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[Janyce Brits]

ThroughApril and May, government figures of COVID-19 deaths and infections were suspiciously low from the populous Indian state of Gujarat, north of Mumbai. The reported numbers were sometimes as low as in the single digits in major cities, even as local hospitals and crematoria were overflowing. Like most reporters, Yogen Joshi, a senior journalist in the city of Baroda, with the Gujarati newspaper Gujarat Samachar, knew the official data was unreliable.

Journalists have shown remarkable perseverance and bravery through the pandemic, finding ways to tell stories in the absence of accurate official data: from counting dead bodies to tracking last rites to highlighting mismatched statistics from different government authorities.

In Ahmedabad, the largest city in Gujarat, a team of reporters from local daily Sandesh spent a night in April driving to 21 crematoria to see how many bodies were being cremated under COVID-19 protocols. Where the state government had claimed 25 deaths on a particular day, the reporters found more than 200 in Hindu funeral homes alone. Another team of reporters from the same paper spent 17 hours outside a government COVID-19 hospital wing counting the number of corpses. On April 13, the paper reported that, in just one hospital, its reporters counted 64 deaths. The government figure for Ahmedabad that day: 20.

Government data has itself been inconsistent. Sandesh, for instance, reported how district-level data differed from state-level data, both of which fell short of the numbers the paper tallied. Extracting death records was another way of exposing the truth. Both Divya Bhaskar, a Gujarati daily, and Amar Ujala, a Hindi paper published in six states, investigated the difference between death certificates issued over the same period this year and last year in a particular area.

Kashmir Press Club building is pictured through a closed gate after it was sealed by authorities in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022. Under Modi, press freedoms in India have steadily shrunk after he was first elected in 2014. Last year, India was ranked 142nd in the global press freedom index by media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, below Afghanistan and Zimbabwe. Authorities try to control any narrative seen opposite to the official line that Kashmir is an integral part of India. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

Kashmiri Journalists work during surprise search of pedestrians by security forces in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Friday, Jan. 21, 2022. Local Kashmiri reporters were often the only eyes on the ground for the global audiences, particularly after New Delhi barred foreign journalists from the region without official approval a few years ago. Most of the coverage has focused on the Kashmir conflict and government crackdowns. Authorities are now seeking to control any narrative seen opposite to the broad consensus in India that the region is an integral part of the country. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

Under Modi, press freedoms in India have steadily shrunk since he was first elected in 2014. Last year, India was ranked 142nd in the global press freedom index by media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, below Afghanistan and Zimbabwe.

Local Kashmiri reporters were often the only eyes on the ground for global audiences, particularly after New Delhi barred foreign journalists from the region without official approval a few years ago. Most of the coverage has focused on the Kashmir conflict and government crackdowns. Authorities are now seeking to control any narrative seen opposed to the broad consensus in India that the region is an integral part of the country.

Earlier this month, the Indian government recorded nearly 23 million cases and more than 240,000 deaths ー though the real human toll may be much higher, according to experts. Scientists believe that a variant called B.1.617, recently classified by the WHO as a global concern, has been responsible for the dramatic increase of infections in the country of 1.4 billion people.

With New Delhi in lockdown, for Sarin and other reporters, the sound of ambulance sirens outside has replaced the hustle and bustle of the newsroom. In some cases, daily calls to sources for news articles have been replaced by calls to diagnostic centers to find vials of antiviral drugs for family members and friends who are sick.

India is facing a severe shortage of medicines and oxygen. People have died while waiting to see a doctor. Crematoriums have been overflowing with COVID-19 victims, and photos of burning funeral pyres in some parts of the country have been called a symbol of a country in crisis.

The majority of rural districts that are reporting high positivity rates are also reporting an alarming decline in vaccination, the analysis found. The data analysis showed that rural districts are getting fewer doses because of a controversial government policy that has led to a decentralization of vaccine procurement, the report said.

An investigation by NDTV journalists who visited crematoriums and cross-checked the information with one week of official data found that at least 1,150 deaths may not have been included in the official list of coronavirus victims.

Trustworthy information is vital to provide the public with the right tools to distinguish between fake remedies and real cures, and curb the effects of misinformation such as racist attacks against minorities falsely accused of spreading the virus, according to Nazakat.

Many more reporting trips to the area followed, but it was on that first visit that I met the man who made me determined to tell the story of how young women are undergoing hysterectomies in large numbers so they can work uninterrupted by pregnancy or painful periods.

Identifying problems, building trust with sources, and creating pathways to impact are just a few of the many components that make a Fuller Project story unique. In this new video, hear from our reporters and editors about how they produce journalism that catalyzes positive change for women.

Under Narendra Modi, India has changed dramatically. As the world attempts to grapple with its trajectory towards authoritarianism and a 'Hindu Rashtra' (Hindu State), little attention has been paid to the linkages between Modi's India and the governments from which it has drawn inspiration, as well as military and technical support.

India once called Zionism racism, but, as Azad Essa argues, the state of Israel has increasingly become a cornerstone of India's foreign policy. Looking to replicate the 'ethnic state' in the image of Israel in policy and practice, the annexation of Kashmir increasingly resembles Israel's settler-colonial project of the occupied West Bank. The ideological and political linkages between the two states are alarming; their brands of ethnonationalism deeply intertwined.

Hostile Homelands puts India's relationship with Israel in its historical context, looking at the origins of Zionism and Hindutva; India's changing position on Palestine; and the countries' growing military-industrial relationship from the 1990s. Lucid and persuasive, Essa demonstrates that the India-Israel alliance spells significant consequences for democracy, the rule of law and justice worldwide.

Azad Essa is an award-winning journalist and author based between Johannesburg and New York City. He is currently a senior reporter for Middle East Eye covering American foreign policy, Islamophobia and race in the US. He is the author of The Moslems are Coming and Zuma's Bastard and has written for Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy and the Guardian.

'Hostile Homelands is a supreme act of solidarity to help human rights activists around the world understand the forces aligned against two of the most important anti-colonial struggles in the world today'

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