When these children living in Adivasi hamlets in Aarey, Mumbai, got smartphones, they danced with joy!

Just two months back, these children were staring at an uncertain future because they didn’t have a smartphone and were moving one step away from education with each passing day. After Mumbai-based journalist Sohit Mishra did a story on them, help poured in from India and abroad and he personally went back to Aarey and distributed around 85 smartphones. In this first-person account, Mishra talks about how because of the positive response that the story received, the journalist in him could sleep better at night and why there is a need to tell many such stories and do quality journalism during a pandemic

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Swati Subhedar

Children living in some of the 27 Adivasi hamlets located inside Mumbai’s Aarey Milk Colony, the sprawling 1,300 hectares of forest land in the heart of the city, received a special gift in September.

In March, following the government’s order of keeping the educational institutes closed to prevent the spread of coronavirus, schools and colleges across India began conducting online classes with the use of smartphones and computers. However, for children living in rural India, urban slums, and Adivasi pockets such as Aarey, this meant a long gap in their education. Many of these families didn’t have a basic phone or had just one smartphone in the family. Factors like poor network and connectivity added to their problems. While many citizens, NGOs, and voluntary organizations have stepped in to help such children either by giving them smartphones or finding alternative means to educate them, there are still many who haven’t attended a single class or touched their textbooks since the beginning of the pandemic.

Sohit Mishra, a Mumbai-based journalist, shares with ‘The Good Story Project’ this heart-warming first-person account of how people from across the globe stepped in to help children living in Adivasi hamlets at Aarey by providing them with smartphones after the story he did on them had the desired impact. He also writes about the importance of doing quality and responsible journalism, especially during a pandemic when there is pain, suffering, and anxiety all around. It’s noteworthy that airing of the story coincided with most of the primetime slots being dedicated to the coverage of the aftermath of the death of a Bollywood actor, and a section of society openly expressing its disgust over the over-the-top, TRP-driven coverage. Mishra’s story led to these children receiving the best Children’s Day gift, that too two months in advance. This is his first-person account. 

In August end, when I decided to do this story, most of the schools across the country had resorted to online classes. I thought about children living in rural India and the urban poor who were getting impacted because they didn’t have smartphones. That’s when I decided to visit Aarey as I knew the financial condition of people living over there wasn’t good. Through my story, I wanted to raise an important point that if people living in heart of the financial capital of India were not able to afford a smartphone, then imagine the plight of children in the rest of the country. When I reached Aarey, I noticed that children were playing and because they didn’t have a smartphone, they were not studying at all. One of the girls I met, who was around seven-year-old, said her friends were able to study but since she was poor, she couldn’t. That made me very sad that a girl at her age was experiencing discrimination based on her financial status and she knew that she was denied education or wasn’t able to study as her family was not in a position to buy a smartphone. That’s when I decided to go ahead with the story.

I always knew it would be a good story, but I didn’t know it would go viral and so many people will come out to help. Initially, one of our viewers contacted me on Twitter and offered to help Shiksha, a class three student who featured in the story. Her mother had never been to school, but she named her daughter Shiksha. Things were going smoothly until the pandemic hit them and Shiksha’s educational journey suffered a roadblock because of the absence of a smartphone. Soon, help started pouring in from India and abroad and many people started sending smartphones for these children. Several senior journalists who wished to remain anonymous pitched in too. Bollywood actor Sonu Sood, who has been doing some incredible work since the lockdown, also sent some smartphones. It was incredible to receive courier packages every day and opening them at night after returning from work helped me sleep better.

I personally went back to Aarey to distribute these smartphones. In all, we have distributed around 85 smartphones. Our initial plan was a cover one Adivasis hamlet inside Aarey, but we ended up covering 12. The children were extremely happy after receiving the smartphones and were dancing with joy. Some of the parents had tears in their eyes and they assured that they would make sure that the children made the most of this opportunity. They said they never expected that anyone would help them. They could never have imagined that people would actually bother to send smartphones for their children. They said that this gesture has given them hope that the world can still be a place where their sons and daughters will be able to grow and prosper.

Personally, as a journalist, this story and the response to it, made me very happy. During the lockdown, I had covered that entire migration crisis. It was heartbreaking to see people on the streets, starving and not having a single penny on them to buy food. I was fulfilling my duties as a journalist by covering these stories, but I couldn’t do much to help them personally. But after the Aarey story, when people started sending smartphones and when I handed them over to the children, that was extremely satisfying for me. It motivated me to do my job with more responsibility and I was happy that as a journalist I could impact a few people and do my bit for society. 

The only positive emerging out of the ongoing pandemic, which is an unusual and unprecedented situation in itself, is the fact that people have gone out of their way to help others in need. Since the lockdown, there have been many stories of pain, suffering, loss, despair, hopelessness, and heartbreak. This has affected our society but has also made people more ‘giving’. I think the reason why people came out in large numbers to donate smartphones, even though the pandemic has affected all of us financially in some way or the other, was because somewhere down the line they could feel the pain of these parents. When there are so many crisis-ridden stories, people feel compelled to help those in need in whichever way they can.    

While we need more such people, we also need people who can question the government. After all, after announcing the closure of schools, it was the government’s responsibility to ensure that no student was left out.

Many journalists have done a fabulous job of covering the pandemic and the lockdown with maturity, empathy, and sensitivity. However, around the time the story came out, a section of media was busy covering the aftermath of the death of a Bollywood actor and that coverage dominated all the other news stories. As a journalist, that broke my heart a little. There were so many people who were staring at an uncertain future because of the pandemic, and their stories needed to be told. But it seemed as if no one cared. I think that’s why people liked my story and responded very positively to it. As journalists, it’s our responsibility to tell stories, but we must also do stories that can help people come out of dire circumstances. I am convinced that many such stories would be done in the future and the day is not far when people themselves would support journalism that serves them the news that matters and not garbage.

Sohit Mishra is a senior correspondent and anchor at NDTV India. The views expressed above are his own.