Pulse of the people

Headlines from the Heartland:
Reinventing the Hindi public sphere
by Sevanti Ninan
Sage Publications, 2007

When the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), led by Mayawati, swept the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections this summer, the English-language media, pundits and political observers ensconced in Delhi were hit by a thunderbolt. None of the psephologists had predicted such a thumping majority for the unique Dalit-Brahmin-Bania grouping, which signalled a new trend in electoral alliances. But the Hindi press was not surprised. With a finger on the pulse of the people, the ‘regional media’ had long been tracking the Mayawati phenomenon and the realignment of castes, as well as the daily lives, tribulations and aspirations of the women and men of the kasbas and villages of the Hindi heartland. This, in spite of the accusations by Mayawati herself that the media (including the Hindi media) suffered from a pronounced upper-caste bias. And if regional parties, most importantly the BSP, are increasingly playing a significant role at both the state and national theatre, it is equally true that the regional press has put itself on the national media canvas – changing the discourse and realigning the frame.

This fact was confirmed by a survey completed this October. While India’s largest-circulation English-language daily, the Times of India (TOI), has 13.5 million readers, it occupies only tenth place by circulation. The top four spots are occupied by the Hindi press: Dainik Jagran at 53.6 million readers, Dainik Bhaskar at 30.6 million, Amar Ujala at 28.2 million and Hindustan at 23.5 million. Besides Hindi, the various other ‘language’ presses also recorded higher readerships, with the Tamil Daily Thanthi garnering 20.9 million readers, followed by the Marathi Lokmat (20.7 million), the Bengali Ananda Bazar Patrika (15.8 million) and the Telegu Eenadu (14.2 million).

Interestingly, while the Hindi press has a larger readership, it is an English-language newspaper that has the highest circulation. According to the Registrar of Newspapers in India, the largest circulated daily is TOI (six editions), with a circulation of 2.5 million copies. The second-largest circulated multi-edition daily is the Dainik Jagran (15 editions), with a circulation of 2.1 million copies – evidence perhaps of the enthusiasm for news leading to a larger numbers of readers per copy of a Hindi newspaper.

Yet these statistics, albeit interesting, do not tell the whole story of the newspaper revolution that swept north, west and central India during the 1990s. This was a transformation that defied the global trend of dipping newspaper readership against the ascendance of satellite-television and the Internet boom. Even a casual observer travelling across the Hindi-speaking states during these years would note the clusters of people around a single newspaper at road-side tea shops and bus stops – eager newspaper readers who did not have the luxury of a newspaper delivered to their home.

Up at a time of down
It is these complex changes that media analyst Sevanti Ninan tracks in her book, Headlines from the Heartland. From Banda District in Uttar Pradesh to Banswara in Rajasthan, from Bhagalpur in Bihar to Bastar in Chhattisgarh, this new work is the result of Ninan’s comprehensive, in-depth research in eight Hindi-speaking states, melded with an informed analysis of market compulsions and contemporary politics.

Economic and political factors both impacted on the birth of Hindi journalism itself. Interestingly, the first Hindi journal, a weekly called Oodunta Martand (Rising Sun), was launched in 1826 not in any of the Hindi-speaking areas of India, but in Calcutta. Though largely Bengali-speaking, the city had an influential number of Marwaris and other Hindi speakers who had been drawn to the commercial capital of the time. Indeed, it was fiction, verse and essays that occupied the Hindi reader until the late 19th century, when, against a backdrop of the nationalist movement, Hindi journalism became a vehicle for social messages and political activism.

Ninan chronicles the growth of Aj, launched in 1920 from Benaras by Shivprasad Gupta, a well-off landlord who was also a fervent supporter of the Congress party. Though Aj is today a shadow of its former self, its founder-editor Baburao Vishnu Paradkar is credited with establishing the tenets of Hindi journalism during its most idealistic phase. In 1942, Purnachand Gupta, who had been active in the freedom struggle as publisher of the weekly Swatantra, launched a daily from Jhansi. That paper, the Dainik Jagran, has stood the test of time over the decades, remaining the leading Hindi daily despite the vast growth in the number of Hindi publications since Independence. The Jagran Group has forged ahead not only in the newspaper business, but has also launched a successful television venture, Channel 7, which has now merged with TV 18’s CNN-IBN.

The expansion of Hindi newspapers can be attributed to three factors: growing literacy, increasing purchasing power, and better communications making it possible to print newspapers from a number of small towns and deliver them to semi-urban and rural areas early in the morning. Also significant, Ninan points out, was a more politically aware rural population in the Hindi belt that was hungry for news and analysis, as well as an increase in consumerism and growth in the rural market – changes that were dutifully noted and strategically targeted by consumer-goods manufacturers.

By 2005, all of the lead players in the industry were waging price wars, and wooing readers with gifts or coupons. In anticipation of prizes of cars, motorcycles and televisions, readers were enticed to choose one newspaper over another, and soon the coupon-clipping culture among readers caught on. Incentive schemes of plastic buckets, chairs and gift vouchers swung readership trends in favour of the Bhaskar group or Rajasthan Patrika. Besides readers, hawkers were also lured by incentives and commissions, thus skewing the selection of newspapers available in specific localities.

With the rural newspaper revolution being as much a revolution in advertising and consumerism, targeting local advertising was intrinsically linked to localisation of newspapers. City and district supplements apart, newspapers sought to zero in on what interested the local reader the most. Surveys launched by the larger newspaper groups, such as Bhaskar and Jagran, had shown that readers were more interested in local personalities and reading about events that occurred in their neighbourhood. This led to an undue emphasis on news from the back-alleys and mohallas, and contributed to increased fragmentation, as regional consciousness gave way to narrow identities, circumscribed by local realities. Simultaneously, the mantra of ‘reader interest’ is contributing to a de-politicisation of news. Ironically, localisation by bigger players in the newspaper industry has contributed to squeezing out the smaller, genuinely local, enterprises that could not effectively compete.

Who makes the news?
From a pithy analysis of the caste composition of the Hindi media – largely upper caste and upper class – Ninan explores the sensitive issue of journalism and communal politics, mirroring the marginalisation of minorities that characterised the public sphere. She also chronicles the precarious existence of most regional-language journalists, as well as the courage of a few committed journalists in remote areas.

The phenomenon of the local news gatherers – or stringers, so named due to payments based on column length measured by pieces of string – poses a challenge to the profession of journalism in general. Circulation agents and shopkeepers doubling as news gatherers; bus drivers acting as delivery agents; an overdose of crime reporting; religious and community events being published for a price, with poorly paid stringers using blackmail as a side-business – these are only some of the trends spawned by the rapid expansion of the regional-language newspaper industry. On the positive side, however, was the increased accountability of local bureaucracy, whose corruption and mismanagement would be immediately highlighted, no matter how minor.

Ninan’s meticulous research succeeds in highlighting the missing dimension of Hindi journalism. “When a local public sphere is market-driven those who remain outside its market do not figure in it,” she writes, “unless the newspaper is driven by a sharp social conscience.” Poverty, thus, is conspicuously absent from mainstream newspapers, which instead cover an abundance of miscellany. For instance, in Palamu, one of Jharkhand’s poorest districts, out of 776 items scanned over a month of Hindustan clippings covering the district, there was only one story each on poverty, hunger and exploitation. In contrast, Khabar Lahariya, a fortnightly newspaper in Bundelkhand that is brought out by rural women supported by an NGO, regularly highlights issues of Dalits, Adivasis, food security, water scarcity and irrigation.

Regarding communalism in the media, the book disappointingly assigns a mere four pages to deal with this complex interaction. Do readers drive a newspaper to take up a communal agenda, or does the media fan the flames of communal hatred? During the drive to build the Ram temple, in the run-up to the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Dainik Jagran and Aj had exhorted readers, through editorials, reports and appeals, to support the kar seva; the Dainik Jagran went so far as to inflate the figures of the number of dead Hindus in the firing on kar sevaks. Ninan quotes Ranchi-based editor Harivansh, who recalls the communally charged atmosphere in 1990: “After Prabhat Khabar reported that only six Hindus had died at Ayodhya, no cash sales were taking place.” Ninan merely hints at the changes that came about after more Muslims began reading Hindi newspapers, impelling a shift in stance in the Rajasthan Patrika and Dainik Bhaskar, for instance. But she does not tell the story of the irresponsible role that Hindi media played during the anti-Muslim carnage in Gujarat in 2002.

Fascinating tidbits are peppered throughout Headlines from the Heartland. For instance, Ninan cites piquant examples of media activism and the boosting of community spirit: Dainik Bhaskar decides to use money from advertisement revenue generated by shok notices (obituaries) to improve crematoria, leading to INR 7 million being donated to crematoria in cities where the newspaper appears. Not to be left behind, Rajasthan Patrika launches movements to rejuvenate water-harvesting structures in the desert state. Several other instances of newspapers attempting to make themselves relevant likewise demonstrate the vibrant interaction between reader, newsmakers and market.

Even as local newspapers are attempting to revive dialects such as Angika in Bhagalpur, Maithili in Bihar, Wagri in Rajasthan and Bundeli in Chitrakoot, Hindi, a language spoken by about 350 million people (more than the combined populations of France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom) is a growing force with which to reckon. Read Headlines from the Heartland to enter the world of Hindi journalism, with its sheer volume, innovativeness, tenacity and bluster.