Rana Ayyub facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Rana Ayyub
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Rana Ayyub in 2017
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| Born | 1 May 1984 Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
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| Alma mater | Sophia College |
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| Relatives | Abdul Haq Azmi |
Rana Ayyub is an Indian journalist and opinion columnist with The Washington Post. She is author of the investigative book Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up.
Contents
Background and family
Rana Ayyub was born in Mumbai, India. Her father Mohammad Ayyub Waqif, 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.
Career
Investigative journalist at Tehelka
Ayyub worked for Tehelka (lit. "commotion/uproar"), a Delhi-based investigative and political news magazine. By her own account, a report by her was instrumental in sending Amit Shah, a close associate of Narendra Modi, to jail for several months in 2010.
At Tehelka, Ayyub 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. Ayyub continued to work with Tehelka for several months more. ..... Ayyub resigned from Tehelka in protest against the organisation's handling of the charge against Tejpal. She now works independently.
Opinions writer at The Washington Post
In September 2019, Washington Post nominated Ayyub as Contributing Global Opinions Writer with the paper. In 2021, on the BBC show HARDtalk, Ayyub explained that she is in a position to express critical views about the government because she writes of international media, given that Indian media publications are censoring their journalists.
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."
Notable work
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.
The book
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.
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". According to Chaudhury, Ayyub's story "did not meet the necessary editorial standards."
Reporting from Kashmir
In 2019, Ayyub accompanied Dexter Filkins from The New Yorker on a trip to Kashmir to report on the violence by the government towards the Kashmiri population following the revocation of the special status of Kashmir by the Modi-led Indian government. Their report of torture inflicted on the Kashmiri population, including minors, sharply contrasted with official accounts from the Indian state and state media, which portrayed the region as calm. Prior to their report, the Indian government’s claims could not be verified due to a full communication blackout and a de facto curfew imposed in Kashmir.
Awards and recognition
- In October 2011, Rana Ayyub received the Sanskriti award for excellence in journalism.
- 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.
- 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.
- In 2018, Ayyub was awarded the Most Resilient Journalist Award by Free Press Unlimited for continuing her work "despite being harassed both online and offline and receiving death threats."
- In 2019, Ayyub has been listed as one of ten global journalists who face maximum threats to their lives by the Time magazine.
- In February 2020, Ayyub was awarded with McGill Medal for journalistic courage at University of Georgia's Grady College.
- Ayyub is the 2020 Voices of Courage and Conscience Awardee from the Muslim Public Affairs Council of America.
- In 2021, Ayyub received the Excellence in International Journalism and Human Rights Award by Texas Tech University College of Media and Communication.
- In 2021, Ayyub was awarded the Overseas Press Club Award for best commentary on international news for her op-eds in The Washington Post.
- On 28 June 2022, Ayyub was awarded the International John Aubuchon Award by the National Press Club.
- On 23 October 2024, Ayyub was awarded Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) International Press Freedom Award.
Threats
Online violence against Ayyub is primarily driven by Twitter users aligned with Hindu nationalism and the ruling BJP. An International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) report found that Twitter has failed to address the abuse against her while withholding some of her tweets at the demand of the Indian Government. As per ICFJ's analysis, Ayyub receives abuse within 14 seconds of posting a tweet.
..... In April 2018 she filed a complaint with Delhi Police, who subsequently decided to close the case in August 2020 saying that "despite efforts the culprits could not be identified yet."
Several United Nations Special Rapporteurs, associated with the Human Rights Council have intervened in her case three times, warned of the "serious risk" to her life, and called on the authorities in India to "act urgently to protect" her from death threats following an online hate campaign. The US State department's 2020 Human Rights Report specifically mentions the online trolling and death threats faced by Ayyub. In its report documenting online attacks against journalists around the world, the international non-profit Reporters Without Borders discussed the hate speech unleashed against Ayyub and called on the government and Delhi police to protect her.
In 2022, members of the Neo Nazi inspired alt right groups had created Bulli Bai, an app for fake online auction of Muslim women in India with intention to denigrate and harass the minorities. Ayyub and several prominent women journalists in India were targeted. They were also targeted with thousands of hate messages by the secret app Tek Fog allegedly used by the BJP supporters. The app was used to spread right wing propaganda online.
See also
In Spanish: Rana Ayyub para niños
