Reading Sumaira in Tehran
- 5 days ago
- 2 min read
Random Musings: Sumaira Khan, an intreped news reporter from India, shifts the western narrative on Iran
By Nalini Ranjan Mohanty
I used to generally flip the News9 live channel (@TV9Bharatvarsh) while scrolling on my remote, but yesterday I paused when I saw a news report flashing from the streets of Teheran. Sumaira Khan (@sumairakh) , an intrepid news reporter, was giving the viewers a glimpse of the goings-on in war-ravaged Iran --which seems to have given Trump and company a; run for their money.
It appeared everything was normal there, even as war clouds were hanging in the air, with President Trump repeating his profanities against the Iranian civilisation. We saw people in Teheran — men, women and children — going about their way as in any other city. But Sumaira specially drew our attention to the scores of women who were passing through that busy marketplace she was reporting from.
Quite a few of them were burqa-clad, but there were many women who went about without any covering on their heads. As a matter of fact, there were some young girls who strode across in modern, fashionable clothes.
Sumaira was at pains to bust the misconception that Iranian women were under strict official vigil to follow the traditional Islamic dress code.
It was good to see that the TV9 group sent a reporter to Iran to show us that, contrary to the West’s false propaganda, women retain their own agency in Iran, especially after the fierce and hard-fought women's uprising against the diktat of forcible hijab, across the country, after the murder of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, at the hands of the notorious moral police..
I have not come across any other Indian TV news channel sending a reporter to Iran to show how Iranians are coping after the illegal and barbaric US-Israeli attack on their country. @IndiaToday TV dispatched a reporter to invader Israel to show how the killer IDF is going about its murderous mission!
Some other channels too followed the same beaten script to suck up to the powers-that-be..
We must commend the News9 Live for its bold decision to place a reporter in Iran to show the lives, the resistance, and the resolve of the people of the only country in the Middle-East which has stood up for Palestinians, victims of the US-Israeli genocide!
Nalini Ranjan Mohanty is former Resident Editor, Hindutstan Times and The Times of India (Patna Edition) and former Director, Jagran Institute of Management and Mass Communication (JIMMC).