Colonizing Journalism – India is Planting Imposter Journalists in Kashmir

March 15, 2024

 

“I am not a Malala Yousufzai because I am free and safe in my country India, in my homeland Kashmir, which is part of India”, said “Yana Mir” in her speech at the UK Parliament a couple of weeks ago. In her concluding remarks, Yana Mir criticized “all toolkit members from social media and international media, who have never cared to visit Indian Kashmir but fabricate stories of oppression from there”. She added, “I urge you to stop polarising Indians on the grounds of religion. We won’t allow you to break us.”

 

Are you surprised to see the use of such language by a “Kashmiri”? We are too. This Indian rhetoric is being repeated by someone who is being called a “journalist”.

 

 

Who is Yana Mir?

 

 

While the viral clip as well as the UK Parliament have referred to her as a “Kashmiri Journalist”, several X users have questioned her claim of being a Kashmiri Muslim. Some Kashmiri social media users alleged that the woman’s real name is Suhana Mirchandani and she is in fact an indian Hindu, masquerading as a Kashmiri Muslim to help the indian government advance its settler-colonial propaganda.

 

Her moment of fame came on August 8, 2019, when BJP’s National General Secretary shared her video on social media. In the video, she appeared to be vocally supportive of the indian government’s revocation of Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status, while not caring to mention the inhumane and draconian communication blockade that Kashmiri’s were subjected to. In the aftermath of this video, an indian news house’s fact checking bureau did a little digging and it appeared that she had been on Twitter for only 6 months but had already amassed more than 11,500 followers. The report quoted the name of her handle to be @MirchandaniYana at the time. The news house claimed to have tracked her down at the time and spoken to her. During the interaction, she claimed to be of Sindhi descent and said that her family migrated to Kashmir in 1947. She also claimed that her family was initially Muslim but later converted to Hinduism. However, the news house failed to illicit any proof for any of these claims from her.

 

Interestingly, four and a half years later, her Twitter handle (now X) has been renamed to @MirYanaSY. Here she conveniently masquerades as “Mir”, which is a Kashmiri Muslim last name instead of her real name Mirchandani, which is an indian hindu last name. Using this handle, her current X profile can be seen full of anti-Pakistan and pro-india content.

 

 

Larger Implications – The Colonizer’s Puppet Show

 

 

In the aftermath of the abrogation of the semi-autonomous status of Kashmir in August 2019, the indian government has rapidly moved to stifle the Kashmiri resistance movement. Kashmir’s courageous journalist fraternity has been a prime target of the settler colonial project. This was started with the takeover of the Kashmir Press Club (KPC), which was Kashmir’s largest independent media body. During the takeover, some india-favouring Kashmiri journalists, with support from indian forces, took over the premises of KPC on January 5, 2022, and declared themselves as the new office bearers.

 

Since this takeover, there has been a mushroom growth of seemingly “Kashmiri Muslim” journalists, who support the indian occupation of Kashmir. While Yana Mirchandani is one of them, she is not the only one. The colonizer seems to have installed their own roster of fake journalists whose headlines are written, edited, and approved somewhere in Delhi.

Mirchandani works very closely with Sajad Yousuf Shah, who is the BJP’s media incharge for Kashmir. The two are fresh off their trip to israel where they met with various Israeli government officials. Mirchandani herself took to X, posting the following:

 

israel and india have been strategic partners when it comes to their settler-colonial projects in Palestine and Kashmir. Both Mirchandani and Shah spent a considerable amount of time in israel, whitewashing the Gaza genocide for their indian audience.

 

It is odd that the UK parliament did not do any due diligence in figuring out the identity of the imposter journalist as well as the organisation that had invited her. The event was organised by a lesser-known organisation called the “Jammu and Kashmir Study Centre”, UK. This was done in celebration of “Sankalp Diwas” or the Resolution Day, referring to the 1994 resolutions passed by the indian parliament declaring Kashmir to be india’s integral part. These resolutions were in violation of international law and various security council resolutions mandating a plebiscite in Kashmir, and thereby declaring it as “disputed” land. During the event, speeches were also made to “reclaim Mirpur-Muzaffarabad and Gilgit-Baltistan” areas of Pakistan Administered Kashmir, reaffirming india’s expansionist agendas.

 

Since 2019, countless Kashmiri journalists have been imprisoned by the indian state, as india backed charlatans like Mirchandani and her ilk have been given a free hand to promote Kashmir as being a part of india. While young Kashmiri journalists like Asif Sultan and Sajad Gul are losing years of their youth behind bars, the indian state continues to advance its settler colonial project with impunity. Sultan who was recently released from jail as an indian court quashed all charges against him due to lack of evidence, was rearrested only 24 hours later in another fake case.

 

Please share this on your socials to generate buzz around these imposters and their propaganda. To stay updated on the day-to-day happenings of Kashmir, follow StandWithKashmir across social media.

 

 

 

 

Stay in touch with Stand with Kashmir. 

 

Stand With Kashmir (SWK) is a Kashmiri-driven independent, transnational, grassroots movement committed to standing in solidarity with the people of indian-occupied Kashmir in ending the indian occupation of their homeland and supporting the right to self-determination of the pre-partition state of Jammu and Kashmir. We want to hear from you. If you have general inquiries, suggestions, or concerns, please email us at info@standwithkashmir.org.