Odisha lit fest: Journalists should be voice of voiceless, say writers

PEOPLE are not voiceless unless they are dismissed on the basis of different reasons and agenda, opined writers and journalists Ipsita Chakravarty, Neha Dixit and Divya Kandukuri on the concluding day of the Odisha Literary Festival on Sunday.

- BIJAY CHAKI @Bhubaneswar

Speaking on the session, 'Margins to Mainstream: Chronicling Invisible Lives' moderated by journalist Lovely Majumdar, they urged counterparts to record the voices which are not easily heard.

Chakravarty, who has authored the book, 'Dapaan: Tales from Kashmir's conflict', said a journalist should also be a good listener.

"When I go to a place, I am a listener. I am creating a voice for the people through my writing," she said.

She revealed she did a lot of reporting from Nagaland, Mizoram and other northeastern states which are considered to be border regions. "But people from those areas do not think they belong to border areas. They think they are the centre, a completely different world view," she said.

Chakravarty further added that writing a book and a report are different things. When writing a report, some journalistic rigours like fact-checking are followed and there is some kind of distance from the subject which makes it credible.

Author of 'Many Lines of Syeda X' Neha Dixit agreed with Chakravarty that everyone has a voice.