Humra: A Journalist with a Golden Heart | Papri Sri Raman

TRIBUTE

‘Anubhavi Patrkar’, that is what the regional media is calling her. A journalist with feelings. A rare creature in this age of ‘reality’ journalism, aggressive, high-pitched, irrelevant and insistent. For Mainstream, Humra titled her last article for the January 4 issue, ‘Rare are people of integrity and compassion’. She was writing on Khushwant Singh’s anecdote about Manmohan Singh, when she was collaborating with the writer on his book, Absolute Khushwant.

This phrase, ‘Rare are people of integrity and compassion’ also applies to Humra, a rare woman of great of compassion herself. In the same soliloquy, Humra gently asked a very pertinent question, ‘Where are those Bollywood actors who played farmer’s roles to fame?’ Why isn’t Bollywood supporting the farmer’s struggle, now into its second year? She answers herself, ‘The grim fact is this: Bollywood’s top actors directors, and producers rarely come up with any possible criticism of any upheavals, big or small, taking place in the country… Writ large the communally surcharged disasters spreading out in the country, but Bollywood’s creamy top layer sits too quiet!’

She ends with Sahir Ludhianvi, ‘Even if I wish, I cannot write dreamy songs of love’.

’She was known for being an advocate of truth and justice and for working with the underdog of society.’, says a tribute to Humra. It is difficult to write about someone so rooted to the reality of life at the grassroots – trodden over, suppressed, kept down. She was a person who cut across the elitism that permeates Indian journalism, ‘only certain kind of stories’, politically non-violent stories, closer to ‘right media’ or closer to ‘left media’, ‘our angle’, our kind of stories… etc. At the turn of the century, when Humra wrote about Kashmir, she did not pontificate, she did not advice or lecture, she did not cover Kashmir and its troubles as an outsider. And for her some of the best tributes came from the recalcitrant media in Kashmir.

‘She was a tireless advocate for those without a voice, using her platform to challenge injustice and amplify the stories that often went unheard. She was known to speak often against the grain, charting a path for her colleagues and contemporaries. Her work was known to be uncompromising, a reflection of her own indomitable spirit – fearless, thoughtful, unwavering in its commitment to truth’, writes Rising Kashmir. She was thoughtful, humane, a rights activist, subtle but forceful in her own way.

‘Humra would frequently travel to Kashmir in those turmoil days unmindful of risk involved and overcoming her financial difficulties only to share the grief and loss of affected people and distribute whatever little she could arrange amongst orphanages and the homeless. One day she was closely frisked at Srinagar Airport and was ordered to down her pants to check the bulging object inside. She kept her cool, took out her pad, placed it on the shoulder of security official, much to his embarrassment. This incident was later recorded in her book on Kashmir.’

All of us who read Kashmir in the 2000s, crosschecked, what Humra was saying. No, she was not Kashmiri. She was an Awadhi and independent. Born in Uttar Pradesh in 1955, she was educated in Loreto Convent, brought up in Lucknow and Jhansi.

She talks of the Duch missionary Father Jimborst, a school teacher in Srinagar in late 2002, who told her ‘after a long pause… Once this was a beautiful happy place. But now there is great sorrow… people are suffering so much that they’ve stopped expressing themselves… there is great tension and fear, no jobs… it’s like people suffering from cancer…. ’ It was reason enough for Humra to become the people’s voice, a Tribune journalist in the 1990s.

Humra Qureshi could be funny too, as in The Good, The Bad and The Ridiculous, another collaboration with the indomitable Khushwant Singh, who loved her flair, he spoke, she wrote. They portrayed Jawaharlal Nehru, Krishna Menon, Indira Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi, Amrita Sher-Gil, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Mother Teresa, and Faiz Ahmad Faiz in a book that is today deemed an ‘intimate, irreverent modern history’.

She wrote many other books too. On Kashmir, Kashmir: The Untold Story and Meer, a novel based in Kashmir, the conflict, poverty, the people and love. Views: Your and Mine, More Bad Time Tales, Divine Legacy: Dagars & Dhrupad and Of Mothers and Others. ‘Humra’s writing was not just a profession – it was her purpose. Humanism, “insaniyat (humanity)” and “niyat (intention)” were her common refrains. Royalties from her books went directly to orphanages and charities including Mother Teresa’s before they reached her. She once said, “I don’t want to be tempted to keep it,” and so, the funds went straight to them.’

A single mother, Humra died of cardiac arrest on 16 January, with her son, the photo journalist Mustafa and her daughter, the London-based Sarah on her bedside. Filmmaker Siddharth Kak, said, ‘Hers is a loss not only to the family, but to the world of courageous journalism’. Her last writing was on Palestine, a week earlier.