with Khabar Lahariya since its inception in 2002, is perhaps the most popular of the team, and the most persuasive marketing executive they could have hired — she manages to sell at least 350 copies, at Rs 2 a copy, every month — canvassing on foot, in the weekly markets, in villages, even on trains.

In March 2004, this unique group of women tasted the success they fully deserve: Khabar Lahariya received the prestigious Chameli Devi Jain award for outstanding media persons. Three members of the group have also received fellowships from the Dalit Foundation in 2004, for reporting on issues related to the rights of the Dalit community. The paper is working towards becoming a weekly — a demand they have encountered over the past few months — and also on helping other groups to set up similar initiatives.