Bringing women’s issues to the fore

Over six months, CNN correspondent Sumnima Udas would regularly call the parents of gang rape victim Jyoti Singh Pandey — whose death from the injuries she sustained during the attack made international headlines — to persuade them to be interviewed. When the trial got underway, she approached them at the end of each day’s hearing.

Her persistence paid off in June last year when the parents agreed to speak to her at their home — the first time the couple opened up to the media and shared the pain of losing their daughter.

The contents of the interview — which was carried out last September over three sessions, each lasting an hour — were used as part of a documentary called World’s Untold Stories: ‘Nirbhaya’, The Fearless One, which was first aired on CNN in December last year and watched by millions around the globe.

Ms Udas, 33, who was then a producer, describes the half-hour documentary as “an attempt to know the person behind the nameless victim — who she was, what she meant for the family ... a factual documentation of what happened to her, the social outrage and investigations that followed”.

At the time the documentary was shown, the victim’s identity was still protected under the law even though her parents went on-air to talk about the attack. A month later, her father revealed her name.

On the impact of the documentary, Ms Udas — who was born in Nepal — says she merely set out to provide the context for the international audience.

“Suddenly, there was this global perception that there was a rape epidemic in India and I wanted to say this was not new. It has always been there, just that (it became) reported on more,” she said. “The fact that people were talking about it, protesting — that is a good thing. That is the change in India.”

Ms Udas, who was promoted to correspondent in October last year, received the Journalist of the Year award at the inaugural Women’s Empowerment Journalism Awards held here last Friday for her work on women’s issues in India. She was also part of a CNN team which won the Cine Golden Eagle Award in 2012 for its report on slavery in Indian villages.

But far from highlighting the ills in Indian society, Ms Udas says she wants to share positive stories about her country as a journalist. “There’re a lot of amazing things happening in the country as well which are not being covered,” she says, citing a story which she did in March last year about a government-funded programme which feeds millions of school-going children every day.

‘CHANGE WILL TAKE GENERATIONS’

Make no mistake though, she feels strongly about the plight of women in India — a passion that is reflected in her work. Since she moved from Hong Kong to Delhi about four years ago, she has reported on the trend of female foeticide in India and the plight of a woman who suffered from an acid attack, among other stories.

Speaking to TODAY in a recent interview, Ms Udas shrugs off the challenges of being a woman journalist in India. “It’s the way it is ... that’s how it’s always been. You just have to be cautious ... In Delhi, I wouldn’t go out after 8pm by myself,” she says. “It’s a shame that it is like that, but I’ve learnt to deal with it.”

The situation in India is not going to change overnight, she says. “It’s so ingrained in society that it will require education and generations for it to change.”

On whether she feels that some of her stories perpetuated a negative image of India among international viewers, she reiterates the importance of raising awareness of the problems that exist in the country. But what she strives to do is ensure her coverage “is a true reflection of what’s going on and try not to resort to stereotypes”.

“It is how you cover it, that’s most important. One should not generalise, sensationalise or romanticise,” she says.

A JOURNALIST’S EMOTIONAL PAIN

Recalling her experience of persuading the parents of the 23-year-old rape victim to speak to her, Ms Udas says she had to be patient and persistent as she tried to establish a relationship with them. But she drew the line on how far she was prepared to go.

Unlike other journalists, she did not stake out their home. “I understood why they were hesitant ... They had suffered so much already and wanted to move on. We had to be compassionate yet persistent,” she says.

She recalls how the parents had, on several occasions, agreed to be interviewed, only to postpone the session.

Undeterred, she approached them again after the verdict of the trial was announced — all four accused persons were convicted of rape, murder, unnatural offences and destruction of evidence — and the interview finally took place.

However, the interview process was difficult as the parents would abruptly end the session and tell her to come back another time.

“The first thing the victim’s father said was, ‘My tears have completely dried up’,” she says. His words struck her, but what was more emotionally painful for her was seeing how the couple were struggling to cope with losing their “pillar of strength”, Ms Udas adds.

“When they lost her, they didn’t just lose a daughter, but an inspiration for the family,” she says. “For that to happen to a girl so strong and so good, that’s what affected me the most.”

On the professional front, the experience taught her that perseverance and hard work pay off, she says.

A GLOBETROTTER DRIVEN BY PASSION

Ms Udas, whose father was a United Nations diplomat, speaks four languages — Hindi, Nepali, French and English — and has lived in several countries including Pakistan, Italy, Myanmar and Russia.

It was in Italy that her interest in journalism was sparked. At the age of eight, she found herself watching a lot of CNN — the only channel in English that was shown on television — during the Gulf War. The news reports that she saw changed her perspective on life as well as piqued her curiosity in general and especially in foreign affairs, she says.

She went on to study politics in an American university but changed her course of study midway. In 2001, she graduated from Washington and Lee University in Virginia with a Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude, with honours in Broadcast Journalism and History of Art. After graduation, she joined CNN as a news assistant in New York. She then went back to school to get a master’s degree in History of Art in 2002.

Her work with CNN took her to Hong Kong between 2006 and 2010, where she was a producer for a programme, TalkAsia. She relocated to Delhi after her stint in Hong Kong.

With elections due to be held next month, this is a big year for India, the world’s largest democracy.

Ms Udas, who left Singapore yesterday for the Andaman Islands to cover the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, believes the results of the elections will “dramatically change the course” of the country.

“You’ve got two very different personalities who stand for diametrically divergent ideologies fronting the two main political parties,” she says. “It is an election that’s very difficult to predict and I’m excited to see what happens.”