NWMI Stands with Anandabazar Patrika Journalists

Posts targeting Ms Datta Ray, with her profile picture, are being circulated on social media alongside obscene, degrading and defamatory language, including allegations about her character and insinuations about her parentage and right to belong in the country. Such language is not criticism. It is abuse, humiliation and an attempt to personally intimidate and silence a woman journalist because of the editorial decisions of the newspaper she leads.

The campaign against Ms Datta Ray is particularly disturbing because it has become a part of a rapidly escalating confrontation between the Anandabazar Patrika and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which is in power in West Bengal.

On August 20, there was a clash at Jadavpur University between ABVP and Left-affiliated student groups. On August 21, Anandabazar Patrika reported it on front page with the Bengali phrase “gerua gundami”— saffron hooliganism. West Bengal Chief Minister and BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari, in a public rally on August 28, demanded an apology from the newspaper and called for the apology to be published on its front page within 24 hours. A police complaint was subsequently filed against members of the newspaper’s editorial team, specifically naming Ishani Dutta Ray and chief reporter Soma Mukherjee. An FIR was later registered in connection with the complaint.

The confrontation then moved from political and legal pressure to the newspaper’s doorstep.

On September 1, a group of saffron-clad men gathered outside the Anandabazar Patrika office in Kolkata, raised slogans and painted parts of the building saffron. The incident was particularly alarming because it took place in the presence of police personnel. The BJP has denied organisational responsibility for the incident. However, an investigation by Alt News subsequently identified individuals present at the demonstration who were linked directly to the BJP, including BJP workers and an office-bearer of the BJP’s youth wing.

Political parties and their supporters have every right to disagree with a newspaper, challenge its reporting and criticise its headlines. But no political disagreement can justify abusive attacks on an individual journalist, the circulation of her photograph for the purpose of vilification or attempts to publicly shame and threaten her.

Likewise, regardless of political disagreements surrounding the newspaper’s reporting, defacing a newspaper office is an act of intimidation. Targeting its editor personally with misogynistic abuse is an even more disturbing escalation.

The distinction between criticism and intimidation must be maintained.

A newspaper can be criticised. An editor can be questioned. A headline can be challenged. If someone believes a publication has violated the law, they can seek legal remedy.

But journalists must not be threatened, degraded or subjected to organised campaigns of character assassination. A newspaper office must not be physically targeted because its editorial position is disliked. And political power or proximity to political power must never become a licence for such intimidation.

We are particularly concerned about the gendered nature of the campaign against Ishani Datta Ray. The use of obscene and degrading abuse against a woman journalist is an old and deeply pernicious method of attempting to discredit women in public life. Instead of challenging what she has written or the editorial decisions she has made, her attackers seek to attack her dignity, reputation and identity.

This is precisely why such abuse must be called out unequivocally. The answer to a controversial headline must not be a police investigation into the private editorial process of a newspaper; a demonstration outside its office; the defacement of its premises or a coordinated campaign of abuse against its editor.

NWMI stands firmly against the campaign of personal vilification and misogynistic abuse directed at Ishani Datta Ray, and against any attempt to intimidate Anandabazar Patrika or its journalists through threats, vandalism, political pressure or organised online harassment.

The NWMI demands immediate and appropriate action against the perpetrators of the vandalism and intimidation of Anandabazar Patrika, its editor and staff.

The Network of Women in Media, India

6 September 2026