Neha Dixit

She attended school in Lucknow, and graduated in English Literature from Miranda House, University of Delhi. Thereafter, she pursued a Masters in Convergent Journalism from the AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Milia Islamia in New Delhi. She has been a fellow at the World Press Institute and Knight Centre.

She has worked as an investigative journalist for over 13 years across multiple mediums including Print, Television and Online. She began her career as an investigative journalist with Tehelka magazine.[4] Dixit later joined the Special Investigation team of the news channel Headlines Today now known as India Today. She is also a member of the Network of Women in Media in India.[5]

Since 2013, she has been working as an independent journalist[6] Al Jazeera, Outlook magazine, Smithsonian magazine, Foreign Policy, The Caravan, The New York Times's "India Ink" blog, Himal Southasian, The Wire, Washington Post and several other national and international publications.

She teaches at NALSAR, Symbiosis, Jamia University, and Ashoka University. She has also delivered several lectures on journalism and intersections with politics and social justice at various universities including NYU, Göttingen and Columbia School of Journalism.

Dixit has spoken about the issues of sexism, labor rights violations and the corporate-political nexus in the mainstream Indian media.[7] She regularly faces rape and death threats, and has been trolled online for writing against sectarian politics, using a gender lens and for reporting on tribals, Muslims and socio-economically marginalized sections of the society.[8]

Dixit's reports have often had a national and international impact. In January 2019, the Office of the High Commissioner for United Nations Human Rights wrote to the Indian government alleging that the Uttar Pradesh state police was involved in extrajudicial killings of people in Uttar Pradesh, and specifically Muslims. She also attacked RSS outfits for having a comprehensive network in border areas of Assam for welfare activities which she argued were being used for trafficking girls. Child Welfare Committee, Surendranagar termed a specific case involving 31 girls as "unsafe migration" though it praised RSS outfits for providing food, shelter and education to the girls in question. After her report, several girls were rehabilitated with their families. It was also her report on illegal clinical trials in India that revealed how the poor as being used as guinea pigs by multinational pharmaceutical companies. She also broke the story on how women from religious minorities faced sexual violence and mass rapes during the Muzaffarnagar sectarian violence in 2013.

She is also facing criminal legal cases under section 153A of the Indian Penal Code which criminalizes promotion of “disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities". Committee for Protection of Journalists and several International Press Freedom Bodies have spoken up in her support and applauded her work. Committee for Protection of Journalists has criticised section 153A, calling it a "colonial-era provision" and criticised police for investigation of Dixit under such provision, arguing that journalists must be protected by authorities from harassment by others.

Dixit contributed to The Global Casebook of Investigative Journalism 2012.[9] Her chapter was on the honour killing diktats issued and executed by kangaroo courts known as Khap Panchayats in North India.

In 2016, Dixit was one of the first Indian journalists to use a graphic format for reportage. She contributed a story "The Girl Not from Madras" to the comic book anthology 'First Hand: Graphic Non-fiction from India', about exploitation of women in India.[10][11] The illustrations were done by well known graphic artist Orijit Sen.

In the second volume of the same book, her story 'Shadow Lines', on seven women who survived mass rapes during the sectarian violence in Muzaffarnagar riots in 2013, was illustrated by Priya Kuriyan.[12]

Dixit contributed a chapter on Sexual violence during sectarian violence in India to Breaching the Citadel, an anthology of sexual violence in South Asia 2016 by Zubaan Books.[13]

Her essay on difficulties interfaith or self choice marriages in India and the trials and tribulations of civil marriage in India was part of the 2018 book 'Knot for Keeps: Writing the Modern Marriage' by Harper Collins.[14]

She also contributed an essay 'Outcast(e)/Outlawed: The Bandit Queen (1996)' in the book 'Bad' Women of Bombay Films'published by Palgrave. It looks is a deep dive into Phoolan Devi's life and how it was represented in the film 'Bandit Queen.'

Dixit has won over a dozen national and international awards for her journalism.

In 2019, she was awarded the CPJ International Press Freedom Award by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

In 2017, she won the Chameli Devi Jain Award for Outstanding Woman Journalist for 2016, the highest award for women journalists in India.[15]

In 2015, she won the Press Institute of India-Red Cross award for her story "Shadow Lines" on mass rapes of women in the sectarian violence of North India's Muzaffarnagar.[16][17]

The other awards include Trust Women Honorary Journalist award by Thomson Reuters Foundation,[18] Young Journalist Award by Thomson Foundation, Lorenzo Natali Award by the European Commission 2011,[19] Best Television Reporter, News Television Awards,[20] UNFPA Laadli Award,[21] Anupama Jayaraman Award.[22] She has also won the Kurt Schork award for investigative journalism,[23] and has been a World Press Institute fellow.

• Neha Dixit on Twitter