Dateline Islamabad – Amit Baruah

This is a journalistic account of the event I reported from Islamabad between April 1997 and June 2000 for The Hindu, and Frontline. It’s an effort to show how difficult the job of a foreign correspondence is in a hostile nation.

In this, I have tried to be as honest and candid, but have held back personal details. There is a reason behind my reticence here. Naming names could impact negatively on my many friends and acquaintance still living and working in Pakistan.

The book could not have been written without the insight of my Pakistani friends. Of course, the impressions of life in Islamabad are all my own, but I was benefited enormously by my conversations and interactions with so many Pakistanis.

My friends in the Indian High Commission in Islamabad were invaluable to our existence in Pakistan – both at the Personal and professional levels. But again, I prefer that they remain anonymous.

This account is, I believe, the first that provides an insight into an Indian reporter’s many personal struggles in Pakistan. Despite all the personal and professional difficulties that one faced, my Pakistan assignment was both exciting and enriching.

Having spent a total of eighteen years working The Hindu, what I am today has largely been shaped by that newspaper. I am grateful to The Hindu’s Editor – in - charge  N. Ram, who pioneered investigative journalism in India, for permission to write this book.

I would like to thank The Hindu’s Editor N.Ravi and the Executive Editor Malini Parthasarthy for posting me in Pakistan. My interest in that country was kindled for the first time in December 1989 when The Hindu’s then Editor G. Kasturi sent me to Srinagar on a reporting assignment.

I’m also grateful to Nandini Mehta (Editor with penguin and now Features Editor in Outlook magazine) for believing that the book was a good idea and going through the manuscript with a tooth comb. Prita Maitra of Penguin, who took from Nandini, was both diligent and full of encouragement

This book could not have been written without the unstinting support of my wife, Minu, who bore life in Pakistan with a grin. My daughters Anushka, and Antara, born in Islamabad, made for wonderful distractions.

- Amit baruah , (From Preface of the Book “Dateline Islamabad”.

Amit Baruah is The Hindu's Diplomatic Correspondent and Senior Assistant Editor. In his twenty- one years as a Journalist, he has covered a wide range of issue, including Jammu & Kashmir, the conflict in Punjab and matters of internal security.

Baruah worked as the newspaper's Special Correspondent in Colombo (1995 - 1997), Islamabad (1997 - 2000) and South - East Asia/Pacific Correspondent based in Singapore (2000 - 2002).

In 2000 Baruah was awarded the Prem Bhatia Award for excellence in journalism. the citation for the award read: 'He has shown courage and objectivity during his assignment in Pakistan; and his coverage of such major invents as Kargil, the Indian Airlines hijacking to Kandahar and the Musharraf coup was regarded as outstanding'

In 2000, Amit Baruah returned to New Delhi where he lives with his wife and two children.