Barkha Dutt is perhaps the best known face of NDTV, as its Group Editor she attained iconic status as a reporter and became a role model for the limits of journalism. The intrepid journalist talks to us about her

Days before Day 1 I was forewarned that this assignment was going to be a toughie! I was to interview one of the busiest, most prominent women on Indian television—getting an appointment would be tough, getting to make her talk, tougher. The appointment happened easily (surprise-surprise skeptics) and I found an accommodating subject, a patient listener and a seasoned media expert who brought in her journalistic prowess to make my job easy peasy. I watched and learnt. The toughest task turned out to be writing about her. That, however, is no fault of Barkha Dutt. It’s just that too many words have been spent in trying to put together and unravel this iconic journalist but Barkha Dutt is used to being vilified and glorified, in equal measures. Especially by youngsters who have found in her a much-needed icon as youth leaders are in such short supply in India. A spoiler right at the onset; there’s nothing in this article which will either establish or rock any “truths” (a tricky word) which you might seek. What this article will do, I do hope, is hold a mirror to the formative ideas—ethos—of a person who has shaped Indian television media as we know of it today and someone who made it all right to dream big. Day 1 The Interview I was not prepared for the discipline of a television news office. It was too quiet, too organised and well, too tame. It was in that quiet NDTV office that we spoke—the NDTV group editor and president of its editorial board and I—and started the conversation right at the beginning. “One of my earliest memories is being shown covers of the Time (magazine). In those days, Time was a novelty. You did not get the magazine that easily. It would arrive weeks after it was published. My parents would take them and ask me to identify the global leaders. I must have been five at that time!” So was she any good? “I don’t remember being very good. But the exposure (to journalism) was pretty early on. So I think that helped along the way.” And what an exposure it was. Dutt’s mother, Prabha Dutt, was a trailblazing newspaper reporter who worked for Hindustan Times. When her editor refused to let her cover the 1965 Pakistan War, she took leave and went to “meet” her parents. What she really did was to get to the front-line and start despatching news of the war which were so good that they had to be taken. Prabha Dutt became the first woman war reporter in India. When she died at an early age, Prabha Dutt left a footprint both on her readers’s minds and in her daughter’s. “When I was covering the Kargil War, people went like here’s the first Indian woman covering a war. I was like, hang on, that was on television, but my mother was the first woman on the war front. I do carry her voice in my head. It is a concrete and overwhelming influence. How can you not? I always think if she would have been here, would she approve of this story? Would she have done it differently? From what I remember, I know that she was a better journalist.” “I wrote this piece once in which I had mentioned that news was a part of the menu at the dining table. It was as mandatory as the glass of milk or the portion of vegetable of the day. Growing up as the daughter of a journalist, I think it meant not only an exposure to news from early childhood but also some sense of how it difficult it was for women to get into journalism at that time.” No, Dutt didn’t realise the problems of being a woman in a man’s world as early on as five, but as a teenager she knew well enough just how tough it was for her mother to get her first job, her first assignment and how women reporters were expected to cover flower shows. Because those were the stories Dutt grew up hearing. Add to that the extra bits about phone threats and strangers arriving with “warnings” at the doorstop, led Dutt realise that if and when you did something right, there were always consequences. “My father worked for Air India and stayed in New York for a brief period. My mother was working for Hindustan Times, so my sister and I moved all over India with her. I can’t say there wasn’t an element of fear when phone calls would come. But she was a very tough and strong person and one grew up in such an environment and tried to be worthy daughters.” The pedigree was there. But that didn’t mean Dutt wished to follow her mother’s footsteps right away. “Even though I loved the news and was surrounded by it, I didn’t grow up thinking I wanted to be a part of her world. But of course, there were subconscious influences of which I was aware of later. But growing up, I loved languages and law. Part of me wanted to be a lawyer. In fact I still wish to be one. My mass communication examination at Jamia Milia Islamia and my law entrance test fell on the same day. That was when I had to make a quick call. who knows I might be a qualified lawyer too one day. I am in my forties—is it too late for me to learn law?” she says laughing. What she did enjoy were words, public speaking and communicating—being the “precocious” child she was. Like several of us, she would develop headaches and cramps before mathematics examinations and was more than happy to embrace a liberal arts education when the choice presented itself. She read and wrote for school and college magazines, went on to be a part of the Shakespeare Society at St Stephen’s and performed in theatre productions. Then there was basketball. “For a long time, as a youth, I wanted to make documentaries or be a filmmaker. Then when I applied for this job here (NDTV), I wanted to be a producer. I didn’t think I would necessarily be on camera, you know?” So, how did she come to be on the other side? “At that period, there were no private news channels. There was Doordarshan. NDTV and, if I remember correctly, Aaj Tak, were commissioned to do one half-an-hour privately produced new bulletin; one in English and one in Hindi. NDTV was commissioned for the English news. When I applied for the job, I said can I be a producer? People said why can’t you be both? That seemed like a logical question. Of course, once I started to report news I loved it!” As a young woman she loved the adrenalin rush. But it wasn’t just the so-called rush which sealed the deal. “My first major story was the gang rape of a Dalit woman in Rajasthan (Bhanwaria Devi rape case as you and I know of it). Travelling out of my city, going to a village, and having all my conventional assumptions of life being questioned was quite the experience. I had grown up without paying attention to my caste, mine was an upbringing of privileged liberal tradition. Then I travelled a bit and understood that caste was irrelevant to me because I was a person of privilege. That there were people who were and are victimised, traumatised and discriminated against because of it. Suddenly this whole new world opened up and made me comprehend just how protected I was in a middle-class upbringing. I knew journalism will continue to surprise me and open up a avenues of education and understanding.” She admits that there were so many things that she was not prepared for; crowds turning violent, hostility or even deep emotionality like she felt in Kargil. “I had the whole pressure of being a girl and going into a war zone. The Army officials didn’t wish to see me there. People asked me what would I do when I needed to use the restroom. I said I would go behind the rocks like the boys did. I couldn’t show emotions even when my male counterparts could.” Thus, even when she bade goodbye to the soldiers after 10 days of reporting in Kargil, she did not shed a tear. “These young men gave us shelter and protected us, naturally we had emotionally bonded. While we were leaving, a male reporter got all misty eyed. I kept my emotions in check because I thought crying was a girly thing to do. And I cry easily.” While talking to Dutt, it is clear that she had little idea that her life was going to be under as much scrutiny as the news that she reported. So, did it scare her to put so much of her true self out there? “I do think through the heart. I will not apologise for it. I’ve gone into violent places and situations, covered riots and war zones, and I don’t see anybody accusing me of being fragile. I don’t see myself as a soft person. At the same time I don’t see a contradiction in bearing empathy and compassion and being capable of covering hard news. I became a journalist because I liked going to difficult places and narrate history as it happened. I like telling a good story. I do intersometimes worry that people (nowadays) come to this job for all the wrong reasons.” Like what? “Girls have come up to me and said they would like to be me. I tell them that they should not be anybody else but themselves. It is important to find who you are. I’ve been asked what should one do if he or she wanted to be a journalist? I can tell you why you shouldn’t be a journalist. Don’t become a journalist to be on TV. That’s a functional part of the job. Take the job seriously. And don’t take yourself too seriously. That can be the death of you.” It is this belief which makes her reluctant to wear the mantle of being a role model—you might have to take yourself too seriously. “When you become a role model, every word that comes out of your mouth is judged and commented upon. When I was less experienced, I used to hurt when people called me names. Think how could people call me this. I am not this. As I have grown older, I care less and less. I have reached a combination of self confidence and peace. I know I am a public person and people who don’t know me will have an opinion as well. It is alright. It is actually fine. I engage with strangers every day on Twitter. Some hate me and some love me. You can say love is as irrational as hate.” It all comes with the turf—the emotional bit. “People are emotional beings. Journalists are people, too, unprepared for all the emotions they face when they go to a field to report. Or when they get emotionally attached to a story. Or when a person is a story. None of us are clinical robots. We get scared, we speak louder than usual, we sound shrill. So, I never watch myself if I can help it. Because when I do, I think s***, I should have used a better word or spoken softly.” “Every story, till date, has thrown up something I was not prepared for. Whether life threatening, volatile or hostile, as journalist one has to make sense of every situation. There might be a bomb going off or a building burning, but a journalist has a job to do.” And how does a journalist do the most important thing—just report. “There are stories where there are multiple opinions. Then, there are stories which don’t. You asked me about rape, there can be multiple opinions about the best law, but none, when it comes to the fact that it is a crime. There can be two opinions about capital punishment, but none on how unequivocally disgusting crime on the vulnerable is. As a journalist my task is to give equal space to all aspects. Having said that I don’t believe journalists are mechanical people. When I hear stupid things being said (say a woman was ‘asking for it’) I feel absolute horror. I don’t need to be objective about such a statement.” “The other day someone said that you can’t think with your heart. I apologised but I do. You don’t have to pretend to be somebody you are not. At the same time, I would hate being labelled as one who thinks like such and such—or being considered as ‘owned’ by any ideological camp, though people who give themselves up to being owned by ideological camps often have it easier. If you take a more centrist view then you will always upset someone or the other. It’s alright. I am fine with upsetting people.” But doesn’t that open more avenues for criticism? As a woman journalist, is she not already under maximum scrutiny? “I don’t subscribe to the victimhood narrative. Having said that women have to be better than their male colleagues even if they wish to occupy the same space. Everything you do will be scrutinised differently. You will be analysed differently, the negativity that will come to you will come differently if you are a public person. When I intersometimes viewed Hilary Clinton recently, she admitted that people say Hilary Clinton and then within brackets wearing a pink suit today. It is not a parenthesis that people do when they look at, say an Obama. Misogyny is perhaps subconscious today, but it exists. That doesn’t mean it is insurmountable. It doesn’t mean that you won’t make it even if you are talented. It just means that you will have to work harder to get at it.” Despite the hardships Dutt believes that television media is the future. “If I had to assess myself I would think I am better on television. I enjoy writing, I also like going up on a stage for a talk. Television gives an opportunity to bring multiple skills together. One has to write, cover stories, visually. In print you write differently. You have to recreate a picture differently. I chose television because it was a new medium. There was an immediacy to it which attracted me.” For a person who has been bang in the middle of the growing Indian television media, where does she see it heading? “I know there’s a comparison done between old or new schools of journalism. I don’t know which is which. I became a journalist due to a set of reasons, which I find are being increasingly challenged. I became a journalist because I liked telling a story, being in an adventure, getting dirt under my nails, being out there, meeting new people whom my protected upbringing never gave me a chance to meet. I never cared about how my hair was. For me there were no glamour to this job. To me my job was to bring multiple perspectives together, challenge viewers perspective and challenge your own. These are new times for TV journalism today. The space is in a churn. Today, I find there journalists who try to reconfirm biases of their viewers. They are more popular. I am not interested in being popular or unpopular. (Laughs) I find three very dangerous trends in journalism today; one, the glamour trend. Two, the need to be popular, and therefore tailoring your opinion into what your viewers want to hear. And three, the kangaroo court element in the profession, where you are seating in your studio and adjudicating someone. Yes, if you have any hard hitting story by all means tell it, but don’t make it theatrical.” These are concerns which Dutt doesn’t know a way out. Then, there’s the whole question of social media. Albeit it has democratised the news space, but it has also made anyone who holds a phone, a camera and an opinion into a journalist. “It is not just India, I see the rest of the world going through a similar crisis. How do you survive when anyone with a camera, phone and a computer can do what you do? Well, there will always be good stories. And there will always be relevant stories. What is great about the social media space is that it gives more people a chance to tell a story. Perhaps it will lead to us to reinvent ourselves as well,” Dutt says. So who is a journalist today? “Everyone can be. Today, we live in an age of hyper-information. I believe it is all right to have an opinion, in fact everyone should. What is not right is to act as a gatekeeper on it. And it lack of accountability is bothersome. For example in the internet space, any body can be accused of anything without proof. Television, print media or even a website is liable to defamation if there is false information provided. Right? But on the internet, we are getting into a world where there are no rules anymore. We will have to establish codes of practise as we proceed. But I don’t see Section 66A being an answer, it is a Draconian law.” And the growing corporatisation of the media space —does that not curb media freedom? “Look at the world over and there are only two models of ownership—I haven’t seen a third—which is either the corporates own you or the state owns you. Whether you are talking of a PBS or a BBC (subsidised by the state) or Al Jazeera owned by the state or the CNBC owned by General Electronics. I believe the problem is of disclosure. My position has always been that the viewers, consumers always have the right to know who owns you. When you cover stories or interested parties, it should always go with a disclaimer and stating the ownership. The way media is, whether television or print, it is an expensive affair and there will always be someone who will have to provide that money. Even private equity is corporate money, it is not noncorporate right?” And with that she disappeared for the day. Day 2 Acting the Hound The second day we met, was to be a day to observe and absorb and perhaps get a few bytes.Alas, she has a show to do. People are late. Guests are grumbling. Someone important has not turned up and young men and women are making several calls to this person. The show’s on miracle and magic—there’s P.C. Sorcar in it, I am told. True enough he walks in with his wife, daughter and an entourage of guards in tow soon. An hour left for the show, after relentlessly pestering a hapless young producer, we get the chance to meet Dutt. She’s in middle of her make up, and incidentally in middle of a lot of controversies. But that has been a part of her life since her twenties. Dutt’s used to going in with her guns blazing. She’s used to brickbats as much as she is used to bouquets. Despite all, she’s not nearly done. “At this moment I haven’t reached that point—the tipping point if you will—which would lead me to the next course of my career. Twenty years in this industry is like 40 years in any other, and I know I will reach that point when I will wish to re-invent myself. Although news is in my blood, one day I might not do it 24X7. Perhaps, I will be working for think tanks or writing more or making documentaries—connected to the news space but not identical.” As she gets into the studio, I watch her wield her mic (and magic) around healers, faithfuls and rationalists. Right when she makes her job look so, so easy, I realise just how difficult it is to stand with dignity under the harsh lights of the media world.