| It’s Dalit History Month and there can be no better time to write about Khabar Lahariya, a women-led news resource that gives voice and space to Dalit and marginalised women. Read on… The Big Story A space of her own: How Khabar Lahariya empowers Dalit and marginalised voices  credit: @khabarlahariya Instagram On its website, Khabar Lahariya (KL) describes itself as “India’s only women-run brand of ethical and independent rural news”. Launched as the voice of marginalised communities in 2002, KL today has 589,000 subscribers to its YouTube channel and a viewership of 15 million across digital platforms, says Meera Devi, the managing editor. But, it was not the first to tell the stories of women, and that too marginalised women, in Bundelkhand, a hilly region that extends from north Madhya Pradesh to southern Uttar Pradesh. That honour goes to Mahila Dakiya, a single-page, two-sided leaflet written by hand in the local language, photocopied and then distributed in the early nineties. When it went belly-up, the readers felt a real sense of loss. Meera, still a student when that happened, recalls: “It was our own paper that reflected our thoughts and issues.” And, so, it seemed obvious and natural that many of the women who contributed to Mahila Dakya, went on to start a new publication. That was Khabar Lahariya. Even 20 years later, the idea of a dedicated paper run by marginalised women, telling their stories and reflecting their concerns remains a unique concept. As General Elections 2024 gathers pace, KL’s 25 women reporters are on the ground in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar, amplifying the voices you don’t often hear—women, the youth and marginalised communities—telling the stories you won’t often come across in mainstream media. What, for instance, do Dalit voters in Bihar feel about the ruling party and the INDIA alliance? How do tribal women at Tikamgarh, Madhya Pradesh rate the literacy programmes targeted at them? What are the aspirations and expectations of Muslim woman from Bundelkhand? If KL tracks these stories, it’s because it is uniquely placed to be able to do so. Many of its reporters come from the communities they are writing about, Dalit, Muslim, tribal, OBC and even dominant caste, voices often forgotten and ignored in the election buzz. [There’s a subscription link for English-speaking readers to Khabar Lahariya here.] Telling the story Over 65% of the population lives in rural India. Yet, stories from the hinterland constitute a negligible proportion of the stories in mainstream media, generally falling into one of two categories—the sensational (as in the Hathras gang-rape) or those of agrarian distress and farmer suicides. But what of the stories of aspiration and hope? Stories like that of KL managing editor Meera Devi, one of six daughters of a daily wage labourer, married at 14, who rebelled against social norms and her family to complete a post graduate degree? Why is it that we never hear these stories? “Families didn’t want girls to study beyond the fifth grade,” says Meera, a post-graduate in political science. “They thought girls should be given enough education to manage household budgets and run their kitchens in the most economically efficient way.” When KL was launched, Meera saw an opportunity, even though she was still a second year B.A. student. Back then the only journalists in the region were men, dominant-caste and educated. KL had already decided to break the mould. Hire women. Train them. And look at stories through the eyes of marginalised women. This news would be delivered independently, minus sensationalism and, most crucially, told through a nariwadi chasmsa (feminist lens). “We wanted to bring in the voices that are supressed and don’t get a chance to be heard,” says Meera. “These are voices that are never given space by mainstream media.” When caste is the story  A modern Indian horror story In the beginning, it was really hard to get the women to apply for jobs, says Meera. The paper advertised vacancies but parents were wary about sending daughters to work and get ‘spoilt’. The change was gradual. By focusing on local issues—a hand-pump that hadn’t been repaired for months, non-functioning school toilets—KL began making an impact. Earlier, government officials would shoo its reporters away. But as the stories got reported, the same officials were now held to account. Meera was one of two reporters along with Kavita Bundelkhandi who reported on what came to be known as the Hathras gang-rape by four dominant-caste men of a 19-year-old Dalit girl in September 2020. The woman was shifted to a Delhi hospital for treatment of her grievous injuries but died two weeks later. [Read An Attack in Hathras, And a Story of our Times by Khabar Lahariya in collaboration with Article-14.] When her body was taken back to Hathras to be cremated, UP police denied permission to her own family to attend her funeral, cremating her instead late at night. “We got a lot of criticism online and offline for writing about her caste,” says Meera. This was, after all, a violent crime against a woman. But, she adds, “It was essential to talk about caste in this case.” It was the fact that she was Dalit that made her more vulnerable to rape. The fact of her caste gave impunity to the dominant-caste men to rape her. It emboldened the police to try to surreptitiously cremate her. It meant that her family was denied the dignity of even a last farewell. In the end, three of the four men were acquitted by a UP court. The fourth was found guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to homicide. He was not found guilty of rape. Caste was, in fact, the story. | 
