Hanan Zaffar

Assistant Professor of Practice

B.Tech (NIT Srinagar);
M.A. Convergent Journalism (MCRC, Jamia Millia Islamia)

Hanan Zaffar is a media practitioner, multimedia storyteller and a documentary film maker based out of India. His work primarily focuses on South Asian politics, minorities, human rights and environment. Zaffar’s work from the region has appeared in The Time Magazine, Guardian, VICE, Al Jazeera, Business Insider, Deutsche Welle (DW), TRT World, Newsweek, Euro News, The Diplomat, Middle East Eye, Channel 4, and other reputed international media houses.

He is the recipient of several grants from International Centre for Journalists (ICJ), University of Sheffield, and Human Rights & Religious Freedom (HRRF) Awards.

Zaffar is one of the few reporters from the South Asia to be part of the Story Killers project, where more than 100 journalists from 30 countries worked to expose the inner workings of the global, secretive world of disinformation mercenaries. He has also jointly received the “HRRF Best Text Reporting on Human Rights & Religious Freedom Award” for his investigative writings on discrimination against minorities and marginalized in India.

Zaffar has also reported on Indian minorities and their marginalization for alternate media houses like The Wire, Newslaundry, The Quint, Caravan Magazine, Article 14, Outlook Magazine and Newsclick, among others.

He currently teaches in JIBS and looks after its flagship media ensemble JIBS Infotainment, that aims at rendering complex academic subject matter into formats that are palatable and comprehensible to a lay audience, thereby bridging the gap between scholarly inquiry and public understanding.

The films on issues of gender based violence, and psychosocial issues produced by him for the institute have won several awards at international film festivals like Cefalu Film Festival (Italy), Erronka Munduan , Kursaal Film Festival (Spain), Jagran Film Festival (India), among others.

He has qualified University Grants Commission’s National Eligibility Test (NET) in 2020.

Research and Teaching Experience

Zaffar is particularly interested in South Asian politics and minorities through the media dissemination lens. His work at the intersection of  media, human rights and environment has been published in several journals of repute. He also teaches an elective course on “The Art of Humane Storytelling in Media” that covers writing for media whilst navigating the associated ethical conundrums. He is also Contributing Editor (India) at Fair Planet, a global not-profit enterprise that operates a global network of over 200 specialised journalists and media experts in 60 countries, across all continents.

Publications

  1. Basheer, Intifada P. and Zaffar, H (2023) Uniform Civil Code: How media impacts Muslim identity and rights in India. Manchester Journal of Transnational Islamic Law & Practice, 19 (4). pp. 229-246. ISSN 2633-6626
  2. Zaffar, H., (2023) Blessed are the persecuted. Index on Censorship, Sage Journals 52 (1). pp. 66-67. ISSN 0306-4220
  3. Zaffar, H., & Habibullah, H. (2022 Fighting back against vendetta Politics. Index on Censorship, Sage Journals 51 (3). pp. 24-25. ISSN 1746-6067