“Badi aayi patrakaar”- the phrase was often hurled at the reporters of Khabar Lahariya whenever they introduced themselves as “journalists” in Banda, located in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh.

Families were warned by community and caste leaders that the women-led media organisation would “spoil village girls”, while men would taunt the women selling newspapers door-to-door, asking whether they themselves were “available” for the same price as the paper- then sold for ₹2. 

Started in 2002, nearly 25 years later, the same ridicule has become the title of their memoir- Badi Aayi Patrakaar, released in English as The Good Reporter, a collective memoir written by the organisation’s all-women newsroom, tracing the journey of a rural feminist media collective built by women from marginalised communities who, the speakers said, were expected to do anything but question. 

At a session hosted by the Bangalore International Centre on Friday on “The Story of Indian Media, in a Different Voice”, members of Khabar Lahariya reflected on the fear, humiliation and resistance that shaped both their reporting and their lives. The session was moderated by Vijeta Kumar, a faculty member at St. Joseph’s University.

Founded in Uttar Pradesh’s Banda district, the organisation began with a group of 10 women, some of whom had not studied beyond primary school, some who struggled with language, and many who had never imagined stepping into public spaces as reporters. 

“Journalism was not born out of ambition, but out of necessity and anger,” said Meera Devi, Managing Editor, who joined the organisation in 2006. “We rarely saw the realities of the India we belonged to. Caste oppression, violence against women, rural distress- none of it was reflected in mainstream media. Living became reporting, and reporting became a way of documenting lives that otherwise remained invisible,” she said. 

“There is enough media behind ministers and MLAs. But the problems people in rural districts are facing, Dalits are facing, women are facing, still have no voice,” said Kavita Bundelkhandi, co-founder of the paper, arguing that one cannot fully understand India without understanding its villages and those pushed to its margins. 

Recalling one such moment from her reporting journey, she said villagers once told her they were ready to field her as an MLA candidate after she interviewed actor Shah Rukh Khan, a reflection, she said, of how journalism slowly transformed the way rural women reporters were seen within their own communities. 

The speakers described how becoming reporters meant constantly negotiating hostility- from society, families and within their own homes. They said there was constant pressure to hide experiences of harassment because society would use those stories as “proof” that journalism was “not meant for women”. 

Nazni Rizvi, who studied only till Class 5 and initially joined the organisation to sell newspapers on commission, today serves as its chief reporter. Lakshmi Sharma, who emerged from Bihar’s smallest district -- Sheohar, is now an executive producer. What began with just 10 women has today grown into a newsroom of more than 40 women journalists. The same organisation once accused of “spoiling village girls” now receives more applications than it can easily shortlist, Ms. Rizvi said. 

“We are standing on a heavy rock at the top of a hill, ready to let it fall. This rock, bumping slowly, then faster down a rocky slope, changing shape, is our story,” the writers describe in the memoir. 

Good reporter, good woman

The discussion repeatedly returned to the emotional cost of trying to become both “a good reporter” and “a good woman”- the central theme explored through the memoir. 

“Financially, socially, and mentally, the taboos we have fought against have blurred our lives and our work,” Ms. Rizvi said. Several speakers reflected on how reporting assignments from 10 or 15 years ago still remain etched in memory -- not because of the story alone, but because of what it took to become “a reporter” in places where women were never expected to ask questions. 

The speakers said the memoir, currently available in Hindi and English, will also be translated into Bundelkhandi or Bundeli- the language spoken across the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, where many of the reporters come from and work.