The first thing that strikes me about Neha Dixit is the warmth in her voice. A calm, comforting tone that makes me let down my guard, lean in and have an honest conversation—an essential skill for an investigative known for her courageous reporting on politics, gender violence, religious divide, extrajudicial killings and human trafficking. For Dixit, however, it doesn’t seem like a professional requirement.
Instead, it’s a genuine reflection of her empathy and understanding towards the people she writes about. Over the 17 years spent working as a journalist covering urgent, sensitive issues, Dixit has won multiple national and international like the 2016 Chameli Devi Jain Award for Outstanding Woman Media Person in India, the 2014 Kurt Schork Award in International Journalism and the 2011 Lorenzo Natali Prize for Journalism from the European Commission. The bouquets haven’t arrived without the brickbats.
But unlike the harsh criticism that most writers consider the insurmountable bane of their profession, Dixit fields rape and death threats almost every day. When she speaks, however, I sense the commitment of someone who believes in working towards the future she envisions rather than talking about it. We connect over Zoom a few days before the launch of her debut book, (published by Juggernaut Books), the real story of an anonymous Muslim woman trying to survive in a progressively divided nation.
I am in Lucknow at the moment, a city known for its Ganga-Jamuni tehze.