Why Journalism in India Is Suffering a Credibility Crisis

A Journal of the press Institute of India ISSN 0042-5303 October-December 2014 Volume 6 Issue 4 Rs 50 Why journalism in India is suffering a credibility crisis

Every journalist relies at some point on anecdotal journalism, where you use a personal experience to bolster a point. Those of us who have abandoned the field to CONTENTS pontificate do it more often than most. But can one solitary • When pictures speak experience, without corroborating evidence, be enough much louder than words / to damn a movement, a cause, a man? It is also true that Sakuntala Narasimhan journalism thrives on bad news, on the exposure of those • A state’s sanitation-drive feet of clay and on iconoclasm. If everybody was perfect story stinks / Anjali Singh and did always what they promised, we’d be out of jobs, Ranjona Banerji • Will 33% reservation for says Ranjona Banerji women ever happen? / Vibhuti Patel ow then does one judge the media’s response to Kailash Satyarthi’s • The Budget seems to have Nobel Peace Prize, shared with Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan? Satyarthi bypassed needy women / His a child rights activist and runs the Bachpan Bachao Andolan. He is Vibhuti Patel not very well known in India – the media can stand up and take a bow here • – but has worked in the carpet industries which employ children. A member Chilling lack of sensitivity in cinema, on TV / Bharat of his organisation, Dhoom Das, was apparently assassinated for his efforts in Dogra freeing children. An article in Forbes tells us breathlessly that Satyarthi is a “flawed hero” • A community radio station because she (the writer) visited the carpet manufacturing areas with the BBA aims at empowering people / and did not see any children working in any homes as the BBA man she met Suchi Gaur and Sarita Anand had claimed. Then she says that child labour is a serious problem in India and • Will the Web complement in the carpet industry as well. Then she makes an elliptical insinuation that or supplant print media? / NGOs fudge figures to get funding. Then she says that Satyarthi, whom she did Ramakrishna Bantu not meet, is a flawed hero. • View from the Northeast / There is no corroborative evidence to prove that the Bachpan Bachao Nava Thakuria Andolan and Satyarthi are involved in fraud of any kind. Maybe they are but • this personal experience does not tell you about it. Is this an example of why The dubbing debacle / Shoma A. Chatterji journalism in India is suffering such a credibility crisis? Opinion based on half- baked facts masquerading as truth? • When fake is original and Or is it the saga over Rajdeep Sardesai and his behaviour with Indians in stealing is art / Amitava Nag New York queuing up to see Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Madison • History of Punjabi Journalism Square Garden in September 2014? / Mrinal Chatterjee

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October-December 2014 VIDURA 1 From the Editor Is objectivity no longer a sacrosanct principle?

Narendra Modi has turned Publishers and editors now have after. There was a repeat telecast, out to be a different kind of the feeling that the government’s too. It was almost like an Indian prime minister, especially for the intent is to keep media away; the Government PR exercise etched media. What media houses had government’s refusal to invite to perfection, the only difference perhaps not quite bargained for media representatives for various being that those conducting it was his becoming content to get public and diplomatic functions is were some of India’s private TV along merrily without feeling the an example they cite. channels. It was an extravaganza need to court any of them. Modi of theatre, song and speech… and was known to be a man of few Indeed, referring to the restricted anchoring, the like of which I have needs, but editors and journalists access to ministers and bureaucrats, never ever seen. If only media hadn’t really thought they’d have the Editors Guild of India has asked focused its attention to covering to contend with being ignored, the Modi Government to "enlarge the more pressing issues of the day something they are not really used access and engage more actively" (public health, for instance), what to. The Modi Government seems with journalists. "By delaying the a positive change that would bring quite happy making do with All establishment of a media interface to the lives of the underprivileged India Radio, Doordarshan, PTI and in the Prime Minister's Office, millions! UNI. At a time when journalism in in restricting access to ministers India is facing a credibility crisis, and bureaucrats in offices and in Against such over-the-top when objectivity and independence reducing the flow of information at coverage, I was stunned by the lack are hardly considered sacrosanct home and abroad, the government of coverage where it was necessary. anymore (read the lead article by in its early days seems to be on When former Tamil Nadu Chief Ranjona Banerji), it does make sense a path that runs counter to the Minister J. Jayalalithaa and her in a strange sort of way to keep the norms of democratic discourse and three associates were sentenced to media at arm’s length. Modi has accountability," the Guild has said in four years imprisonment and sent no media advisor; reports suggest a statement, stressing that the public to jail, one Chennai newspaper did he has a septuagenarian public will be well served by “professional not mention a word of it on Page 1, relations officer. journalistic practices”. preferring to fill up the page with Modi’s performance in New York. Several media houses, as powerful The other side of the story is As a loyal reader, I felt terribly let as they are, are unhappy with the about private television channels down. Where had the journalism of goings-on. They seem irked by the pulling out all the stops to provide courage disappeared, I wondered. fact that Modi manages to get his virtually non-stop coverage of messages across to the masses from Modi’s speeches, campaigns, rallies, public platforms and via social etc. Ahead of his visit to the USA, Sashi Nair media, and not exclusively through the channels announced the timings [email protected] their newspapers and channels. The of coverage, the composition of their Indian people have certainly taken teams in the studios in New York to the PM’s social-media vitality in and outside, and how such coverage a big way, at least judging by the was not to be missed. The telecast followers he has on Twitter and from Madison Square Garden began the anxiousness many show to hours before Modi arrived; NRIs send him (PMO) messages online. queued up for interviews before and

2 VIDURA October-December 2014 Illustration: Arun Ramkumar Illustration:

(Continued from page 1) understandable. It is the stand of Interestingly, India’s entire journalists which is more intriguing. TV media was outside Madison Sardesai got into a fight with Journalists promptly jumped into Square Garden at the time so why members of the public which led the fray long before all the facts Sardesai should be questioned, to some physical intimidation and were known. The YouTube video and that too by other journalists abusive language – by Sardesai and only started with Sardesai abusing who were not even there, is up for by the people he was talking to. a member of the public and the man discussion surely. Further, many However, the incident itself is retaliating. It seemed unlikely even were acting as cheerleaders for the masked in the Left versus Right then that Sardesai just walked up to prime minister and those were not or the Rest versus the BJP colour a man and called him names for no similarly excoriated on social media which has pervaded Indian polity. reason. But many fellow journalists or in print by the journalists who Social media has given voices to the were quite happy to believe that attacked Modi. voiceless and people on all sides of and promptly started discussing It is almost as if in today’s India, the spectrum jumped in as soon as Sardesai’s love for the Congress, his if you praise the establishment you a YouTube clip of Sardesai abusing needless provocation of the public are a good journalist but if you ask a man went viral. by asking them uncomfortable uncomfortable questions, well, then The public reaction and that questions and the need for Sardesai you’re a Congress agent. Several of the fans of Modi are both to be there at all. journalists who were present and

October-December 2014 VIDURA 3

eyewitness to the incident jumped of their writings against Narendra party line and still survive? Sooner to Sardesai’s defence, even if they Modi. How much of this is political or later, we’ll have to find an answer< did work for rival media houses. philosophy or corporate cadging or someone will find it for us. They talked about how Sardesai for government favours is anyone’s was attacked, how his wife and guess. children were insulted and how he It has been pointed out that (The writer is a senior journalist and was told to “go back to Pakistan”. independent journalists and columnist based in Dehradun.) This is the last-word-defence from a few newspapers are the few the “nationalistic” pro-BJP Indian: standing against the onslaught of anyone who does not support the genuflecting journalists and media BJP should “go back to Pakistan”. owners, notably in an excellent The implications are obvious. piece by Mitali Saran in Business Most of the journalists who Standard. Paid news is now rampant. attacked Sardesai did it on social The fight between film star Deepika media. But Zee News made a Padukone and The Times of India’s Bangalore story on the fight outside Madison entertainment section showed how Square Garden, with free and easy far the corporate rot has spread its Mirror now a comments questioning Sardesai’s tentacles into journalism, where rise in journalism, claiming that former HR officers are now editors. broadsheet it was based on favouritism. They The lines between journalism and also questioned the credentials the corporate world are getting Bangalore Mirror has donned of his wife Sagarika Ghose, and increasingly blurred. a new avatar from 10th October. implied that the two had reached Just as Modi’s New York trip Launched in 2007, in a tabloid as far as they had because of the overshadowed all other news in format, the paper has changed influence wielded by Bhaskar the world and was given blanket to a broadsheet to offer more to Ghose, Sagarika’s father. However, coverage on TV – including some readers and advertisers alike. like the Forbes piece on Satyarthi, no pathetic dancing by NRIs – so was Bangalore Mirror will continue evidence was provided, not even his Clean India campaign launched to retain its spirit of a spunky and conjecture, just insinuation. There on Gandhi Jayanti and before that, fearless voice of the city and will was plenty of outrage of the “how his speech on Teacher’s Day. In offer readers the same excitement dare Sardesai” variety, not very the old days, All India Radio and in a bigger avatar. The paper will different from the reactions of BJP Doordarshan were blamed for being become broadbased in terms of fans on social media. mouthpieces of the government content offered, 18-20 pages, with Sardesai only recently issued of the day. In these times, they are more space dedicated to Nation a statement apologising for his no longer necessary perhaps as and other key news sections. A intemperate language but also captive news channels. Everyone 360-degree marketing blitzkrieg talking about the assault on his is a voluntary captive. In a first comprising outdoor, television

family. Fellow journalists have been though, Doordarshan outdid itself commercial, sampling, on-ground largely silent here. Is it because with its live telecast of Rashtriya activation, etc themed around ‘Big’ < they took sides too quickly? Need Swayamsewak Sangh chief Mohan Bangalore Mirror is planned. they have taken sides at all? Should Bhagwat’s Dassera speech. Why Sardesai have lost his cool and called should the RSS be given such (Courtesy: exchange4media. the man the word he did? Definitely prominence on a government- com) not. Do the rest of us have the right owned TV channel? The answer is to sit on this impossible judgmental easy and frightening. moral high ground? Definitely not. The Editors’ Guild of India did Indeed, journalism in India is a curious thing the other day. It struggling through a credibility asked the prime minister for more crisis. The change of government access to his office. Instead, perhaps, Subscribe to at the Centre and the enormous those venerable editors should influx of corporate money into the have instructed their journalists RIND SURVEY top news channels seem to have to be more objective, less sceptical ensured that objectivity is no longer and taken away the cheerleading Only Rs 480 for an editorial requirement. Several pompoms they were flaunting. How top journalists have lost prestigious long can journalism get away with 12 issues jobs in the last few months because giving up its independence to toe a

4 VIDURA October-December 2014 ADVERTISING AND EDITORIAL Where do we draw the lakshman rekha? An eagerly awaited talk at the WAN-IFRA Newsroom Summit in New Delhi was the one by T.N. Ninan, chairman of Business Standard and a member of the World Editors Forum Board. Ninan dwelt on the blurring line between business and editorial. It could not have been more appropriate, coming at a time when business pressures and over-dependence on advertising revenue are surging to the fore. Excerpts from his speech

here is no lakshman rekha thinking of innovative ways of benchmarks (ethical limits of an action of breaking through the clutter and for what they Ta convention or rule). The of getting their message noticed. will do and T.N. Ninan line between advertising and Inevitably, this has meant intruding what they editorial has been blurred perhaps into editorial space in one form will not do. Over time, readers permanently and often there is no or another. Finally, these changes come to recognise who has what line at all. The problem with the have undermined the fundamental benchmarks and where. And they debate is that it is often placed on assumptions on which the media make their mental adjustments. ‘A’ a moral context, of good practices business has been founded. That publication or news channel can be and bad practices. I think it is more readers will pay for at least a good trusted or relied upon more than ‘B’ instructive to look at the economic part of the cost of creating content, channel and C has one kind of bias and technological reasons which as and that advertisers will pay for the while D has another. If you serve Marxists would say have changed rest. Neither is true in the world of an information need, the reader the objective reality. First, there is the Internet. Readers are used to or viewer or visitor will stay with too much media around, including free content, and advertising rates you and apply appropriate mental new media. No economy can per website visitor is a fraction of filters. sustain so many newspapers, the rates per newspaper reader. So, This heterogeneity is not new. magazines, television channels and if you want to balance what you It was always there. What is new websites. Much of today’s media, lose in print advertising with web that people consume multiple therefore, has no realistic hope of advertising you typically have to media in a way that they did not financial viability. The resultant get ten times volume of visitors before. The sheer plethora of media pressure on publications has forced compared to the number of readers and the ease of access on different many among them to breach the you have lost. platforms make this possible. Chinese wall between editorial and It would be futile in such a world Anyone doing this, jumping from advertising in a desperate effort to for most editorial operations to print to television to a magazine raise more revenue. hope that the past will survive to a website, to a mobile phone, is The second development is into the future unchanged and likely to be less judgmental about that there is a great deal of churn unchallenged. When your boat is the quality and reputation of any in business. New products, new being tossed about in a story sea, particular media title. If you don’t businesses, new ideas are being editorial and business get together have a monogamous relationship tried out in the market at a pace and in the common purpose of survival. with a media outlet, you are less with a force that have no precedent People in that situation stop likely to be choosy about your in the market. This is, of course, thinking of Chinese walls which media bedmates. Even in the days linked to rapid technological are built on stable land. of pristine print and monogamous changes and breakthroughs which What about the sacred relationships, and legendary editors have spawned new businesses relationship between journalists like C.P. Scott of The Guardian, at unimaginable speed. The and their reading or viewing different media forms and outlets consequence of this is a third public? The truth is that this is drew the line differently. The most development – advertising clutter, not a sacred relationship after all. particular were usually the big which has prodded marketers into Different media outlets put different newspapers whose editors often

October-December 2014 VIDURA 5 adopted tones of lofty idealism and walls are said to have operated most would not allow bastard creations effectively, it is because they are in like advertorials. Since the leading decline and feeling the financial newspapers were profitable or pressure. Simultaneously, the media Kungumam enjoyed local monopolies, there form that has grown the most is the was no financial pressure to website where endless creativity Doctor change. What was frowned on in and flexibility are the order of the newspapers was often accepted in day. Magazines are threatened even launched magazines. more than newspapers and are Kungumam, owned by South Magazines that deal in travel, increasingly willing to deal with Indian media conglomerate luxury products, entertainment, sponsored content. The choice of Kalanithi Maran’s Sun Network, motoring, food and the like have subject often depends on the subject has launched a health magazine, editorial content that often reads as that has sponsorship. Kungumam Doctor. The magazine promotional as any ad. Advertisers We may or may not like these hit the newsstands on August 29. influence choice of subjects, travel trends but what I have described are The magazine was launched with for a story is sponsored. These the facts and the emerging reality. It 64 pages; later the group plans publications have professional so happens that they reflect more to increase the number of pages journalists practising their craft the trends in the subaltern media, after looking at the response from with as much pride as anyone else. meaning the smaller or niche or the readers. The magazine has a It is just that the benchmarks are vernacular media outlets. Those cover price of Rs 15 and an initial different. We even have a new term least likely to cave in have been print run of 60000 copies. The for this: native advertising. Native, the mainstream titles and channels. group expects to take the number because advertising is supposed Though I must say that the ones in to 1 lakh copies within a span of to blend seamlessly with editorial India have been more ready to fall six months after the launch. The content, so you can’t tell who in step with the new trends than magazine has been launched as belongs here and who is a foreigner the mainstream media overseas. a fortnightly on a pan-India basis. and the reader cannot distinguish We could even say that some There are plans to go digital after which is what. mainstream media have shown the launch. It helps in this process that news the way in breaking down Chinese The magazine will offer health television is more flexible than walls. But frankly, the debate has tips for healthy living, prevention newspapers. Brokers can push gone beyond the good and bad in and remedy for all kinds of health specific stocks and the disclaimers such pioneering effort. issues with inputs from specialists about conflict of interest are like We can apply normative values and so on. The idea behind the wall paper – designed to be ignored. to these facts and trends and say we magazine launch is to help readers Sponsored content is rampant and disapprove. Or that we will stick to lead a happy, healthy and wealthy the sponsor influences the choice of the old ways of the media business, life. Competition includes Doctor the subject of a programme, while and you will be within your rights Vikatan from the Vikatan Group’s

leaving the specific content of the to do so. Speaking for myself, I stable and from Kumudum Health < programme to the channel. In the find it hard to be anything other Kumudum Group in Chennai. most blatant of cases, it would than an old-style newspaper editor simply become paid news, which who thinks that editorial content (Courtesy: exchange4media. in India is more of a phenomenon is editorial content and advertising com) in the regional press during content is advertising content and election time. Because these are neither should cross the gutter the titles that have limited claim on between the two columns and enter advertising money and elections the other’s territory. But we must therefore signal pay day. In recognise that other publications business television I would venture and editors may and will choose to say that half or more of the different sets of parameters within Subscribe to content sometimes comes across which to operate. Is that something

as advertising influence to some to get upset about? Perhaps. But VIDURA degree, and newspapers now have we have to recognise it and learn to < almost entire sections which are deal with it. Only Rs 200 for declared to be only advertorials. If the lines have got blurred even 4 issues in newspapers, where the Chinese

6 VIDURA October-December 2014 HOW ‘DEVELOPMENT’ IGNORES THE HUMAN CONDITION When pictures speak much louder than words One picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. This dictum came to Sakuntala Narasimhan’s mind as she saw the picture in the day’s newspaper, of an aged rickshaw puller struggling to haul a mountainous load through a flooded street following heavy rains. The picture continues to haunt her, weeks after she first saw it. Evocative visuals, even one single photograph, can tell a story with a stronger punch than reams of written analyses, she says

eavy rains have been in his way through, towards his day without the news in recent weeks, destination. having to lug Hwith reports of landslides, We have academic discussions a load of a Sakuntala traffic jams, building collapses and about the ‘poverty line’, whether hundred kilos, Narasimhan uprooted trees from different parts it is one dollar a day or one-and- sinews ready of the country – ‘Roads waterlogged a-half, whether such statistical to burst. Poverty is not just lack of after rains’, ‘Normal life disrupted measurements are valid, but money, it is the degradation of the after downpour’ and ‘Suburbs the basic fact, of degrading and human condition that our kind of inundated after heavy showers in dehumanising poverty, gets ‘development’ seems to ignore, the city’ were some of the headlines conveyed far more eloquently by a preferring the flashy facades of we had during July-August. It is the photo than a ‘story’ in words. Even market-driven commercialisation. monsoon season, so what’s new? animals slink to safety, seeking We are not even talking of the We scan the headlines, barely read shelter from the rain, but a rickshaw neglect of the rural segment; this the details in the body of the news or handcart puller cannot, because load puller is in the middle of item, and turn the page, unless it he needs his earnings to stifle his the urban metropolis, in Kolkata, is about our own area or city. As hunger. surrounded by fancy cars and two- long as our dwellings are safe, and Does anyone in a ‘developed’ wheelers. That one little picture we have umbrellas and raincoats country pull heavy loads like this, says it all, capturing the lopsided to reach for when we need to go for a living? ‘progress’ we are pursuing. out in wet weather, we do not While doing a story on The media in Karnataka spare a thought for those who are rickshaw pullers some years ago, focused this summer on the economically disadvantaged and I unearthed the chilling fact that horrendous problem of mounds for their woes during downpour. most of them – even among cycle of garbage, several thousand But here was a picture (in rickshaw workers – fall prey to tonnes of it, dumped at Mandur the Deccan Herald) of an elderly, chest ailments and pulmonary and Mavallipura on the outskirts obviously indigent worker, bow- diseases due to the strain, within of Bengaluru, resulting in the legged, barefooted, dhoti hitched a few years. They also develop residents of the villages protesting knee high, pulling through the rain painful varicose veins at a young in thousands, against the stink, a massively overloaded rickshaw, age, which makes it more difficult and the health hazards caused by piled with large packages, because to ply their trade. Does anyone the dumping of waste brought in he needs the money and can’t care? Our politicians (of whatever from the metropolis for ‘disposal’. take shelter citing inconvenience. ideology) and administrators “Our ground water and fields A thousand words could not focus on ‘development’ in terms are polluted, our crops wilt, our have conveyed the plight of such of ‘infrastructure’, ‘e-coverage’, children are falling sick due to miserably poor citizens, however and ‘signal-free corridors to the ground water contamination,” the eloquent the report. Cars (with international airport’, but the poor residents said. And the authorities, their windowpanes rolled up) and cannot even reach for their basic the state government and the city two-wheelers will drive past him, needs. A decent living wage, some corporation, made polite noises splashing him with muddy, slushy, relief in old age, protection from promising to “do something”. water, while he wades and heaves inclement weather, two meals a Deadline after deadline was

October-December 2014 VIDURA 7 announced over nearly two years, to life (there was a report in the but nothing happened. same paper on 21 August). And then, the papers carried The villagers had reportedly a photograph of the state chief been asking for a bridge across minister, Siddaramaiah, holding a the river for a “very long time” kerchief to his nose, unable to bear but the administration had not the stink, as he ‘visited’ Mandur heeded their request. It took a in August. This, in spite of the picture to draw attention to the administration ‘cleaning up the travails of the villagers. And this place’ in an intensive operation, is in Gujarat, held up as a ‘model’ spraying, deodorising and of development, for the rest of the disinfecting, the day before the VIP’s country to emulate. Not just one or visit. If this was how it was, after a two children, but 125 of them, from frantic ‘clean-up’ in anticipation of 16 villages, having to swim 100 a VIP’s visit, what was it like for the metres, that too, just 180 km from residents before, when 400 lorries the state capital. dumped hundreds of tonnes of The day after Janmashtami was rubbish daily? That kerchief held to celebrated around the country, The his nose by the chief minister said Photos: SN Hindu carried a photograph of a it all far more eloquently than all burqa-clad Muslim woman leading the written reports published and a child, dressed as Krishna, by the broadcast over the last few months. A rickshaw puller in Kolkata. This hand. That picture again, made a Even photos of the massive mounds picture appeared in the Deccan very eloquent statement about the of accumulated garbage, did not Herald on August 6. Hindu-Muslim amity that marks have the same effect as the picture our citizenry, a fact that tends to of the CM holding his nose, eyes Pictures of MLAs and ministers get masked by reports of groups screwed up in disgust. (including the Congress chief of religious fanatics inciting minister of Karnataka) snoozing communal clashes. A large number during sessions (including a of readers commented on that discussion on the increasing photograph which caught the eye incidence of rape and crimes against far more effectively than written women) likewise made a statement reports. far more effectively than written words about official apathy. We have had countless reports in the media, about the sorry state of government schools, especially in the rural areas. Most of us read the headlines, but it was again a picture of schoolchildren in Chotaudepur District in Gujarat trying to reach their school across the river during the rainy season, by swimming across, after undressing on one shore, thrusting their clothes into brass pots to prevent them getting wet, and putting them on again after reaching the other bank, that has drawn the attention of the officials to the plight of these hapless students. Following the publication of the photo in the Deccan Herald, the National Human Rights Commission issued a notice to the ‘The festival spirit’, says The Hindu Gujarat Government, pointing out of August 18. The picture shows a In the Deccan Herald of August 3, that the plight of the children raises Muslim woman with a child dressed titled ‘CM smells Mandur’. serious issues regarding their right up as Krishna.

8 VIDURA October-December 2014 'Get set, swim to school’ was how Deccan Herald titled the pictures on August 5. They show children undressing on one shore, thrusting their clothes into brass pots to prevent them getting wet, and putting them on again after reaching the other bank.

Evocative visuals, even one single doubtless they can capture a fleeting become an activist for consumer photograph, can tell a story with a moment, an incident requiring vital rights. She is a recipient of the Media stronger punch than reams of written evidence. If a pen (or keyboard, in Foundation’s Chameli Devi Award analyses. Photographs however, these days of the computer) can for Outstanding Woman Journalist cost more, for reproduction, be a powerful tool for articulation of the Year (1983), the K.S. Aiyar compared to written words, so cost- and even mobilisation of readers’ Memorial award for Outstanding cutting considerations sometimes support, a camera in the hands of a Writing on Socially Relevant Issues, reduce the use of photographs, gifted and astute photographer can the PUCL National Award for Human

especially if there are budgetary too. And on occasion, it can be even Rights Journalism,and the Deepalaya constraints; besides, it requires far more powerful than the written< National Award for Child Rights more sensitivity and patience on word. Journalism. Her fortnightly columns the part of a photographer, plus the on gender issues and consumer rights ability to quickly shoot and catch ran in the Deccan Herald for 27 a moment. (The writer, based in Bangalore, years.) In the age of the cellphone with gave up a job with the Times of camera, perhaps photographs may India Group in Mumbai to write not be exactly works of art but her columns, acquire two PhDs and

40th year coming up for Business Standard Business Standard will turn 40 come March. Born as a single-edition newspaper in Calcutta in 1975, the paper has had an invigorating journey since then. Currently it is published from 12 centres across India and is one of the publications preferred by serious business news followers. The Business Standard stable consisting of the English newspaper, the website business-standard.com and Business Standard Hindi (which was launched in 2008 and is published from eight centres), has not only seen an extended reader base in India alone, but also has global footprint with a large number of readers in financial centres such as New York, London, Dubai and Singapore. This year, Business Standard celebrates 40 years of Thought Leadership with a series of initiatives that have been planned around this landmark year, through the year. Editorially, a series of articles have been commissioned, that chronicle the changes that the paper has witnessed, and has contributed to in the world of business and the economy at large. The newspaper has also released a new brand campaign. Through a series of simple, yet effective TV commercials, it portrays the role it plays in helping readers achieve their aspirations. The ads will be telecast in a focussed manner to reach a relevant audience. The TVCs will also be up on YouTube. Some well-known commentators who have contributed to the pages of Business Standard have gone on to take up influential roles in Government –Ashok Lahiri, Arvind Subramanian, Subir Gokarn and Urjit Patel. Shankar

Acharya and Nitin Desai, two former chief economic advisors to the government, continue to write for the paper. <

(Courtesy: exchange4media.com)

October-December 2014 VIDURA 9 Fighting graft, securing maternal health benefits The progress in improving maternal health parametres at the grassroots has been slow but steady. While the community has moved forward and decided to protect the interests of pregnant women and newborns, more work needs to be done to ensure better service delivery, says Ajitha Menon, reporting from Kishanganj in Bihar. She focuses on the many women who have been brought under the Department of International Development-supported Global Poverty Action Fund initiative, ‘Improving Maternal Health Status in Six States in India’, launched by Oxfam India in October 2012

asooma Begum had her a vehicle costs at least Rs 800 to Rs my weight and blood pressure first child at 16. That was in 1000. My husband simply could checked periodically and I am no Mearly 2012. Even today, the not afford it. I had an unassisted longer anaemic because I have been horror of that experience is clearly delivery at home and somehow my regularly taking the iron pills,” she etched in her mind. Emotionally daughter and I survived,” recalls informs with a bright smile. vulnerable and physically weak, the young mother. This transformation in Masooma the resident of Mahesmara Masooma is 18 now and expecting – as well as hundreds of other Village that falls in Jahangirpur her second baby. But she is not women in Jahangirpur GP, Pothia Gram Panchayat (GP) in one of panicking this time because not only Block – has been brought under Bihar’s most backward districts, is she better informed and prepared, the Department of International Kishanganj, was forced to have a even the state of healthcare in her Development (DFID)-supported painful and complicated delivery area has improved. “I am aware that Global Poverty Action Fund at home. “There is a government I can avail of the free ambulance initiative, ‘Improving Maternal health centre at Damalbari, three service to the primary health Health Status in Six States in km from our village, but it has centre (PHC). I also know that after India’, launched by Oxfam India never been functional. So, we have delivery I will get Rs 1400 under in October 2012. Across Bihar, to go to the one at the block level in the Janani SurakshaYojana (JSY). the intervention has reached out Pothia, which is 25 km away. Hiring These days, I make sure that I get to women in 70 villages of three districts, Kishanganj, Supaul and Sitamarhi. The first thing that came to light was that the benefits were being misappropriated and not reaching the new mothers, when the Bihar Voluntary Health Association (BVHA), Oxfam’s grassroots partner, started work in the 22 project villages of Kishanganj. “During the discussions held with the community someone pointed out that a woman in the neighbouring village had collected the cash incentive given under JSY twice within nine months. Subsequently, it came out that several women in Mahesmara had, in fact, received Photos: AM/WFS Photos: nothing. With the help of BVHA volunteers, we questioned our Expectant mothers in Mahesmara are now aware of benefits under the Janani accredited social health activist Suraksha Yojana, such as free ambulance service and cash incentive on delivery (ASHA) and followed it up at the in a hospital. panchayat level as well. What came

10 VIDURA October-December 2014 out from the inquiry was quite others involved. At the same time, shocking – cash had been paid out thanks to the movement, under against all the names registered which rigorous advocacy was for institutional delivery although done by BVHA, every woman none of the actual beneficiaries had in Mahesmara, and those in the got it,” shares Noorbano Begum, nearby villages, too, got to know of 46, president of Mahesmara Village their entitlements under JSY,” says Health, Sanitation and Nutrition Noorbano. Community tracking Committee (VHSNC) set up by finally revealed money laundering BVHA under the guidance of to the tune of Rs 30 lakhs in Pothia Oxfam India. Block. Such committees, comprising In the past two years, there 15-20 members, including eight to has been a marked improvement nine women, are present in all the in pregnant women’s access to project villages. Unlike the Village facilities such as free ambulance Health and Sanitation Committees service, cash incentive and (VHSCs) that are constituted by the check-ups done at the anganwadi government at the panchayat level, (day-care) centres. The VHSNC Members of the Village Health, the VHSNCs operate at the village members, however, are not resting Sanitation and Nutrition Committee level. Incidentally, Noorbano is on their laurels, as there is still a lot (VHSNC) of Mahesmara examine the also a member of the VHSC in that needs to be done. “Though my diet chart specially created for children Jahangirpur GP, which comprises name had been registered with the at the local anganwadi centre. three villages. ANM, I delivered at the Lion’s Club While auditing the functioning Medical College, a private facility spend money to reach the PHC or of the scheme, another startling in the area (accredited under JSY). I hospital… Currently, there is just discovery was made: money have a proper birth certificate issued one ambulance to ferry women so had been issued in the name of by them as well. But the PHC has it’s not always at hand,” reveals local women who had gone to refused to give me the cash incentive Nazli Begum, 35, ASHA worker neighbouring West Bengal for their and even the gram panchayat is not of Mahesmara, adding, “Despite delivery. “There is a big hospital giving me a birth card. In fact, the the challenges, over the last two in Islampur, West Bengal, which panchayat sevak (assistant) has even years, institutional deliveries have is 10 km away. Many couples go asked for Rs 600 to issue it. Now the increased from 20 to 60 per cent.” there for delivery even if they are VHSNC is handling the case and Meraj Danish, BVHA’s thematic registered with the local auxiliary I am confident that there will be a coordinator in Kishanganj, is nurse midwife (ANM). Besides, solution soon,” says Afroza Begum, positive about the progress: “We many women married here have 24. “There are nine such cases in have succeeded in sensitising the maternal homes in Bengal and go our village and the community is community towards the issue of there for delivery. We realised that creating pressure on panchayat maternal health. The ICDS meals the money had been withdrawn officials for a resolution,” points for infants, pregnant women on the basis of registration but was out Md Habib Alam, Afroza’s and lactating mothers are being never paid,” elaborates Mustaq husband. monitored by the community, as Alam, 48, another VHSNC and Here’s why there is a need to is the distribution of iron tablets. VHSC member. ensure smooth implementation Pregnant women are following the The people of Mahesmara of JSY in the region. Kishanganj diet chart and getting their weight decided to fight the corruption. has a low literacy rate of 57.04, and blood pressure checked timely. Its VHSNC members wrote to the with female literacy at a low 47.98. Soon we will step up advocacy pradhan (chief) of Jahangirpur GP, Among the Muslim community, related to conducting protein urine the district medical officer in charge the female literacy rate is still lower test and other blood tests, which are (MOIC), the civil surgeon and the and most girls are married before covered in JSY, but are not being

district magistrate regarding the 18. This has an impact on the infant done anywhere in the state as yet.” anomalies in the disbursement mortality rate here which is 56, < of JSY funds. “We became aware while the maternal mortality ratio of the power we have when we is as high as 349 (Annual Health (Courtesy: Women’s Feature Service) could manage to collect evidence Survey 2012-13). and put it before the authorities “Deliveries at home are a risk who were compelled to suspend for the mother and children. Yet, and later arrest the MOIC and the reality is that most people don’t

October-December 2014 VIDURA 11 A state’s sanitation-drive story stinks, and why

Various projects to construct toilets in Uttar Pradesh remain bogged down for different reasons. The progress reports don’t mirror reality in many cases. It seems obvious that good intentions of achieving complete sanitation in UP will find it hard to succeed. But who will ask questions? Or who can be made accountable, wonders Anjali Singh he Samajwadi Party-led Interestingly, last year (2013- rural areas. government in Uttar Pradesh 14) the panchayati raj department The Govern- Trecently presented its budget, in Uttar Pradesh had written to ment of India with allocations for construction of the Central Government listing instructions Anjali Singh latrines and sanitation woven into it, the constraints it was facing in were to con- prompted by the gruesome killings implementation of the NBA due duct IEC acti- of minor girls in Katra Village. But to the Centre’s guidelines. Among vities at all levels; that is, states/ is the gesture more than a feeble and other things, the guidelines make union territories, districts, blocks face-saving attempt? The allocation it mandatory for states to source at and gram panchayats. Yet, in UP, a for sanitation includes a proposed least 50 per cent of the funds from ban in effect on IEC activities since Rs 6335.02 crore to Panchayati Raj the Mahatma Gandhi National 2011 was lifted only in November with an additional allocation of Rs Rural Employment Guarantee 2013. Though a comprehensive 3964.40 crore focussed on rolling out (MGNREGS), specifically applying communication strategy was the Ram Manohar Lohia Samagra to the construction of public toilets developed by the UNICEF in Uttar Gram Vikas Yojna for Sanitation in villages. Pradesh for the Panchayati Raj and Community Development. In Uttar Pradesh, MGNREGS Department way back in 2011, it A paltry Rs 300 crore has has been ridden with corruption, was never implemented. been set apart additionally for which has adversely affected funds The Panchayati Raj Department construction of KC drains interlock availability. The Panchayati Raj was again asked to compute its and tiles. Under the Nirmal Bharat Department had projected a need funds requirement for 2014-15 Abhiyan (NBA) and Ram Manohar for Rs 514 crore in FY 2012-13 for for constructing public toilets. Lohia Samgra Vikas Yojna, 418000 the implementation of NBA, but the But during the period, too, individual toilets will now be Department of Rural Development implementation seems to be constructed. Only select villages which implements the scheme was running into rough weather, with (names have yet to be announced) able to cough up only Rs 108 crore. the state government contending will benefit from the programme, The 45 per cent funds shortage that as per NBA guidelines, every and a sum of Rs 166.86 crore has threw a spanner in the work of toilet constructed is taken as one been allocated for it. toilet construction in most gram project. Though the issue is yet On the other hand, Rs 52 crore panchayats of the State. to be resolved, the latest budget has been earmarked for the Rajiv Through a communication, dated gives an impression that the state is Gandhi Panchayat Employment July 18, 2013 to all states, the Union agreeable to the 80:20 ratio set for Campaign, for Food Security and Ministry of Drinking Water and implementing NBA. Grants for the BPL (below poverty Sanitation NBA division earmarked Meanwhile, schemes like the level) population of the state, a portion of Information Education Sampoorna Swatcha Abhiyan (SSA), which includes distribution of and Communication (IEC) funds to another sanitation programme two saris and one blanket for the carry out state level IEC activities. financed by the Indian Government aged. A sum of Rs. 3332.02 crore NBA guidelines were amended to with an objective of providing toilets has been allocated to strengthen state that information, education to all rural families by the end of the panchayats But how much of and communication were important 2012, is also being rolled out in UP. the allocated amount will actually avenues to trigger through According to the implementation go towards constructing toilets in behavioural changes the demand for plan for the scheme, the objectives villages or effectively implementing sanitation in households, schools, include construction of toilets in all the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA) anganwadis (day-care centres) and government schools and aganwadis is anyone’s guess. community sanitary complexes in and also encouraging the rural

12 VIDURA October-December 2014 population to use toilets and thus of Uttar Pradesh). An analysis of stop open defecation. However, the Census 2011 shows that due to a review of the implementation negligence within the system, rural shows that a huge amount of areas remain under developed. The funds allocated to SSA remained researchers feel there is need to keep unutilised till the end of 2012. a strict watch over the utilisation of The Central Rural Cleanliness funds by gram panchayats. Programme, sponsored by The SMS researchers are not the Central Government and the only ones who have brought implemented through the to light the lack of initiative and Panchayati Raj Department in UP, underutilisation of the funds is also an on-going project. Under provided for sanitation drives Photo: Internet the scheme, financial aid is provided in UP. A report on Sanitation in to BPL families to build toilets. The Uttar Pradesh in 2013 published by Girls with pots of water on their heads. focus is on IEC activities revolving UNICEF, UP, mentions that India is So, where's the time to study? around the cleanliness. Rs 1500 is home to more than half the people being provided per toilet by the in the world defecating in the open; defecation, and statistics reveal Centre under the scheme. that is, 58 per cent of 1.1 billion that during 2001-2011, of all the In addition, funds are also people. people defecating in the open, UP provided for community toilet Explains Bhawana Maheswari accounted for almost 40 per cent.” complexes to be built and Vajpayi, officer, UNICEF Office There is no doubt that the maintained by gram panchayats of Uttar Pradesh: “The rate of figures related to sanitation in Uttar to instil cleanliness in students. A progress for complete sanitation is Pradesh are disturbing, but what sum of Rs 20000 is earmarked for considerably slow in UP and with is even more disturbing is the fact building school toilets and Rs 5000 this pace it would take another 33 that there are a large number of for toilets in anganwadis. But has years to reach the MDG (Millennium service latrines that even today the money been utilised? No. It Development Goals) targets. As per employ manual scavengers in takes only one visit to the districts the trend we are seeing in the state, rural UP. Adding to the already in Uttar Pradesh to realise this. UP will achieve only 24 per cent by appalling situation, 0.2 per cent of The non-utilisation of funds has 2015 and take another 78 years to the households in rural UP dispose also been brought out in a study claim open defecation free Status. of night soil in open drains. conducted by SMS on Role of the It is a matter of great concern that It is indeed baffling that the Total Panchayati Raj Institutions in Rural UP has the dubious distinction of Sanitation Campaign (TSC) Online Development (An Analytical, Study being the major contributor to open Monitoring (MDWS) records reports 60.3 per cent toilets in UP which were not seen as actual units by Census 2011 officials. Bhawana confirms. “As per our study assessing the status of sanitation in Uttar Pradesh in 2013, we found that in rural India between 2001 and 2011, the TSC progress shown on MDWS website is 3.67 times the actual progress on field as shown in the census 2011 figure. Interestingly, the figure for UP during the same period is 9.74 times. Which means that Uttar Pradesh is reporting approximately ten times the actual

toilets constructed and progress made under the TSC.” < Photo: Rakhi Ghosh/WFS (The writer is a child rights activist Kabita Nayak (first from left) feels that while earlier it was difficult to convince and director, Saaksham Foundation.) people to allocate money to build a toilet at home, attitudes are rapidly changing as young women gain an education and realise the benefits of sanitation.

October-December 2014 VIDURA 13 Will 33% reservation for women ever happen?

The continuing failure to pass the Women’s Reservation Bill has led to grave injustice to women and to the democratic process in India. The stride of women into electoral politics and the public arena has long-term implications for gender relations in society and the family. Reservation of seats for women in legislatures and Parliament is a must. It is only by this means that a more participative, inclusive, egalitarian and sensitive citizenship can be ensured for all, says Vibhuti Patel

chieving the goal of equal and four per cent of negotiators in and Pakistan participation of women and major development processes. reserve seats Vibhuti Patel Amen in decision making The WRB demands political for women will provide a balance that more inclusion of women through a in Parliament while political accurately reflects the composition mandatory 33 per cent reservation parties in Australia, Canada, Israel, of society and is needed in order to in Parliament and State Legislatures. the Netherlands and the UK have strengthen democracy and promote Though this has been a long- voluntary quotas for women. its proper functioning… Without the standing demand of over 17 years, it active participation of women and the has routinely been treated with little In local bodies incorporation of women's perspectives seriousness by male politicians. Over the past two decades, at all levels of decision-making, the The WRB has been introduced 14 elected women representatives goals of equality, development and times in several Rajya Sabhas and have been taking active interest peace cannot be achieved. - Fourth Lok Sabhas. In 1996, 1998 and 1999, in using budgetary allocations World Conference on Women, Constitution Amendment Bills to promote women’s education, Beijing, 1995: Article 181 were introduced to reserve seats health, safe drinking water and The Women's Reservation Bill for women in Parliament and state sanitation. However, the people’s ((108th Amendment Bill) 2008 assemblies. All three bills lapsed representatives at neither the Centre was passed by the Rajya Sabha on with the dissolution of the Lok nor the state level wish to give up March 9, 2010, and transferred to Sabhas then in office. their hold over their constituencies the Lok Sabha. But the Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and share power with people had not passed the bill till it was have only 11 per cent and 10.06 at the local level. Similarly, dissolved at the end of its term of per cent of women representatives bureaucrats are not geared to play office, till the date of writing. Under respectively, making India 108th the role of facilitators. Voluntary the Constitution, only bills which among 188 countries covered in organisations can play a major part are introduced and pending in the the annual analysis on statistics in developing training programmes Rajya Sabha shall not lapse when of women MPs by the Inter- for all three groups - politicians at the term of the Lok Sabha ends. Parliamentary Union (IPU). In the Centre and in the states, as well Hence, the Women's Reservation 2013, the global average of women as the bureaucrats - in order to help Bill (WRB) has lapsed. in Parliaments was 21.3 per cent. develop new perspectives on their Women comprise nearly 50 Rwanda, Andorra and Cuba had role as facilitators. per cent of India’s population, yet the highest number of women Historically, women have been continue to be under-represented representatives. India fared poorly confined to domesticity, their in all aspects of politics, including even when compared with other concerns neglected and their voices as elected representatives in SAARC countries. Nepal, with a suppressed. Most women who wish Parliament and state legislatures. rank of 24, led the pack. to enter the electoral fray or public The marginalisation of women In EU countries such as Belgium, life face tremendous opposition in politics is clear, as today, France and Germany, and in Egypt, from family, community and male women hold only 10.9 per cent of Iraq, and Nepal, women candidates politicians. The present political Parliamentary seats and make up are provided quotas by law. leadership of all hues, populist less than one per cent of ministers Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China rhetoric notwithstanding, wants

14 VIDURA October-December 2014 to keep women out of the political arena. Increasing criminalisation, corruption and compromises required to sustain a political career also deter women from entering mainstream politics. To provide a level playing field to women and overcome historical neglect and adverse socio-political and cultural forces, reservation of seats for women in legislatures and Photo: Ninglun Hanghal/WFS Parliament is a must. It is only by Rosemary Dzuvichu (standing, fourth from left) along with activists from the this means that a more participative Naga Mothers Association (NMA). She is strongly backing the 33 per cent and inclusive, a more egalitarian reservation for women in the local government as well as state assembly. and sensitive citizenship can be ensured for all. on ensuring that survivors men. Women in public life need of sexual violence get justice a protective shield of popular The Womanifesto and adequate care. Special support and tremendous goodwill, The women’s movement has been developmental plan for as well as experience of operational demanding proactive participation women-headed households is realities, to execute a development from government bodies. Elected the need of the hour. agenda meaningfully. Up-gradation women can ensure that the • Ministry of Labour and of skills and knowledge base is a following goals set for various Employment: Ensuring must for every woman decision- Ministries in the Womanifesto are minimum wage, social security, maker to survive in public life. met: maternity benefits and day care Ability to handle more than one • Ministry of HRD: Creating centres for children for women portfolio is a key to success in this accessible lesson plans for workers in organised and rapidly changing socio-economic schools, modules for training unorganised sectors. and political environment. teachers and professionals • Ministry of Finance: Ensuring The continuing failure to pass the such as doctors and lawyers. that women have adequate Women’s Reservation Bill has led to • Ministry of Law and access to banking and finance. grave injustice to women and to the Justice: Raising the number of • Ministry of Information and democratic process in the country. judges to 40 per 1 million. Broadcasting: Implementing Despite making promises in their • Home Ministry: Improving public service campaigns to manifestos to ensure reservation policing for women, changing transform a misogynist culture of seats for women, most political service rules to promote through broadcast media. parties shy away from giving tickets gender competence and • Ministry of Law: Passing of the to women candidates. penalise non-compliance Women’s Reservation Bill The 73rd and 74th amendments and improving the attitude of the Indian Constitution brought and abilities of police Challenges for women candidates 33 per cent reservation in local personnel through training (in Elected women should have a governance and paved the way conjunction with state-level ‘critical minimum’ (at least 1/3) for more than a million women to authorities). strength in power structures to get enter the arena. Currently, Bihar, • Ministry of Human agenda-setting powers. Hence, the Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Resource Development: importance of a legislation for 33 Maharashtra, Kerala, Orissa, Gender mainstreaming to per cent reservation. Once elected, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh be introduced in the school they should consolidate their have implemented legislations curriculum and workshops on experience to evolve day-to-day providing 50 per cent seats for

gender issues to be held. tactics and long-term strategies for women in local self-government • Ministry of Women and Child creditworthy governance. bodies. < Development: Protecting Only 11 per cent of Indian children from sexual abuse women (widows, separated, and ensuring safe childcare in divorced, deserted and single) (The writer is director, Centre for villages and urban slums. are actual/nominal heads of Study of Social Exclusion & Inclusive • Ministries of Women and households. Hence it is unrealistic Policy, and heads the Department Child Development, Health, to seek women’s liberation without of Economics, SNDT Women's and Home: To coordinate the active support of sympathetic University, Mumbai.)

October-December 2014 VIDURA 15 The Budget seems to have bypassed needy women

The Union Budget 2014-15 will largely benefit middle- and upper-class women as consumers. Poor women will be crushed due to macro-economic policies that will fuel inflation and land alienation, and generate user fees for education and health facilities. However, even women’s groups have not raised their voices against the gender non- inclusive aspects of the Budget. The Budget offers old and new schemes, but fails to address macro-economic and social causes of exploitation and subordination of women, feels Vibhuti Patel

fter the terms Gender opportunities for empowerment of as crèche and hostels, and also Budgeting and Gender women through budgetary cuts. The water supply sanitation and AMainstreaming were offi- Gender Budget Initiative is a policy schemes on fuel and fodder, which cially introduced in 2004 by the framework, methodology and set contribute significantly to women’s UPA Government, many state of tools to assist governments to empowerment, either directly, governments adopted Gender integrate a gender perspective into by building their capacities and Budgeting. Gender Budget Cells the budget. It also aims to facilitate ensuring their material well-being, were designed to serve as focal attention to gender analysis or indirectly through reducing points for coordinating gender in reviews of macroeconomic domestic drudgery. Examples are budgeting initiatives and many performance, ministerial budget the Integrated Child Protection departments have confirmed preparations, parliamentary debate Scheme (ICPS), Indira Gandhi setting up such cells. This happened and mainstream media coverage. Matritva Sahyog Yojana and because the previous government’s The Union Budget 2014-15 various Grant-in-Aid schemes for Ministry of Women and Child has retained all schemes for women and child development. Development, in collaboration empowerment of women and girls The Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao Yojana with UN Women, developed a of the last decade, and allocated is a focused scheme to generate Manual and Handbook for Gender various sums of money to them. awareness and help improve the Budgeting for Gender Budget A new scheme – Beti Bachao Beti efficiency of delivery of welfare Cells for Central Ministries and Padhao (Save the Girl Child, Educate services meant for women.. Departments. Gender Budget Cells the Girl Child) was also launched, New small savings scheme: A play a major role in allocations in with an allocation of Rs 100 crore. special small savings instrument to the current Union Budget. The schemes can be classified under cater to the education and marriage four categories: requirements of the girl child is to Gender budgeting Protective services: These be introduced. This would be in line Gender Budgeting does not include women’s homes and care with schemes like Kisan Vikas Patra relate to a separate budget for institutions, rehabilitation schemes or National Saving Certificate. The women but means comparative for victims of atrocities, pensions for Budget also promises that the school analysis and construction of general widows and destitute women etc, curriculum will have a separate budgets from a gender perspective. such as Sabla, Swadhar – Scheme for chapter on Gender Mainstreaming, It helps governments decide how women in Difficult Circumstances, a strategy for making women’s policies need to be made, adjusted Ujjawala Comprehensive Scheme as well as men’s concerns and and reprioritised. It is a tool for for Prevention of Trafficking experiences an integral dimension effective policy implementation, and Rescue, Rehabilitation and of the design, implementation, with provision to check if gender Reintegration of Victims, which monitoring and evaluation of commitments are translated into are aimed at mitigating the policies and programmes in all financial commitments. consequences of women’s social political, economic and societal The National Budget impacts and economic subordination, rather spheres so that women and men women’s lives in several ways. than addressing the root causes of benefit equally. The ultimate goal It directly promotes women’s this subordination. is to achieve gender equality. development through allocation Social services: These include Economic services: These of budgetary funds for women’s schemes for education and health include schemes for training and programmes or reduces of women, support services such skill development, and provision

16 VIDURA October-December 2014 for credit, infrastructure, marketing etc, which are critical to women’s economic independence and autonomy. The STEP Support for Training and Empowerment of Girls and Ajeevika, a loan scheme at concession rates for rural women and self-help groups, are examples. Regulatory services: These include institutional mechanisms for women’s empowerment, such as State Commissions for Women, women’s cells in Police Stations, awareness generation programme etc., which provide institutional spaces and opportunities for women’s empowerment. An outlay of Rs. 150 crore has been earmarked Photo: VP for a scheme to increase the safety of women in large cities. After the national outcry over the brutal gang rape of a young woman Delhi in December, 2012, the The Union Budget needs clear gender commitments for the mass of toiling poor previous government announced women, for then only will financial commitments bring gender-responsive a Rs 1000-crore Nirbhaya Fund in outcomes, says the writer. the 2013-14 Budget. However, the outcome of the initiative has been to increase the representation of in cities for women and girls as abysmal. Even the officially admitted women and girls in the field of they travel long distance for work 500 per cent rise in reporting of Science and Technology through and education. Working women rape cases, has not galvanised the conferences, training programmes, need functioning toilets at railway governance structure to ensure networking platforms, etc., and stations and bus depots. Women

speedy justice to victims of sexual to enhance education, training from both, slums and non-slum< violence. The Fund has not been and empowerment of women. background need public toilets. used for preventive measures such Women entrepreneurs however as construction of night shelters had expected an offer of soft loans for women, information desks for and subsidies, with financial women at railway/ bus stations and institutions providing more helpline-connected nation-wide working capital assistance. They one-stop crisis centres at public felt that the Budget should look at hospitals, or safe public transport. policies that will make micro-credit The Union Budget needs clear system and enterprise credit system gender commitments for the mass available to women and facilitate of toiling poor women, for then only training programmes to develop Visit the will financial commitments bring professional competencies in gender responsive outcomes. Nor technical, managerial, leadership, redesigned does it address public education marketing, financial, production campaigns about new laws such process and other skills. website of the as amendments in the Indian Tax Relief: The Union Budget Evidence Act, Prevention of Sexual 2014-15 does not provide any relief Harassment at Workplace Act, 2013 to women tax payers. Press Institute and Protection of Children from Right to Sanitation: Women Sexual Offense Act, 2012. make crucial contribution to the of India Women in Science and Indian economy through their Technology: A budgetary paid and unpaid care work. www.pressinstitute.in allocation of Rs. 53 crore has been Massive allocation in the budget for made under Disha (Direction) sanitation must be earmarked for Programme for Women in Science providing toilets in public places

October-December 2014 VIDURA 17 CRIME AND VIOLENCE Chilling lack of sensitivity in cinema, on TV In India, most discussions on censorship and objectionable content on television and in cinema have taken place in the context of depiction of sex. But the reality is that issues relating to violence and crime are even more important. Any random check of entertainment channels on TV will reveal clearly the overwhelming presence of violence and crime. The content is almost entirely based on films, mainly Indian ones. The link between the increasing depiction of violence on television and in cinema and the growing incidence of violence in the nation has to be probed and taken seriously, says Bharat Dogra

arnings have been issued the introduction of television in the hero of Bharat Dogra time and again that cinema the US and Canada led to the an American Wand TV should be careful doubling of homicide rates in the serial by manufacturing a bomb not to go into too much detail about 1960s and 1970s. Several factors using easily available ingredients, how criminal acts are planned and are no doubt responsible for he died in an explosion. His mother executed. Unfortunately, such violence, but Centerwell says, "The has accused the TV channel which warnings have not received the epidemiologic evidence indicates aired the serial of murder. attention these deserve. Sensational that if, hypothetically, television The film Bonnie and Clyde led to depiction has been repeatedly technology had never been a series of crimes clearly based on linked to Bollywood's success developed, there would today be the romanticised act shown in the formulas and TRP ratings of TV fewer homicides each year in the film. In San Diego, a high-school channels. It has been estimated that United States, 70000 fewer rapes and student chopped up his own an American child would have seen 700000 fewer injurious assaults." parents and sister after watching a 33000 murders and 200000 acts of Violence and crime are lurid TV fictionalisation of an old violence by the time he/ she is 16 frequently shown in cinema and axe-murder case. years old. Apart from increasing TV programmes in an attractive Recently it was alleged that aggressiveness in the short-term, setting, and even if this is not the some bank robbers got fresh ideas such long-time exposure also case, certain minds predisposed from the Bollywood film, Dhoom. leads to a desensitisation towards towards violence and crime may In fact, the gang leader of the violence, making it more easily find the depiction quite interesting. Hyderabad diamond robbery case acceptable in society. A teenager in Delhi who faked his confessed to having been inspired A group of 25 prominent British own kidnapping was said to have by it. Yet another Bollywood film, child psychologists led by Prof been inspired by a Hindi film, Jism, is alleged to have provided Elizabeth Newson concluded that Khiladi. According to newspaper ideas for a murder in Delhi. there is a definite link between reports, two boys, taking a cue In the wake of the bomb blasts violence portrayed in video films from a Hindi film, Divyashakti, set off by terrorists in Ahmedabad and TV and aggression among kidnapped a girl, disrobed her and on July 26, apprehensions have youngsters. Their report regrets drew obscene pictures on her body. been expressed that the planning that psychologists have so far This happened in the small town of of this dastardly attack was helped underestimated the degree of Amravati. by the plot of a recent Bollywood brutality and sustained sadism In one of the most shocking film, Contract. In the film, the that filmmakers are capable of crimes in recent times, two 11-year- main villain plans low-intensity inventing and portraying, let alone old boys in Britain killed a two- explosions followed by a bigger the technology to create special year-old baby. Justice Morland, who blast when people rush to hospital effects that support such images. heard the case, said, "I suspect that - very similar to what actually According to a widely-quoted exposure to violent video films may happened in Ahmedabad. Damage study by Prof Centerwell of in part be an explanation." When of this kind (close links between the University of Washington, a French youth tried to imitate TV/ cinema and acts of crime) can

18 VIDURA October-December 2014 Illustration: Arun Ramkumar Illustration:

be reduced to some extent if care Boss Man's forehead. You know, and crime on TV and cinema. TV is taken not to show such acts in I've been watching WWF fight for a is a powerful medium capable of details and/ or in an attractive year now. I've never missed a single having much good and constructive manner. fight on STAR TV and sometimes impact. At the same time, we need In a review of WWF wrestling dad even gets me videos of these to be more sensitive and concerned

matches shown on TV, a child fights." about trying to keep in check the described his feelings on watching Some time ago, Doordarshan possibility of adverse impacts. < these programmes in his own telecast a detective serial, Vyomkesh words this way: "But the best Bakshi, which appeared to specialise match I've watched Hulk fight was in showing in detail how items of (The writer is a veteran freelance against Big Boss Man. It was in everyday use can be converted journalist based in New Delhi who this cage and the only way to win into deadly murder weapons. This has been associated with several social is to escape from the cage. There programme was watched week initiatives and movements.) was Big Boss Man, with his big after week by millions. If detectives stomach, in a policeman's uniform, are to be shown solving murders on waiting for him. They bash up each TV, it would be best to focus on the other so much that they are both identity of the murderer instead of knocked out, even the umpire is on the execution of the crime. . knocked out. You can actually see There are many troubling blood coming out from a cut on Big aspects to the depiction of violence

October-December 2014 VIDURA 19 RADIO NAMASKAR IN KONARK REGION A community radio station aims at empowering people

The 2014-15 Budget allocation of Rs 100 crore for promotion of community radio has been welcomed all over India. While it will no doubt help the radio stations to sustain themselves, the questions that need to be asked are: how can community radio move beyond the role of information dissemination, and can it be a tool for transparency and problem solving. Suchi Gaur and Sarita Anand describe an experiment in Odisha

adio Namaskar is the first goal, as one listener described the insect- NGO-based community it, is to empower people to solve ridden lentils Rradio service in Odisha their issues themselves. From and it was sent Suchi Gaur broadcasting programmes for mere education and information, to the offices communities in the Konark Region. behavioural change is what is being of the prime It has been functional since 2010. aimed for now. minister and The parent NGO Young India, There are a few stories that define state chief working in the area for the past the role the station has been playing minister that 20 years, specialises in building a in improving the situations in the day. The volunteer base for development area through an activist participator PMO sent it activities, working on issues of local mode. One is of the impact that for laboratory governance, gender discrimination the station created in relation to tests, which and food security. Knowing that education through a campaign, revealed that Odisha has been a very backward Chala School Ku Jiba (Let Us Go to it was unfit Sarita Anand state and is only slowly developing, School), to ensure that all children for human setting up the radio station was in the target area attended school. consumption. a crucial step. To gain in-depth The NGO had adopted 15 villages At the Central Government’s understanding about the station for the purpose and the impact of intervention, the Odisha Govern- and its functioning and impact, the programme was that all dropout ment took action and a scam of interviews were conducted with students there returned to school. over Rs 2000 crore was exposed. the heads, staff and listeners of the The government declared the The exposé of a case of a seven- station, along with focus group villages a zero-dropout zone. year-old girl not being admitted to discussions. A 'methodological Another success story is school even after repeated requests triangulation’ was followed. about how the station helped in on the grounds of non-availability Stories were collated to understand changing the procurement policy of a birth certificate was another community involvement. of Odisha. Radio Namaskar started instance where the radio station Participation, a core aspect of broadcasting a jingle on ICDS made a difference. The incident sustainable functioning, not only (Integrated Child Development was broadcast with reference to the helps make the medium a more Scheme), which got notable response RTE Act, and it resulted in the child democratic forum but also, in the from listeners. Village women finally getting admission. long run, works towards achieving demanded supply of the mandated These stories demonstrate that development goals and targets. From quantity of food under the scheme not only did the people come to small initiatives at the local level, to for children and pregnant women, know about their rights, but also taking concerns of implementation and the administration ensured that that they developed faith of schemes to the district, state and compliance at most ICDS centres. in the possibility of getting their national levels, Radio Namaskar However, the dal supplied in most dues. A volunteer put it this way: has started a movement to hasten centres was pest-infested. One day, “After this, many more people implementation, making people a team of women went to the Radio came up to discuss similar rights demand their rights. The ultimate Namaskar station with samples of issues.” While implementation of

20 VIDURA October-December 2014 government schemes is one aspect, during calamities too the station has proved its effectiveness. When floods struck Odisha a few years ago, no telephone or transport network was functional. Relief measures were not reaching people on time. Responding to the gravity of the situation, Radio Namaskar started broadcasting information about the flood and about people in affected areas. It was of immense help, as people stuck in various places could get information about their families and villages. It soon became the medium of communication in flood-gripped localities. The local administration also tapped it to Azera Rahman/WFS Photos: announce updates and provide information and the station got A narrow-cast listening session for the tea garden community. involved in rescue activities. A dedicated telephone line set up model. Participation of women in the years to come. What is by Radio Namaskar helped link has increased too, as they find it required is an activist approach the affected communities through approachable and accessible to air with immense participation from radio. Within a week, more than a their opinions and issues and find communities. The central idea of thousand phone calls were received. solutions. community media is to hand over Rojalin, a team member, described According to the core team power to communities, leading to how the calamity helped the station members, participation of local behavioural change. to gain the community’s trust. After people is based on their level of While providing funds is a good this, participation through phone trust in the system. Acting as a tool step, sustaining the community radio calls, letters and even personal to prevent corruption, initiate better stations requires more than that on visits increased exponentially. implementation of government the part of the government. It will The people’s faith in Radio policies, schemes and rights, and be interesting to see if this happens Namaskar slowly increased, and making the communities own without the stations remaining a their volunteer base has doubled. their own development are among mere mouthpiece for government Today, more people want to the effects that the radio will programmes, and moving on to

associate with the community be seen to have on the country effective implementation and radio and solve their issues. transparency. < According to Shahruf, another staff member and key editor, this has also helped improve the field (Suchi Gaur is pursuing a PhD in base and slowly move towards Participatory Community Radio: a sustainable community radio Exploring the Institutional & NGO models in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka & United States. Sarita Anand is associate professor, Department of Development Communication & Extension, Lady Irwin College, University of Delhi.) Photo: Internet Pratima Handique's radio play A private radio channel in Odisha character, Jamini Aita, is a huge hit tries to woo listeners. among the listeners.

October-December 2014 VIDURA 21 Will the Web complement or supplant print media?

Web-based news outlets seem to see themselves as complementary to the existing mainstream newspapers and television channels. For the most part, they cater to readers with special interests and so do not pose a serious threat to existing news organisations. As such, it looks as if the print and Web-based media would coexist, just as print and television have done, says Ramakrishna Bantu

or the world’s newspapers, News and Yahoo News, websites of sheer num- some of which are more than newspapers or television channels ber of stories a hundred years old, the and Web-only news outlets. The published is F Ramakrishna Internet is turning out to be more aggregators, run by popular web at least as big of a threat than an opportunity. In portals, provide links to stories from as any leading Bantu developed countries such as the several sites and are an important English daily, US, newspapers are struggling to source of traffic for many sites. The if not bigger. survive as readers and advertising websites of newspapers and TV The stories on Scroll are pegged to move online. The situation in channels are the biggest source of the day's news, but are not straight India is not so alarming, and original and credible content, as they reports answering the question newspapers continue to register leverage the resources and output of of 'what'. Rather, most of them an increase in circulation and their main news platform. But these are analytical in tone, taking the remain by-and-large in profit. But are mostly run as supplementary to 'why' and 'how' angles. Often, this as the Internet penetration rises the main print/broadcast offering angle is indicated in the headline, and the Web emerges as a medium and are cross-subsidised by the as for instance in, 'Four reasons in its own right, the ‘old media’ latter. why 2015 could be Hollywood's organisations here are as eager as While aggregation services biggest year in India yet', and 'How their counterparts elsewhere to and the websites of traditional an SC ruling allowing financial know the nature of the beast. media outlets are both known to settlement in a marital cruelty case According to a survey titled piggyback on the main print or hurts women's rights'. Among the Living With the Internet – What broadcast operations, the content regular features on the site are a is Driving Web Behaviour, by characteristics of the Web-only news daily summary of what is making Microsoft Advertising, MEC and outlets are of particular interest. news in the mainstream media, and Mindshare (2011), more than 80 per The attempt here is to discern the a culture-arts story on weekends. cent of Indian users go online for nature of the content by examining On average, the site features eight information, including news and four Websites, namely, Firstpost, original stories a day, including an product or service information; a Scroll.in, Quartz India and Yahoo occasional video, but excluding the similar number log on for social Originals, as samples. content it sources from Quartz, with networking, chatting and other Firstpost.com, owned by Net- which it has an arrangement. In the forms of communication, 60 per work18, is the closest among the first week of August, it appeared to cent for entertainment including four to a mainstream newspaper have around a dozen staff writers. videos and music, and 48 per cent or television news channel in terms Quartz, started in 2012 by US- for online shopping and other of coverage. The range of subjects based Atlantic Media, has only commercial transactions. These covered is almost the same as recently started publishing India- figures suggest a fairly high level in a newspaper, from politics to specific stories, with its focus (or of interest in news among Indian business to sport and entertainment. 'obsession' in its own description) Internet users. Its stories -- a mix of news reports on business. A review of the stories Though there are numerous (including from agencies), analysis, published in the first 10 days of websites offering news with videos and opinion -- cover national August 2014 suggests that two- various focus areas, these can be and state politics, human interest/ thirds of them are business stories, broadly classified into three types: social stories, business, and news-as- covering new products or services, aggregation services such as Google it-breaks from across the world. The policy developments, industry

22 VIDURA October-December 2014 Illustration: Arun Ramkumar Illustration:

analysis and consultancy reports, Indian women's football team's content of the major portals is while the rest are political or social preparation for Asian Games, civil designed to tap readers with special stories. Rather than replicate the marriages across the country, a interests that go beyond what is humdrum business news carried crime story, and so on -- covering offered by traditional media. As by newspapers, the site's highly more or less the whole range of such, these satisfy readers with selective choice of subjects appears subjects that newspapers typically special interests while not posing to be guided by a prior analysis of cover. Because of their long-form a serious threat to existing news what interests Internet users of a treatment, the stories have potential organisations. Although inadequate particular demographic. impact, and are often shared on to draw a broad conclusion about Finally, the content on Yahoo Twitter. Though it shares the the future of print media, the Originals consists exclusively of subject range with newspapers, the trends outlined above suggest that long-form features, with word- site is different in its periodicity (or print and Web-based media would

lengths ranging from 2000 to more regularity of publication) with new coexist, just as it happened with than 6000 words. The content is stories being published every other print and television. < provided and managed by Grist day, rather than daily. Media, an independent news The above analysis of the organisation founded by two content of Web-based news outlets (The author is assistant professor, former Tehelka journalists. Some indicates that they see themselves Department of Communication & of the recent stories were about a as complementary to the existing Journalism, Osmania University, and controversial piece of legislation mainstream newspapers and is pursuing a PhD degree. He was in Karnataka, an excerpt from television channels. With the earlier sub-editor-cum- reporter for the a book on women writers, the exception of Firstpost, the editorial Business Standard.)

October-December 2014 VIDURA 23 Of emotional icons and the smartphone

A compliment comes your way... you so want to acknowledge it, yet don't wish to overdo it. A smiley or emoticon in return will do the trick rather nicely. Smileys are simple and safe. Emoticons save you the trouble of having to put together the right words, the flip side being it leaves the field open for judgment. And then of course there is the ‘unputdownable’ smartphone. While it helps you stay closely networked, it keeps you unnecessarily hooked. Usha Ramani, however, prefers not to be an addict to technology

moticons have become be said with just one image. When They also add pep to otherwise an inevitable part of you don't really desire to enter staid communication. A birthday or Ecommunicating. To begin into a lengthy conversation, the an anniversary wish, for instance, with, the smiley was simply that thumbs-up emoticon pops out as an which would otherwise have – a wide smile, pleasing to the eye emphatic symbol of agreement. It looked plain and unvarnished, can and mind. Since then, the smiley is so much a part of Facebook that be infused with zest by peppering has evolved and come a long one wishes it could be imported to it with emoticons featuring party way. Social Media technology Microsoft Outlook too, especially hats and balloons. witnesses the entry of new, when you’re in conversation with Come to think of it, we've been convenience-generating additions bosses and colleagues. using these symbols for a long time. almost hourly, but among them, From symbols that express love, Remember those ‘cartoony’ images the emoticon – a portmanteau term anger, dismay and good luck, to that come in the form of stickers? derived from ‘emotion’ and ‘icon’ those that represent coffee, flowers, Haven't we embellished a lot of – is certainly one of the biggest fruits and sandwiches, virtually our letters using these stickers? blessings. everything that is part of verbal And, of course, the host of stickers The thumbs-up sign is a classic communication gets covered that come as freebies with biscuits, example of saying all that needs to without a single word being uttered. energy drinks, bubble gums and the like. When we wanted to impress that secret pen friend of ours back in our schooldays, we would save the best sticker to use in the handwritten letter. It is amazing the way communication goes through so much transformation. There is so much that can be conveyed with just little punctuation marks and alphabets – - ; , : ) and :P, for example. Now, that’s what I call the rich text!

It’s smart to be moderate That the Internet has become all-pervasive cannot be contested. Addictive, tempting, ‘unputdownable’ are some of the hackneyed adjectives associated for the smartphone. Most technology Photo: UR could easily be categorised as a ‘necessary evil’. The possibilities Emoticons as they appear on the WhatsApp screen. in the virtual arena are simply

24 VIDURA October-December 2014 Illustration: Arun Ramkumar Illustration:

immense. All of us yield to its Googling? How many of us reach cigarette packs, people continue to

temptation, at some point or the out to the printed version of the smoke. And sometimes, with gang other, in the form of one feature or dictionary or the thesaurus? How abandon. So, there you are! < another. many of us care enough about Those who limit themselves to spelling and grammar to not look at the non-smartphone are caught in the Word Prompt to have our written (The writer is a communicator in the a frenzy of their own – Facebook is material ‘virtually‘ corrected? IT industry. She uses her spare time to still accessible thabnks to the good Hasn’t technology changed the way blog or put pen to paper.) old desktop. They perhaps are a we read and write? Although, of trifle slow in liking/ commenting/ course, there is still a small number time-lining and such other activity, of people who prefer to do things in yet they are very much present in the old-fashioned manner. the virtual world. What is perhaps desirable If you were to trace the origin of is moderate use of technology. addiction to Internet technology, The onus, however, rests on the then the buck would surely individual. All of us know that stop at Google. Come on now, smoking is injurious to health – yet, does anyone’s day end without even with all the gory images on

October-December 2014 VIDURA 25 It’s simple writing that connects with the reader Communicators of all hues are expected to handle language with ease. Expertise in writing is the hallmark of good communication. J.V. Vil’anilam, who has taught communication and journalism in many Indian and foreign universities, examines some aspects of the writing style

ournalists and communicators with convincing arguments. But do The readabi- working in all the branches of the not offend readers with bombastic lity of a written Jmedia, and students of journalism arguments. Let us examine the four message also and mass communication are styles: depends on expected to handle language with Vocabulary is the sum of words the vocabulary J.V. Vil’anilam ease and fluency, confidence and used by, understood by, or at the level of our expertise. People without interest command of a particular person, message. There are ‘vocab formulae’ in the proper use of language – social group, profession, trade or the available to all communicators, any language – should not turn like. Journalists and communicators for example readability tests to the field of communication of all kinds will agree that they must such as gunning, flesch, etc. They studies. Look at Satyajit Ray, Adoor be familiar with and capable of using generally measure the average Gopalakrishnan, Priyadarshan and thousands of words in daily parlance length of words and sentences and others; they are all good users of and in professional contexts. They the percentage of ‘difficult’ words. language, be it English, Bengali interact with people from many To be an effective writer, one has to or Malayalam. One does not have walks of life – performers, artists, choose the most appropriate, but to be a great expert, but one must artistes, administrators, officials, simple word that fits the context. have an essential expertise in the parliamentarians, politicians, A readability formula may indicate handling of language and writing scientists, economists and the a rating of 12 for passages fit for skills. Let us examine some style common man. In these interactions, people with 12 years of schooling; matters: their vocabulary will differ a rating of 16 will indicate that the depending on the circumstance. material is good for people with four Four elements of style: While dealing with vocabulary, years of college, etc. But just as the 1. Vocabulary (supported by we must be careful about the level English poet John Keats once said, diversity, use of synonyms). of understanding of the recipients writing according to formulas may 2. Sentence Structure - syntax, of our communication – readers, not always be desirable. Although word order, grammar and listeners, viewers. It is common Keats ridiculed people who wrote sentence length. Limit the length knowledge that communication according to ‘foot rules’, we do and separate disparate thoughts has five essential ingredients not have to ridicule journalists into different sentences. – sender, receiver, message, and business writers, although the 3. Idea density (One-idea-one- media and feedback. In the mass latter have to use vocabulary that is sentence approach). communication process, the last easily understood by the receivers 4. Human interest (Use more of factor – feedback – is not common – a simple rule for all writers. I, You and He/ She); Follow (when was the last time you talked Receivers have to understand what a narrative style which most back to your TV set?). the senders say in the message. readers like - narrate experiences We are concerned here mostly A good writer has to use and make readers identify with with the message. The simplicity words that help express ideas your writing. and effectiveness of our message in an effective manner, using Writing can be divided into is of paramount importance in our the minimum number of words. four types: Narrative, Descriptive, communication with an individual Writers will learn the technique Historical and Argumentative. or the masses (whose understanding when they spend some time with You may mix styles. Begin with depends on their education and the works of well-known writers. the narrative style, be descriptive level of knowledge). This is true in Weak word-choice is the bane of wherever needed. Use the historical the case of the non-interactive mass all writers. It is said that writers method if your writing demands it media and the interactive social in English can learn a lot from the and establish your point of view media. King James version of the Bible and

26 VIDURA October-December 2014 Illustration: Arun Ramkumar Illustration:

from William Shakespeare, John use of reference books will enable from it. There are other books in Milton, John Keats, Wordsworth a writer to commit less mistakes. the market. For example, many and a number of other poets, It is reasonable to assume that the people confuse between adopt and dramatists and essayists. Perhaps editorial staff in your publisher’s adapt. Learn the difference between spending some time with Kalidasa’s office will catch most mistakes. But continual and continuous. famous works and the two epics, the less mistakes in the original, Sentence Length: Some writers Mahabharata and Ramayana, will the better for all of us. Mistakes in are in the habit of writing long be of great use to all writers in spelling are sometimes missed by sentences. They do not know India. the proof readers and editorial staff, where to stop and how to stop. They A book of synonyms and too. Nobody is perfect, neither the write in the style of 19th Century antonyms will help all of us a great writer nor his/ her editors. ‘document-writers’ who complete deal. Look for compilations in Any good book on style will their document in one long, long your particular language. Frequent come to your aid, provided you sentence from the first word to the are humble enough to search last, covering four or five pages, for it. For example, the Random with no full stops, commas or any It is good for every writer to House Handbook by Frederick other punctuation. keep a vocabulary list along Crews will give you a list of words Good writers have to learn with a thesaurus and, of course, that are commonly confused and how to stop or pause their train of a good dictionary. misspelled. Refer to it and learn thought and put a period (full-stop)

October-December 2014 VIDURA 27 or comma wherever it is required some human beings, if not to all. So Oddities, pathos, strangeness, logically. Again, there are formulae what do we mean by human interest? egotism, vanity, irony – these that help, but what is needed is A story strong in generating interest provide the fuel for many human common sense. Any sentence in the reader, listener or viewer, interest stories. The sources for in English that exceeds 17 or 18 gets them involved or absorbed them are usually police, fire and words is a long sentence. Make personally in what is narrated or railway stations, courts, jails, toddy the sentence short, provided you presented because of its intense shops and bars, zoos, aquariums, do not distort or alter the intended human qualities, and creates a sense animal pounds, circus tents, meaning. of personal relationship with what is museums, convention centres, Idea density: As far as possible, described in the story, can be called marriage reception halls, sports complete your thoughts sentence a human interest Story. Such stories stadiums, orphanages, old age by sentence by encapsulating need not always be about human homes, hospitals, morgues and one thought in one sentence. A beings. They can be about animals, funeral homes, hobby centres, sentence is an expression of a particularly pet dogs, cats and other theatres and cults, big festivals complete thought. There are some domesticated creatures. They can be and miracle men and women. writers who try to connect different about unusual people – for instance, Find the fuel for human interest at

thoughts with the use of ‘and’, a millionaire woman who lived unexpected places. Your writing extending the sentence. This is not the life of a pauper, discovered by skills will definitely be tested to the< a healthy practice. Next, take a look neighbours who found stacks of maximum. at the paragraphs of your writing. notes in piles of pillows stacked on Each para should be woven around her bed and at unexpected corners one important idea. It is bad practice of her modest apartment! (The writer is a former vice- to ‘stuff’ different ideas into one There can also be human interest chancellor and head, Department paragraph, especially when the elements in many items of ‘hard’ of Communication and Journalism, ideas are quite different from one news with which the reader or University of Kerala. He received his to another. viewer can identify. The real MA English degree from the Banaras Human Interest: As indicated human interest story establishes Hindu University in 1958 and has a earlier, adopt a personal, narrative an emotional contact between the master’s degree in Communication style unless your subject demands story and its consumer. The contact from Temple University, Philadelphia, impersonal treatment. is not short-lived, and therefore the and a PhD in Mass Communication bond between the writer and the from the University of Amsterdam.) What are human interest stories? consumer lasts long on an emotional Every news story is of interest to rather than an intellectual plane.

World calls for greater protection for journalists The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) has called on governments worldwide for greater protections for media working in conflict areas, in the wake of the widely reported murders of two photojournalists in West Asia. A resolution issued by the Board of WAN-IFRA meeting on the eve of the World Publishing Expo in Amsterdam, also called for a concerted global effort to end impunity for the killers of journalists. “The targeting of journalists represents a serious threat to maintaining free, independent media. Stronger protections, more resources and better practices are needed to prioritise safety,” said the Board of WAN-IFRA, the global organisation for the world’s news publishers that represents newspapers, online sites and companies in 120 countries. The Board also issues resolutions condemning new anti-terrorism legislation in Australia that endangers the work of journalists, and Venezuelan Government actions that are strangling the independent press. The resolution on the safety of journalists in conflict areas calls for greater focus on the issue of impunity, for better support to governments seeking to revise legislation to combat crimes against the media, and greater assistance to news organisations in implementing mechanisms designed to protect journalists’ safety. The recent murders of American photojournalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff have contributed to a total of 40

journalists killed so far this year. The WAN-IFRA Board noted that at least 980 journalists have been murdered in the past decade, and that in the vast majority of cases their killers go unpunished. <

28 VIDURA October-December 2014 VIEW FROM THE NORTHEAST A sea-change in public mood

India’s 68th Independence Day was celebrated with enthusiasm in the Northeast. Defying the diktat of militants, people came out in large numbers to participate in the festivities. Nava Thakuria has the story

he scene was a world away the tricolour. first media from what was the norm just Earlier, the Journalists’ Forum casualty for Ta decade ago. In those days, Assam (JFA) urged the people of the nation this Independence Day and Republic the region to defy the separatist year -- it was Day were observed only as a mere militants’ diktat not to attend the reported from Nava Thakuria formality, and even that, only by festivities. Various militant groups the relatively government agencies and under had alleged that New Delhi was peaceful state strict security cover, as armed pursuing a programme of “genocide of Odisha. The country wit- militants imposed very strict of indigenous people” from the nessed the killing of 11 working diktats against such celebrations. region. They had also called a day- journalists in 2013. Fearing violence, people, including long “general strike” beginning The 35-year-old scribe was government officials who were not August 14th midnight. stabbed to death on the night of May actually on duty, stayed indoors. Many of the militant outfits that 27 by miscreants. Acharya, who The situation was so bad that, have been waging war against the was based in Bikrampur of Ganjam when a group of journalists got Centre to press various demands, district in Odisha, was working for together to hoist the national flag from sovereignty to self-rule for the a regional news channel (Kanak at the Guwahati Press Club in 2010, indigenous people of the region, TV) and contributed regularly to only around ten people attended. are now facing splits, while several Oriya newspaper Dainik Sangbad. They took out a procession, with a others have started engaging in Targeted by goons, he died on the senior journalist carrying the only peace talks with the authorities. spot. After a huge public outcry, tricolour available. The then editor Thousands of militants have also the authorities succeeded in of a Delhi-based magazine had laid down arms preparatory to nabbing two main perpetrators of refused to publish a photograph of joining mainstream society. In the the crime. the event due to the paltry turnout, light of the diminishing threat from According to Reporters Without not seeing it in the context of this the militants, the common people Borders, a Paris-based media rights insurgency-ridden region. of the region are not really scared of body, till August 2014, 44 journalists The media fraternity has been joining in Independence Day and had been killed clearly because taking the lead in organising Republic Day celebrations, of their activities as journalists. celebrations on Independence Day As JFA President Rupam Barua Syria, with 10 casualties, proved and Republic Day, despite continued asserts, the national flag does not the most deadly for journalists, threats by militants, and gradually, belong to the government alone, followed by Palestine (7), Ukraine the common people started but to all Indians. Barua reminds us: (4), Philippines and Iraq (3), ignoring the threats and coming “Many martyrs of Assam including Central African Republic, Libya, out. Today, people throng such Kanaklata Barua, Mukunda Kakoti, Brazil and Afghanistan with two events organised by government Kushal Konwar, Tilak Deka, each and Egypt Colombia Mexico authorities as well as various Bhogeswari Phukanani, Nidhanu Democratic Republic of the Congo communities throughout the region. Rajbongshi, Kamala Miri, Lerela Somalia Bangladesh and India To mark this year’s Independence Boro, Madan-Rauta, Hemoram with one each. Day, Guwahati-based newspapers Patar and Gunabhi Bordoloi laid Just days before his death, brought out supplements and down their lives for the honour of Acharya had prepared a series of satellite news channels beamed the Tricolour.” stories relating to local cashew nut special programmes. As usual, processing factories employing the local press club was one of the Death of a journalist children. Moreover, he had been venues of celebration, and senior The brutal killing of journalist vocal against a few powerful journalist Mukul Kalita unfurled Tarun Kumar Acharya was the individuals in his locality, 130

October-December 2014 VIDURA 29 eastern India. Every organisation in the state assembly had come added its voice to the call nab to the forward to condemn the murder. killers. Media persons also held a The National Human Rights demonstration in front of the Odisha Commission, responding to a Secretariat demanding an ex-gratia complaint filed by the Assam-based payment of not less than Rs 2500000 scribes’ body, said it had registered to the victim‘s family . a case regarding the incident. The Journalists Coordination NHRC also appealed for ample Photo: Internet Committee, a joint forum of OUJ compensation to be provided to and Utkal Journalist Association, the bereaved family. The New Tarun Acharya. demanded a Central Bureau of York-based Committee to Protect Investigation probe into Acharya’s Journalists (CPJ) has called on the km away from Bhubaneswar, murder. The committee also called Odisha authorities to conduct a who made a social nuisances of for a Journalists‘ Protection Bill thorough investigation into the

for media persons in the state. murder of Acharya and bring the themselves time and again. < One of the arrested persons Senior journalist Subhas Chandra perpetrators to justice. is the owner of a cashew factory Pattanayak termed Acharya’s murder “a brutal assault on Press”. and the other, a mercenary. The (The writer is a senior journalist He regretted that neither the chief incident attracted the immediate based in Assam. He is the secretary of minister nor the opposition leaders attention of the media fraternity in the Guwahati Press Club.)

Huffington Post ties up with Times Group The Times Group entered into a partnership with leading US-based news and opinion website Huffington Post on Thursday to launch the website's Indian edition. The website is expected to be launched later this year. The combined strength of Huffington Post, which has 86 million monthly global unique visitors (desktops, comScore June 2014) and the Times Group, which has deep local knowledge and extensive reach, would compete with Indian news brands such as Firstpost and Scroll. With the world's second-largest English-speaking population—trailing only the US— India also has the third largest internet population globally. Times Internet (TIL), the Times Group's digital arm, has a monthly reach of over 100 million visitors and serves 2 billion pageviews across web and mobile, with businesses across news, entertainment, sports, local, ecommerce, classifieds, startup investments, and local partnerships. Targeting India's rapidly expanding internet user base, which is expected to reach 370 million by 2015, HuffPost India will cover everything from politics, media and entertainment to technology, religion and lifestyle, and "open up its blogging platform to anyone in the country with a story to tell", said a joint statement issued by the Times Group and Huffington Post. The announcement of the tie-up was made by Arianna Huffington, president and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group, and Satyan Gajwani, CEO of TIL. "I'm delighted to launch HuffPost India, which will be our 12th edition since we began our international expansion three years ago," said Arianna Huffington. "In addition to being a hub for global news and a country that embodies much of the ancient wisdom the world desperately needs now, India has deep personal significance to me. When I was 17, I studied comparative religion at Visva-Bharati University, outside of Calcutta, and traveled across India, falling in love with the country— a love affair that has continued to this day. So I'm extremely grateful for the chance to bring HuffPost to India to tell the stories that matter most—and just as important, to help people throughout India tell their stories themselves, in words, in pictures and in video." "The Huffington Post is the first real digital-first news success story globally, and their impact is seen across the world," said TIL's Gajwani. "We are excited to combine HuffPost's world-class product with our local reach with consumers and advertisers to tailor-make a great new destination for Indian consumers," he said. The two companies will establish an editorial team based in Delhi. Huffington Post's Media Group CEO Jimmy Maymann said that India was a critical destination for any media

company. "With Indian household consumption predicted to continue to grow nearly 20% this year, this partnership gives us an ideal entry into what is expected to become the world's 5th largest consumer market in the next 10 < years." TIL's parent, the Times Group, also publishes The Times of India. (Courtesy: The Times of India)

30 VIDURA October-December 2014 MEDIA & ADVERTISING IN CHENNAI A look at the changing scene

Advertising is as old as human race, said H.E. Watson in 1924. The earliest form of advertising involved couriers going around making announcements in street corners, after attracting a crowd by beating drums. R.V. Rajan takes a look at the fascinating history of journalism and advertising in Madras

ven today, in some remote In the decades that followed, advertising sup- villages of India you can find several Tamil publications were port for their Epeople going on bullock carts launched: 1881 – Swadesamitran publications. fitted with public announcement (Tamil weekly), 1888; Jana Vridhi, Chennai has R.V. Rajan systems, making announcements 1894; Gnana Banu (religious weekly), today six major and distributing notices of events, 1897; Pariyan (A Dalit weekly) – all print media a sale, etc. Extensive use of this of which carried relevant classified groups that publish eight major form of advertising can be seen announcements. But the history newspapers and magazines. The during election time, but thanks to of journalism and advertising in major English dailies are The Times improvement in transport systems, Madras, is very much linked to of India, The Hindu, The New Indian autorickshaws or jeeps are mostly the growth of “the MahaVishnu of Expressa and Deccan Chronicle; used for such purposes. Mass Mount Road” – The Hindu. While evening dailies: Trinity Mirror and media, as we understand it today, in the early years, the Madras Mail News Today. presently, The Hindu took root with the establishment (later known simply as The Mail) is the city's most read English of print media in the West during was credited with introducing newspaper, with a daily circulation the 17th Century, which offered new printing technologies, The of over 5.5 lakh copies. The major opportunities to reach a large and Hindu under G. Kasturi became business dailies published from dispersed audience simultaneously. a trendsetter, introducing several the city are The Economic Times, It was the East India Company of innovations not only in printing The Hindu Business Line, Business the British Empire that brought technology but also in the field of Standard, and The Financial Express. this media to India, specifically to distribution. The Hindu was the first The major Tamil dailies include Chennai. publishing house to buy aircraft to the Dina Thanthi, Dinakaran, Dina Newspaper publishing started in distribute the newspaper to various Mani, Dina Malar, Tamizh Ossai, Chennai with the launch of a weekly, cities and introduce facsimile Tamil Murasu,[Theekkathir] Makkal The Madras Courier, in 1785. This editions of its paper printed from Kural and Malai Malar. Hundreds was followed by the weeklies The different centres. Started in 1878 by of magazines are today published Madras Gazette and The Government G. Subramania Aiyar as a weekly from Chennai. The popular ones Gazette in 1795. The Spectator, tabloid, with M. Veeraraghava are Ananda Vikatan, Kumudam, Kalki, founded in 1836, was the first Chariar as partner, The Hindu Nakkheeran, Kungumam, Swathi English newspaper in Chennai to became a daily newspaper in 1889 (Telugu magazine), Frontline and be owned by an Indian and became and was bought over by Kasturi Sportstar the city's first daily newspaper Iyengar in 1905. Chennai was also a pioneer in 1853. Early advertisements in It is interesting to note that in starting free community the Madras Courier were in the in the initial years, the first newspapers. South Madras News by form of classifieds. In 1851 the page of the paper was entirely Speciality Publications owned by Madras Almanac & Compendium of devoted to advertising – mostly R. Desikan was the first community Intelligence carried announcements classifieds covering a range of newspaper of India, started in 1974. of public auctions, theft, theatre, topics from ballroom dancing to Today, apart from the popular birth and death. In 1860 came the widow remarriage. Several other neighbourhood newspapers such Fort St. George Gazette and the Madras publications followed, significant as Anna Nagar Times, Adyar Times Times. And it was in 1870 that the among them being the Ananda and Mylapore Times, there are a Madras Mail, which occupied pride Bodhini (1920), Ananda Vikatan (1926) whole host of neighbourhood of place on arterial Mount Road, and The Indian Express (1938), all of papers catering to particular was started. which were successful in getting localities, all carrying local news

October-December 2014 VIDURA 31 and advertisements targeted at One of the earliest full-fledged for Air India, conceived by Bobby specific audiences. Madras also has advertising agencies was started by Khooka of the carrier. a fortnightly exclusively devoted PS Mani Aiyer in 1939. Aiyar began Credit for introducing to Madras city and its heritage, his advertising career by canvassing professionalism into the advertising called Madras Musings, a tabloid advertisements for Swadesamitran scene in Madras must go to R.K. supported by leading business and The Hindu. It is said that he Swamy. He not only used research houses of Chennai, a rare instance got a 25 per cent commission from for the first time to develop effective indeed. the newspapers for the ads he got advertising strategies, but also them. Simpson and Spencer’s were came out with some very creative Advertising agents two of his well-known clients. He ads for clients like TVS & TI Cycles. The contributions of the legendary had innovative ideas. He hired ‘Set your watch on the arrival of S.S. Vasan (of Gemini Films fame) artists to create advertisements with a TVS bus, You can trust TVS’; and T. Sadasivam to the growth of interesting visuals. He is supposed ‘Hercules Cycle – Your Lifetime the advertising business in Madras to have persuaded Simpson’s, Companion’ were headlines of (as it then was) during the 1930s is dealers of cars, to offer cars on hire some of the famous ads he and his significant. Vasan was into the mail purchase. A car costing Rs 3500 was team created. order and publishing business. He available on a monthly instalment When JWT denied Swamy the started Vasan Advertising Centre, of Rs 100. Later, VG Panneerdas, CEO’s post, he quit to start RK canvassing advertisements for popularly known as VGP, made the Swamy Associates in 1972. In various newspapers and getting hire purchase system popular for all addition to walking away with commissions from them – one of types of consumer durables among some prestigious clients of JWT the early representatives of the middle class households, making Madras, he persuaded several advertising agency business. He extensive use of print and outdoor large public sector undertakings bought Ananda Vikatan and also media. to advertise for the first time to started the Merry Magazine in It was in the early 1930s that build a good image for themselves. English. Ananda Vikatan, which advertisements which were Some of the ads his agency created was being edited by another essentially classified ads started for BHEL, ONGC and SAIL were legendary Tamil writer, Kalki getting a new look with the trailblazing efforts of the time. His Krishnamurthy, had T. Sadasivam introduction of visuals to support son, Srinivasan K Swamy, current as the advertisement representative, the catchy copy. Line drawings chairman of the group, has not only charged with the responsibility and half-tone prints of human helped the group march forward of getting new advertisement figures were used to make the with many diversifications, but is, business. Sadasivam had a flair for advertisements more attractive. like his father, doing his bit for the writing persuasive direct mailers The 1940s saw a number of cause of advertising through his

appealing for advertisements. It local agencies being started, involvement with several industry is said that, thanks to his efforts, such as United India Publicity bodies. < the advertising income of Ananda (1939), Eastern Advertising Vikatan went up from Rs 6000 to Rs (1944), Elegant Publicities (1945), 72000 in six months. Federal Advertising and Criterion (The writer was chairman, Anugrah Sadasivam left Ananda Vikatan and Publicities (1946). United India Madison Advertising; past president, started Kalki with Krishnamurthy Publicity was perhaps the first Rural Marketing Association of India; as Editor. The magazine became a among the Madras-based agencies and former managing director, WAN- big success, thanks to the popular to get accreditation from the Indian IFRA India. He is based in Chennai. historical novels penned by Kalki Newspaper Society (INS). DJ This article is the first of a three-part and serialised in the magazine week Keymer was the only multinational series.) after week. Paper advertisements in agency headquartered in Calcutta those days covered products such to have a branch in Madras at that as Keshavardhini Hair Oil, Asoka time. It was soon followed by FD Beetlenut powder, Amrutanjan, Stewarts, Grant Advertising (1954) Narasu’s coffee, Binny, Westend with Lance Dane as manager and J Watch, Himalaya Snow, Horlicks Walter Thompson (1955) with R.K. malted milk, Rover and Morris Swamy as manager. Umesh Rao, the cars, Murphy radio, Macleans art director who was working with toothpaste, Andrews Liver salt, etc, JWT Madras around that time, is apart from announcements of new credited with creating the famous film releases. drawing of the Maharaja mascot

32 VIDURA October-December 2014 The dubbing debacle

Dubbing a film from one language to another poses not only questions of economics, but more importantly, a threat to the cultural identity of a given linguistic group. The release of Yash Raj Films’ Gunday simultaneously in Hindi and Bengali (dubbed version) has raised the hackles of the entire film industry in Bengal, which has by and large come out strongly against the dubbing of films. Shoma A. Chatterji explores the reactions to the issue, not only in Tollywood, but in other parts of India and the world

engali film superstar Prosenjit and understood by a quantitatively Kumar and Chaterjee says, “This is not a smaller audience than Hindi films, Sharmila Tagore Shoma A. Bpersonal agenda against any explained Srikant Mohta of Shree in Bengali and Chatterji producer from Bollywood. We have Venkatesh films, the biggest banner Hindi. high regard for legendary producers in Bengali cinema. The films did fairly well in the like Yash-ji. But the Bengali film On the other hand, Arun Mehta Hindi market while Amanush was a industry is... broadening the who distributed Krrish 3 and big hit in Bengali. In 2011, Shubash contours of its reach and context Chennai Express in West Bengal, Ghai produced Rituparno Ghosh’s and the Bengali audience is being said that the Bengali industry’s Noukadubi. There were versions pulled back into theatres again. protest was prompted by the fear in two languages. The original was At this juncture, the simultaneous that the release of films dubbed in shot in Bengali while the Hindi release of a Bollywood film in Bengali would narrow the financial Kashmakash was dubbed. The Hindi and Bengali will create and box office prospects of Bengali dubbed version was a commercial a fragile ambience, adversely films. “It would occupy most of the disaster. The Bengali version made impacting Bengali cinema. We will theatres in the State, blocking the reasonable business. Translating not back any Bengali artiste from release of Bengali films,” he said. a Tagore classic into Hindi on the Bengali film industry who celluloid means translating Tagore participates in dubbing ventures In Bengali cinema songs in Hindi. It means infusing now and in the future.” He clarified Shakti Samanta made Amanush the spirit of Tagore in the dubbed that the industry would like to and Anand Ashram, starring Uttam Hindi version. Is this possible? This see Hindi films running parallel to Bengali films made by the local film industry, and urged everyone concerned not to screen any dubbed film in theatres or run dubbed serials on television any more. Parambrato Chatterjee who acts in both Bengali and Hindi films, said, "We are not issuing any threat to anybody. But the local industry has its stake. This is our united stand and we mean it." Ashok Dhanuka of Eskay Movies said the Bengali film industry today attracts a total investment of Rs 1500 crore against the Rs 10 crore to Rs 15 crore some years ago. “If we don't protect Bengali film industry, it will spell doom,” he added. Today, Tollywood films are attracting a very good audience because of the diversity of content and quality. But the market remains limited Raima Sen and Prosenjit in Noukadubi. The original was shot in Bengali, the because the language is spoken Hindi Kashmakash was dubbed.

October-December 2014 VIDURA 33 was foreign to the Hindi audience. Even with Gulzar as the narrator in the Hindi version, the film could not meet the demands of the Hindi film audience. The lip-syncing in the dubbed version was terrible. The techniques that go into dubbing are focussed more on the lip-syncing by actors than on the essence of the dialogue spoken in the original, some of which is impossible to translate. Leading men and women from Bengali cinema such as Jeet, Dev, Parambrata Chattopadhyay,

Payel Sarkar, Aniruddha Roy Photos: supplied by SAC Chowdhury, Srijit Mukherji, Shrikant Mohta, Ashok Dhanuka, Language and culture are deeply intertwined and getting a Hindi blockbuster Sudeshna Roy and several like Gunday dubbed in Bengali is ridiculous, especially when the script puts it technicians gathered at the Bharat purportedly against the ‘historical’ backdrop of the 1970s Bangladesh war, says Lakshmi Studio to protest against the writer. the “disaster” and talked to the media. But is it really a disaster Rai as the controversial Binodini in is planning to remake Band Baja because Hindi films dubbed in Rituparno Ghosh’s Chokher Bali. Baraat in Tamil under the title Aha Bengali can draw a trickle for an They felt that a Bengali actress Kalyanam. audience? They would prefer to would have fit in better and would “The dubbing trend has been watch the Hindi version. have perhaps done more justice to a used all-over the Middle East, There are two aspects of dubbing Tagore character. Europe, Russia and even South a film from its source language to America. It’s a trend that has faced its target language. Some films In cinema elsewhere considerable opposition from local are dubbed in their entirety. Some It is not only in Bengal that industries and will continue do so. filmmakers ‘import’ actors from dubbing has come under fire. In In places such as Germany, voice- other areas, mainly Bollywood, January this year, a large section over artistes of A-listers such as and dub dialogues into the regional of the Kannada film industry came Tom Hanks, Jack Nicholson and ‘host’ language. Even established together to participate in a bandh others, can establish themselves filmmakers in Bengal, like Mrinal and rally protesting against films as stars in their own right,” wrote Sen, Buddhadeb Dasgupta, in other languages being dubbed Sher Khan, a Pakistani journalist Rituparno Ghosh and Goutam in Kannada. The protest had strong after the premiere of Mohabbat Eik Ghose, have invited Bollywood political backing. Former Deputy CM Ittefaq in Pakistan on February 13th. actors to dub dialogues into R Ashok said, “At present, Kannada It was the first Turkish film released Bengali. cinemas run successfully in 10 to 12 in Pakistan. Initially, people were Contemporary Bengali film- districts of Karnataka. If cinemas apprehensive, but the film proved makers have no issues using actors dubbed from other languages are to be an interesting experiment for and actresses from Bollywood screened, this number will reduce. the local market. in Bengali films. But the same Lakhs of people depend on cinema filmmakers are wary of Hindi films for a living and if dubbing comes A question of culture dubbed in Bengali. Bollywood actors into play, their lives will become In a report in The Hindu (January are brought in to raise the box office miserable.” 23rd), Muralidhar Khajane quotes value of a given film though records Last year, Yash Raj Films released legal expert K.V. Dhananjaya who show that the box-office takings of Dhoom 3 in Tamil (100 screens) and supports their stand. “At the very films featuring Bollywood actors Telugu (700 screens) along with outset, there is no government are equally risky. But a film dubbed the Hindi version. Earlier, Chennai bar or prohibition of any kind from its original language to a Express - set in Tamil Nadu with upon the dubbing of a film into target language spoken in another Tamil characters - was dubbed in Kannada from other language. region is a much greater financial Tamil, and this edition did extremely Similar is the case of tele-serials risk. The Bengali audience and well in a state where Hindi is still as well. The arguments against critics refused to accept Aishwarya not easily spoken. Besides, YRF dubbing are centred on ‘collective

34 VIDURA October-December 2014 emotions’ rather than on ‘objective The story is about two boys, not favour dubbing and others prefer standards,” notes Dhananjaya. Bengali, who, having run away to subtitling.” “The dubbing row in Karnataka Calcutta (then), grow up to become In the Indian cinema environment, has a divided house. While the anti- lords of the coal mafia in Dhanbad it is clear why dubbing is favoured dubbing lobby fails to give answers and later, leaders of the mafia in over subtitling – the low literacy to practical questions, the pro- Kolkata. The time-leap shows the rate of the mass audience. But there dubbing group cites only economic 1990s. The muscle-rippling acts by is no denying the fact that dubbing reasons. Are languages and culture Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor often distorts, misrepresents and no longer important questions?” hardly fit into the ‘Bengali’ mode. misinterprets dialogue in the Khajane asks. The backdrop moves mystifyingly process because lip-syncing is more The dubbing issue reaches far among the Howrah Bridge, important than translation. The beyond sheer economics of the box tram cars, the high court and the cultural and linguistic identity of

office. While exploring the question Dakshineshwar Temple. It would a region is always threatened more of dubbing films mainly from Hindi have passed muster if the film was by dubbing than by subtitling. < into a regional language, one tends projected as a fantasy, like any run- to forget that language and culture of-the-mill Bollywood film, but not are specific to a given region even if with the ‘historical’ handle it was (The writer is a freelance journalist, the two regions fall within the map invested with. author and film scholar based in of India. Language and culture are In his paper – Dubbing as an Kolkata. She writes widely on cinema, deeply intertwined and getting a Expression of Nationalism, Martine gender issues, media and human Hindi blockbuster like Gunday Dannan writes: “The preference rights for print and online media. She dubbed in Bengali is ridiculous, for film dubbing and subtitling has won the national award for Best especially when the script puts it has often given rise to passionate Writing on Cinema twice, the Bengal purportedly against the ‘historical’ debate concerning the aesthetic Film Journalists Association Award, backdrop of the 1970s Bangladesh value and the linguistic quality of and a Lifetime Achievement Award war, which coincides with the the translated material. Arguments from Laadly-UNFPA in 2010.) Naxalite movement gaining about qualitative criteria, however, momentum in West Bengal. do not explain why entire countries

CEC wants paid news to attract disqualification Paid news should be made an electoral offence that attracts disqualification so that it acts as a deterrent, Chief Election Commissioner V.S. Sampath suggested and said inadequacies in legal framework were not allowing the poll panel to effectively check this and other malpractices. He also said that there is a “crying need” for a “well- defined legislation” governing expenditure of political parties during elections as its absence was allowing them and their candidates to circumvent the rules. Sampath, who was speaking at a session organised by the Law Commission, said that when the Election Commission looked into whether it had the powers to deal with paid news it found the “answer was negative.” He said that ‘paid news’ in whatever form or nomenclature is presently not even an electoral offence. “If it is an electoral offence, it can eventually lead to the disqualification of the candidate. Whatever the difficulties of implementation, the very fact that if it is listed as electoral offence, it would act as a deterrent against people using it in the elections,” he said. The CEC said that a recommendation in this regard has been made to the Law Ministry. He even wondered why the government advertisements during elections should not be considered as paid news. He added that the Election Commission is constrained “because of the law and the interpretation of the law.” The law says the EC can hold an election within the period of six months before the due date. “We have been making proposals on so many occasions. Why should not the Commission have powers to ensure the purity of the election during this six-month period,” he said. He said that advertisements or paid news by political parties is one thing, advertisements given by

government during this period “is also paid news”. The CEC also called for a “well-defined law” relating to opinion polls conducted by TV channels. <

(Courtesy: exchange4media.com)

October-December 2014 VIDURA 35 When fake is original and stealing is art

What is original what is fake in the creative space? When does copying become plagiarism, and inspiration become imitation? Now, this is indeed an interesting context in which the concepts of ‘fake’ and ‘original’ dwell in the cultural space. In an Indian scenario, a sharp distinction of fake from original is subjective, says Amitava Nag

n his golden rules about African literature? Fifty, or, may be then Bengali or film making, Jim Jarmusch, a hundred? And if we consider the Hindi adapting IAmerican Independent film- literary pieces written till date (and from it. In com- maker, claims authoritatively: numerous ones shared, uploaded parison, there Amitava Nag “Steal from anywhere that and ‘liked’ every minute via social are a host of resonates with inspiration or fuels networking sites across the globe) Bengali movies, your imagination. Devour old the figure will go up still further to for example, which quite slyly films, new films, music, books, a number well in an excess of Polti’s show clips of renowned films by paintings, photographs, poems, figure or an extrapolation of it. Satyajit Ray or a Ritwik Ghatak on dreams, random conversations, The question of originality the pretext of inter-textuality. architecture, bridges, street signs, vs plagiarism in Indian cinema Take the case of Apur Panchali trees, clouds, bodies of water, light resurfaced recently, triggered by (2014, directed by Kaushik and shadows. Select only things Barfi! (2012), a film by Anurag Ganguly), which tries to trace the to steal from that speak directly Basu. Basu had lifted the plot from trajectory of the life of the child actor to your soul. If you do this, your Buster Keaton’s 1922 short comedy who played Apu in the first film of work (and theft) will be authentic. Cops, Charles Chaplin’s two-reel the legendary Ray – Pather Panchali Authenticity is invaluable; The Adventurer (1917), City Lights (1955). In the process, the director originality is non-existent. And (1931) and a number of Hollywood was liberal in showing clips of the don’t bother concealing your and Korean films. The pickups were film and also from the two sequels thievery—celebrate it if you feel like blatant, so much so that they cannot to it which form the acclaimed Apu it. In any case, always remember be termed as mere ‘inspiration’ from Trilogy by the master. Now this is what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s foreign films. Such inspirational not ‘copying’ in the strictest sense not where you take things from— pilgrimage, however, seems more since the earlier film(s) have been it’s where you take them to.” troublesome primarily because used with acknowledgement, as Now, this is indeed an interesting it is at a sublime level where the compared to probably Barfi! which context in which the concepts of concept is what is being stolen – comes close to lifting, with no ‘fake’ and ‘original’ dwell in the not just the physical manifestation acknowledgement at all. cultural space. In an Indian scenario, of it. Also, it is really and rightfully The debate may get further where Cntrl-C – Cntrl-V seem to not the responsibility of a creator to complicated if we bring in the be a hegemony of sorts, a sharp make sure that her creation doesn’t complexities of an inter-text distinction of fake from original ‘resemble’ any existing creative adaptation. When Ray, for instance, is subjective. In his seminal book, element in any part of the world. adapted Rabindranath Tagore’s The Thirty-six Dramatic Situations, That is indeed impossible. Nastanirh into Charulata (1964), Georges Polti dissected a plethora However, what doesn’t escape was that copying from literature? No of plots across the world into thirty- one’s attention is the way our one thought it to be so. It was more six unique ones – the ‘originals’ colonial hangover in the intellectual of an adaptation, an inspiration to according to him. Considering that space makes our so-called ‘art-film’ comment on a social aspect using his scope of analysis was mostly directors hanker for ‘inspiration’ someone else’s story in a different limited to European literature from a Tarkovsky, a Godard or medium and at a different time. till the 19th Century, what will a Kieslowski in parallel to the Rather, people did go overboard that number come up to when we ‘commercial-film’ director who about instances where they felt extend the scope till date to include does the same from Japanese or Ray didn’t strictly follow Tagore’s Oriental, Latin American and Korean action movies in Tamil, and interpretation of the characters.

36 VIDURA October-December 2014 Illustration: Arun Ramkumar Illustration:

Similarly, in instances of remake – irritated. We wouldn’t have spent looking for always when we watch the focus is on how close the two time on this debate if the film hadn’t a movie or read a book. That is what creations are, rather than on how stirred us. And also probably not matters, since, like Paul Gauguin, the two creators’ interpretations if it had bombed at the box office we have to accept that “Art is either differ, given the differences in the either. plagiarism or revolution”. Believe

time frames in which the films were So in the end, what matters to me ‘Fake’ is ‘Original’ and stealing made. us is whether we like a film or not. is any day better than imitating. < Actually, these debates and The producer’s concern is whether complications increase in the case the film is a commercial winner. of cinema simply because there is It is only the armchair critic who (The writer is an independent film a huge amount of finance which is is irked by issues of ‘original’ and scholar and critic residing in Kolkata. involved in making a film and then ‘fake’. As French Marxist theorist, He has written extensively on cinema ensuring that it is a commercial writer, and filmmaker Guy Ernest for the past 15 years, including a book success. That is why questions Debord said: “Ideas improve. The on Indian cinema – Reading the on ‘piracy’ are underplayed in meaning of words participates in Silhouette: Collection of Writings the context of a movie and the the improvement. Plagiarism is on Selected Indian Films, and is confusion regarding a fictitious necessary. Progress implies it. It editor of Silhouette magazine,www. original-vs.-fake emerges. What embraces an author's phrase, makes silhouette-magazine.com) matters is whether the end product use of his expressions, erases a false is one which gives you a wholesome idea, and replaces it with the right viewing experience or leaves you idea.” This right idea is what we are

October-December 2014 VIDURA 37 A TRIBUTE To those who ‘stumbled on the path to hell’

The story of Noti Binodini, her predecessors and her successors, who hailed from the red-light areas of Kolkata, or Calcutta as it once was, is not a tragic story of displacement. It has more hope than disillusionment, more recognition than anonymity, says Shoma A. Chatterji he history of the Bengali stage posters, newspaper advertisements is replete with celebrated and much more, making it a Twomen drawn from the red- collector’s item. The book includes light areas of the city who were an audio DVD of songs chosen from brilliant actors, skilled in different Binodini’s plays, sung by artistes schools of music, and could slip spanning three generations. smoothly into the skin of characters The second event was a variety from mythology, legend, history entertainment programme titled and literature. They were born In Search of Binodini, conceived, into prostitution, forced into orchestrated and strung together by prostitution, or both. singer and music historian Riddhi There was a time when male Bandopadhyay. The programme actors performed female roles was a delicate balance of songs, When theatre owners and directors recitations and dances, scanning felt that women should act, they music from the theatre through hit a roadblock because women Nazrul and Tagore compositions, from mainstream society were not D.L. Roy songs and so on. The permitted to perform in public dances and one song were Photos: SAC spaces. So, theatre personalities, performed by 15 girls and boys many of whom frequented the red- of Komol Gandhar, the cultural light neighbourhoods, drew talent wing of Durbar Mahila Samanway The cover page of the book on from the ‘taboo’ areas. Committee, one of the biggest Binodini, which is a collection of Recently, the contribution of organisations of sex workers in the articles and anecdotes. such women, beginning with the East. legendary Binodini Dasi, was Durbar is a collective of 65000 Binodini was more famous than recognised in two separate events in sex workers. It was founded in 1992 the others because she took the role Kolkata. The first was a celebration in Sonagachi, the largest red-light of around 90 characters across 80 of Binodini Dasi through the neighbourhood in Kolkata, where plays within the short span of 12 launch of a book titled Binodini an estimated 11000 sex workers years. In Meghnad Badh, authored Samagra (Binodini Collection) edited practise their trade. The children, by Michael Madhusudan Dutta, she by Debojit Bandopadhyay, one of born into the sex trade, are trying played six roles. Her performance the greatest scholars of theatre music to gain a life of respect and dignity. in and as Chaitanya Leela was in the country. It is a collection of This was a unique example of a so realistic that intellectuals like articles, first-person narratives and young generation of ostracised Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, anecdotes of Binodini Dasi who young men and women paying a Edwin Arnold, author of Light of had educated herself enough to live, cultural tribute to women who Asia, and theosophist Col Olcott write two biographies during her rose in the same trade ages ago. were captivated. Ramkrishna lifetime – Amar Katha (My Story) “It is both inspirational as well as Paramhamsa blessed her after a and the unfinished Amar Abhinetri a celebration of their predecessors show he attended. Jeebon (My Life As An Actress). It has who rose from the dredges of their There were others like Nori photographs of Binodini on stage, lives to bring respect to theatre as an Sundari Dasi, Rajkumari, Lakshmi, sketches, reproductions of film art form,” says Riddhi. Narayani, Kusum Kumari,

38 VIDURA October-December 2014 Sukumari Dutta and Kshetramoni depend on patrons and protectors Shakespeare’s famous tragedy, who were her contemporaries. After as benefactors. Her mentor Girish her performance was outstanding. her, there is a long list of women Ghosh persuaded her to become Though the play was a commercial from similar backgrounds who the mistress of Gurmukh Rai, a flop, Tincowrie had arrived on the became noted character actresses rich Marwari businessman, when Calcutta stage. She kept changing in Bengali and Hindi films. Kanan the theatre fell into bad days and from one theatre group to another, Devi was perhaps the most famous the owner wanted to pull down the but proved her worth as an actor in among them all. shutters. She agreed. Rai kept his demanding roles. The practice of drawing actresses promise of building a theatre for Says Riddhi about the children from the red-light areas continued the company. His only condition of Komal Gandhar, “These children even when the form and content of was that the theatre should be from Sonagachi, born into the trade, proscenium performances changed, called B-Theatre. But his wish was face the same stigma their mothers and women from mainstream ignored in favour of the name and grandmothers encountered in society entered the sphere of star because a theatre named after their lifetime, as they too belong public performance. Ketaki Dutta a “fallen woman“ would draw to the red-light areas. This is a and Keya Chakraborty were two neither audience nor prestige. The humble attempt to bring these prominent figures who hailed building was bulldozed years later girls and boys within the cultural from the ostracised pockets of the for widening Beadon Street, where mainstream of Bengal. It is also a city. They became outstanding it stood. The Star Theatre that exists tribute to the great actresses of the performers and singers of different today is a different one. Binodini’s Kolkata stage whose roots lay in styles of music and, occasionally, name is, however, associated with the red-light areas. Yet, they rose played multiple roles in the same academic research, books, films and from the ashes of their humiliation play. Keya, who was also an biographical plays on her life. and oppression to gain recognition English professor, died tragically in Binodini called her stories and fame for their acting and in a drowning accident. bedanagathas or narratives of pain. music.” None of these women either Though she was confident of The story of Noti Binodini, her tried to hide their roots in the red- controlling the language of theatre, predecessors and her successors, is light areas or felt embarrassed her writings are filled with a sense not a tragic story of displacement. about it. In fact, they were proud of low self-esteem and fear of It has more hope t han of their roots. Ironically, it was failure. She wrote: “The talented, disillusionment, more recognition their roots in prostitution that came the wise and learned write in order than anonymity and disrespect, to the aid of theatres when there to educate people and to do good offering more education in was a funds crunch, and financiers to others. I have written for my historical and cultural terms than needed to be lured into putting own consolation, perhaps for some entertainment. All this, however, is money into the industry. In other unfortunate woman who, taken in in retrospect. The past shapes our words, the women were sexually by deception, has stumbled on the present and determines our future. exploited by the same theatre path to hell.” She did not ever try No history of Bengali theatre can

owners, directors and writers who to disown her roots though she be written without mentioning the benefited from their performance was reminded of it again and again contribution of Binodini and her < on stage. But their status quo did through incidents like the tragic sister actresses. not change. They drew packed death of her 11-year-old daughter, audiences, comprising men from who was denied school admission the aristocracy, British bureaucrats, because she was the illegitimate spiritual leaders and intellectuals. child of a prostitute. Yet, they continued to remain While Binodini learnt the marginalised and socially ostracised rudiments of classical music under by the mainstream. Gangabai who came to live in her Binodini Dasi (1863-1941) neighbourhood, Tarasundari and became a phenomenal star of the Angoorbala, both from similar Bengali stage during the time of backgrounds, trained themselves Natasamrat Girish Chandra Ghosh, in Nazrul Geeti, performing the musician, playwright, poet, rigorous riyaaz (practice sessions) theatre director and actor, who every day. Tincowrie Dasi, was the man behind the golden another actress, was illiterate. But age of Bengali theatre. Like most when she played Lady Macbeth of her peers, she was forced to in Girish Ghosh’s production of

October-December 2014 VIDURA 39 Bengali cinema's unmatched mahanayak

Uttam Kumar passed away on 24 July 1980 at the age of 53 due to a heart attack during the shooting of Ogo Badhu Sundari. Both while he was alive, and in the 35 years since his demise, no Bengali actor has been able to match his stardom. Today, the young generation finds it difficult to relate to Uttam Kumar or his films. But his contribution to Indian cinema in general and Bengali cinema in particular will be luminescent both for film scholars and for nostalgic cinemagoers in every corner of the globe. Amitava Nag on the cultural icon

ike commercial cinema of in the third part Satyajit Ray’s Apu (1948) directed by the legendary any region, Bengali cinema Trilogy – Apur Sansar (The World Nitin Bose. (Though he acted in Lwas never short of stars since of Apu) and remained in the heart Mayador before this, the film was inception. The first genuine star of Bengali and international film never released.) was the inimitable actor-director audiences thanks to his stupendous After a string of flops, his first Pramathes Barua, whose tragedy- histrionic abilities. However, the major hit came with Basu Paribar infused Devdas (1935) had an first superstar and probably the in 1952. In the following year, entire generation ache with the most enduring matinee idol of with Saare Chuattor, history was pain of the escapist suitor. There Bengali cinema till date is none made in the Bengali film industry. was also Dheeraj Bhattcharya with other than Uttam Kumar – the true The film, providing wholesome his aristocratic looks and Asit Baran and only mahanayak (great actor) of entertainment, is recognised as an with his boy-next-door image. In the the Bengali entertainment industry. iconic Bengali comedy. The older 1950s came Basanta Chowdhury, In the three decades from the couple, Tulsi Chakraborty and Nirmal Kumar and Anil Chatterjee 1950s till his death in 1980, Uttam Malina Debi, stole the show along – all of them blessed with good Kumar acted in approximately 200 with cameos from Bhanu Banerjee, looks and excellent acting abilities films; over 150 were hits making Jahar Ray and others. Uttam and to support their screen presence. In profits above the average. Uttam’s Suchitra Sen made an impish debut 1959, Soumitra Chatterjee debuted first released film was Drishtidan as a romantic pair – not unnoticed, but definitely not making much of an impact either. The duo, however, went on to set the Bengali screen on fire for the rest of the 1950s, doing 20 films together. With films like Sagaraika, Sapmochan, Sabar Uporey, Shilpi, Harano Sur, Pathe Holo Deri, Jiban Trishna, Indrani and Chawa Pawa, they took stardom to dizzy heights unmatched by any other romantic on-screen Bengali pair. The success was probably in the structure of these films, which relied heavily on the Nehruvian ideal of a nuclear family for modern India, with the village boy putting down roots in the city. In his struggle for existence, the hero finds a partner in a beautiful girlfriend who goes on to become his wife, and, jointly, Photos: supplied by AN Photos: supplied by they break free from the adversities of life. It has to be kept in mind that Uttam Kumar in Jhinder Bandi. a huge section of the Bengali youth

40 VIDURA October-December 2014 perfect Bengali. As Rajesh Khanna observed, “Uttam Kumar as the Bengali babu is unique. What I believe is that there is no one who can ever represent the Bengali community like Uttam-da did." Neither Ritwik Ghatak nor Mrinal Sen thought of using Uttam – a misfortune for both Uttam and cinemagoers. However, the other great director who exploited Uttam’s histrionic ability and expanded his acting horizon was Tapan Sinha. Sinha casted Uttam in Jhinder Bandi (1961) and Jatugriha (1964) – markedly different from each other in style, genre and content. While the former is a successful adaptation of the epic The Prisoner of Zenda, the latter is a short story about an urban couple not on good terms with each other. As the 1960s drifted to a close, Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen in Saptapadi. They formed an irresistible pair and Uttam Kumar shifted to a slightly their on-screen chemistry created magic. different role, in keeping with his age. The unsure, introverted man who migrated from their birthplace maestro admitted was written with with boyish charm of the films of the in East Bengal (now Bangladesh) a star as big as Uttam in mind. After early 1950s gave way to a confident, in search of their fortunes in the Uttam’s death, Ray paid him tribute arrogant and smart individual in city of Calcutta found echoes of in no uncertain terms: “There isn't many of the films during this time. their dreams in these films. Uttam - there won't be - another hero like Three films that do need special and Suchitra embodied their wish- him”. mention are Aparichito (1969), Stree fulfilment and trust that hurdles Nayak put Uttam Kumar on the (1972) and Sanyasi Raja (1975). In would be overcome, as would the pedestal of a cerebral actor and film each of them, Uttam played the role pain of uprooting from their past. critics and scholars started taking of a temperamental rich humbug The ‘displaced’ Bengali identified Uttam more seriously than just as drowned in vices. himself with Uttam Kumar – a a romantic hero. Ray followed up The 1970s also witnessed Uttam’s dutiful son, a lovable younger Nayak with Chiriakhana (1967) penchant for comedy in Dhanni brother and a faithful lover. where Uttam played Byomkesh, Meye (1971), Chadmabeshi (1971) Sporting an infectious smile, Uttam the sleuth – a film which neither got and Mouchak (1975). Some other won hearts over decades, using it as critical acclaim, nor could warm up films of the same decade, where his magic weapon and developing it box-office sales. In the same year, Uttam played character roles with as he aged gracefully. The magnum he played Anthony Kabiyal in the aplomb were Nishipadma (1970), success of Uttam-Suchitra in the film Anthony Firingi, an acting Agniswar (1975), Bagh Bandi Khela 1950s notwithstanding, the two masterpiece which, along with his (1975) and Sabyasachi (1977). Apart acted together in only four films in histrionics in Chiriyakhana, fetched from Bengali, Uttam Kumar also the following decade, and the same him the Best Actor Award (called acted in some Hindi films – Chhoti number in the 1970s. The major the Bharat Award at that time) at Si Mulaqat (1967), Amanush (1975) hit during this time was Saptapadi the First National Film Awards, and Anand Ashram (1977). His

(1961), which also remains one of India. foray into Hindi films however their all-time biggest hits. Uttam Kumar assumed the role remained unsuccessful as a whole. < Suchitra and Uttam drifted apart of big brother to the industry and and made films with other screen helped needy technicians and partners to garner hits in their own members of the crew. This made him rights. Uttam’s greatest moment of special to most of his co-stars and acting possibly came in 1966 with compatriots. For the non-Bengali Satyajit Ray’s Nayak, which the audience he was the epitome of a

October-December 2014 VIDURA 41 HISTORY OF PUNJABI JOURNALISM Mirroring twists and turns of sociopolitical history

Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken or understood by the Punjabi people in India, Pakistan and other parts of the world – by over 150 million people. Several different scripts have been used for writing the Punjabi language, depending on the region. Mrinal Chatterjee continues his series on regional journalism with a focus on the Punjab this time

eople of Punjab, especially the specific purpose of promoting u n d e r w e n t the Sikhs, tended to use the Sikh religious ideals and so had cataclysmic PGurmukhi (which means a definitive religious character. changes. The from the mouth of the Gurus) script. Literary journalism, essentially a Bolshevik Mrinal Chatterjee People living in the neighbouring secular enterprise, was apparently a Revolution in states such as Haryana and later offshoot, and became theraison the erstwhile Himachal Pradesh often used the d'etre for the emergence of ‘little Soviet Union, the outbreak of Devanagari script. The script used magazines’, only towards the end of World War I in Europe, the rowing for writing Punjabi in the Punjab the 19th Century. influence of imperialism in India province of Pakistan is known as It was through the efforts of Bhai and sporadic acts of resistance Shahmukhi (from the mouth of Veer Singh, a noted Punjabi poet to it resulting in the sinking of the Kings), which is a modified and novelist, that Khalsa Samachar, Kamagatamaru and the Jallianwala version of Persian-Nasta'liq script. a weekly, was started in 1899. Bagh episode were some of the Newspapers have been published Known for its conservative outlook, historical events that helped in in Punjabi language in all these substantive financial standing and shaping an emergent political and scripts. Presently, Gurmukhi is well-reasoned articles, the magazine national consciousness all over, the officially recognised script for gave a new direction to Punjabi especially in Punjab. Punjabi language in India. journalism, enriching both language Shedding its religious character, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the and prose in the process. No wonder Punjabi journalism was quick to founder of Sikh Empire in India, it is the longest surviving magazine adapt itself to these social and had encouraged the development of in Punjabi today. Apart from political changes. Redefining its Punjabi journalism when he ruled publishing poems, short stories thrust, it increasingly became a tool the undivided northern state before and literary reviews, the paper of mass awareness, social education Independence. However, Punjabi devoted a large chunk of its space and reform. Its reformist character journalism took its shape after the to promoting articles relating to was evident both in the content and Christian missionaries brought Gurbani, Sikh philosophy, history form of Punjabi literary journalism out publications in Punjabi in the and religion. Bhai Veer Singh’s novel as also the manner in which it early half of the 19th Century. The Satwanti was also first serialised in developed in the early decades of first printing press in Punjab was the paper. the 20th Century. established in Ludhiana in 1809. Sardar Dyal Singh Majithia, a It was during this period that The beginnings of journalistic philanthropist and a great freedom Daily Ajit, which is currently the efforts in Punjabi lie somewhere in fighter, founded The Tribune largest selling Punjabi newspaper, the middle of 19th Century and are on February 2, 1881, in Lahore. was published in 1942 with Sadhu closely bound up with the twists It is currently published from Singh Hamdard as its first editor. and turns of Sikh political history. Chandigarh and managed by a The newspaper was started as a It was the rise of the Singh Sabha trust - the Tribune Trust. The Trust Urdu newspaper and became a movement in 1860s that provided publishes a Punjabi daily known as Punjabi paper later. the necessary impetus to the whole Punjabi Tribune. The exponential growth of enterprise of Punjabi journalism. In the beginning of the 20th little magazines in the period can In its initial stages, magazines Century, the material and historical easily be gauged from the fact that and journals were started with conditions in Punjab and elsewhere between 1900 and 1947, as many

42 VIDURA October-December 2014 Photos: MC

The front pages of some of the Punjabi newspapers in circulation today.

as 300 papers were started; out of monthly, was founded by Captain thanks to AIR, which commissioned which 27 were circulated daily, Bhag Singh and his team of its Jalandhar Station on May 16, 1949. 122 weekly, seven fortnightly, 130 dedicated Sikh intellectuals in It started Vividh Bharti service on monthly, and about a dozen were 1953. 1968. A second channel, christened circulated every three months, six Several Punjabi newspapers have Des Punjab was commissioned on months or annually. been published from abroad since April 13, 1969. By mid 2013, there Several Punjabi newspapers have 1913 Ghadhar movement. Gadhar are several stations of AIR, about been published in different states of party activists promoted Punjabi 15 private FM stations and two India. The Desh Darpan, the oldest journalism by starting publications community campus radio stations and at one time the most widely from many countries in Europe and in Punjab. www.punjabijunction. circulated nationalist Punjabi daily America. As the Punjabi Diaspora com claims to be the World's first in Eastern India, was established grew across the world, Punjabi online Punjabi radio channel. in 1930 in Calcutta to unite and publications also started in several raise the revolutionary voice of foreign countries. Launched in Television: Doordarshan’s the Punjabi community against the 1993, Ajit Weekly became the world's Punjabi Channel was launched British rule. Niranjan Singh Talib, largest Punjabi weekly by bringing in 1998, and it became a 24-hour a close associate of Netaji Subhash out editions from Toronto, New service within two years. By mid- Chandra Bose, was running the York, California and Vancouver. 2014, there are more than 15 Punjabi

paper. Desh Darpan also brought Sher-E-Panjab was started in August language television channels in out Punjabi weekly, Khalsa Gazette, 1998 from New York. Amritsar Times India and over a hundred across< for many years. Niranjan Singh was started by the former chief sub- the world. Talib moved to Punjab and became editor of Punjabi Tribune Daljit Singh the President of Punjab Pradesh from California on March 1, 2005. Congress. A prominent poet, writer Punjabi Tribune is also published (The author, a journalist-turned- and scholar of Calcutta, S. Raghbir from California. Another paper media academician, presently heads Singh Bir, of Atam Science fame, titled Punjab News Weekly started the Eastern India campus of the Indian took charge of Desh Darpan. in April 2005 in California with Institute of Mass Communication The Daily Navi Prabhat was Satnam Singh Chehal as editor. located in Dhenkanal, Odisha. started in 1952 from Calcutta. Both Other popular overseas Punjabi Besides teaching Communication the daily papers have survived the newspapers include Awaz-e-Kaum he also writes columns and fiction. onslaughts of harsh times and are and Sikh Times, both published This article is the tenth in a series the only papers being published in Birmingham, and Navyug, on the history of regional language regularly outside of Punjab for so published in Australia. Some journalism in India. The ones on long even though with miniscule Punjabi language newspapers are Bengali, Urdu, Hindi, Gujarati, circulation. Navi Parbhat also published from Pakistan, including Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, published weekly Shan-e-Punjab for Lokaai, which is published from Kannada and Assamese journalism several years. Hardev Singh is the Lahore in Shahmukhi script. have appeared in previous issues.) present editor. The Sikh Review, a theological, Radio: Punjabi programmes on educational and socio-cultural radio have been there for long time,

October-December 2014 VIDURA 43 Book Review

A great, mysterious river comes alive

the Brahmaputra Valley, plus the hills that dot and surround it”. As the Nile is to Egypt, Brahmaputra is the life giving blood of Assam. For, the entire history and culture of the land are intertwined with River Brahmaputra. The author’s eloquence in depicting the inhabitants of the valley calling the river a living entity does not seem an exaggerated statement, since it has shaped their lives and livelihood, given a kind of expression to their imagination through their songs and, more importantly, has pervaded their psyche. It, therefore, evokes a deep reverence in their minds. The periodical monsoon fl oods destroy lives and crops, but yet, not a whisper is heard about the devastation the river causes. It is something that baffl es the people of other regions. Assamese say that it is because of the symbol of the ever-fl owing river. “The Assamese society is, and always has been, an open society. The process of assimilation and fusion has always been alive and has embraced every ethnic, linguistic, cultural or religious group,” notes the author. What is Assamese culture? Says the author: “If much was retained of each tribe of its customs and traditions, much has been sacrifi ced. This give-and- take process was evolved into a unique Assamese Culture.” According to Jogendra Nath Sarma, the mighty river which originates from Tibet is called Tsangpo or purifi er. Then it fl ows into the Assam Valley and enters Bangladesh, taking a female name Jamuna. Why a female name? Son of Brahma, the creator, River Brahmaputra is considered a male river. It joins BRAHMAPUTRA AND THE ASSAM VALLEY the famed River Ganga. They merge together and to get a new name, Padma. It meets another great river, Meghna, and fi nally joins the ocean of Bay of Bengal. Author: Ranjita Biswas Mythology and legends enter the course of the Publisher: Niyogi Books, New Delhi river. Brahmaputra is a mysterious river with a Price: Rs: 1495 number of legends around it, depending on the period of expedition and research. Legends, however, remain unchanged. Here, the author quotes T. and Swami Vivekananda said, “Next only to Kashmir, G. Baldizzone: “According to Tibetan mythology, a Assam is the most beautiful place in India.” When stream rises from Tise, the sacred mountain – Kailash you think of Assam, you cannot but think of River – and it casts its water into Mapham Tso Lake – Manas Brahmaputra. Brahmaputra is also known by other Sarovar. Both Tsangpo and Manas Sarovar have names such as Luit, Lohit and Sriluit, says the author been att ributed with mythical qualities. Its sands are and it is regarded as the heart of the beautiful Assam emeralds and its water makes anyone who drinks it Valley. For those living in the valley, it is not just a as strong as a horse. This is the mythical source of the geographical area, as their very living is linked to Brahmaputra that fl ows to the east.” the several tributaries of the mighty river. It is no It is in this context, it would be appropriate to recall wonder, therefore, that Brahmaputra is treated with the Hindu mythology: “Kailash is the abode of Lord love and respect by the people of the valley. Shiva and his consort Parvathi. The mountain has two According to scholar Birinchi Kumar Barua, names – Kailash, the crystal, or Kangri Rinpoches, the “the history of Assam in general is the history of jewel of snows,” explains the author.

44 VIDURA October-December 2014 It is interesting to know that the mystery of the Nature and wildlife photographer Prasanta Sarkar, source of River Brahmaputra kept explorers in toe who has explored the Himalayan foothills extensively, for a long time. While exploring West Tibet (1715), has enriched the production of the volume with his Ippolito Desidesi, a Jesuit priest from Pistoria of breathtaking pictures. They add visual pleasure and northern Tuscany, heard that the rivers Tsangpo help author Ranjita Biswas’s narrative exuberance and Brahmaputra were the same. He was the first blossom. Ranjita incidentally has credentials of to report about the great river which joined with translating fiction from Assamese into English and, another imposing river, the Ganges. more importantly, is associated with research on

The author quotes J.N. Sharma to give more details socio-cultural aspects of the Northeast. She is also from the scriptures, such as Kalidasa’s Raghuvamsa a senior journalist who has contributed to several< and the epic Mahabharatha wherein it has been newspapers and magazines. mentioned that the river evoked reverence. Later in Kalika Purana, a Tantrik treatise written in Assamese Charukesi around the 10th Century, as well as Yoginitrantra of the 16th Century, the name Brahmaputra occurs for (The reviewer is a freelance journalist based in Chennai. the first time. He has translated many books from English to Tamil and The other chapters, Sivasagar – Place in the Sun, has written more than 100 short stories and a number of Majuli – Island of Serenity, Kaziranga – the wild and articles in Tamil for various magazines. He now writes beautiful, Tezpur – the magnificent land of Usha, and reviews music shows for The Hindu Friday Review, Guwahati – from ancient to modern, Goalpara – Song Dinamani and Amudasurabhi.) of the elephant, give details and cross references that add more flesh to the text.

Editors Guild urges PMO to grant better access In a clear and perhaps somewhat controversial departure from tradition, the Modi government has been keeping the media at arm’s length. The first step that PM Modi took to ensure that the convention of ministers interacting freely with the media, giving sound bytes and sharing information was discontinued, was appointing 70-year- old veteran aide Jagdish Thakkar, as only a public relations officer. There is no media advisor to the PM. The Government’s intent to keep media away, and communicate only through social media, has become evident in its refusal to invite media representatives for various public and diplomatic functions. Citing the restricted access to ministers and bureaucrats, the Editors Guild of India has asked the Modi Government to “enlarge access and engage more actively” with the journalists. “By delaying the establishment of a media interface in the Prime Minister’s Office, in restricting access to ministers and bureaucrats in offices and in reducing the flow of information at home and abroad, the government in its early days seems to be on a path that runs counter to the norms of democratic discourse and accountability,” the Guild said in a statement. It said that every government is entitled to choose a media strategy that best suits its philosophy and interests. “Indeed, the media would not grudge a government keeping an arm’s-length distance while it is engaged with its core issues of governance. However, diminishing access to information to journalists and the media runs against the grain of democratic functioning in an age of openness, transparency and right to information,” the Guild said. Its statement highlighting “certain deficit in transparency in the functioning of the government” comes in the backdrop of a succession of press conferences by the new ministers to mark 100 days in office and the Prime Minister’s interactions with the foreign media. “While information always has ways of getting out, the public will be well served by such professional journalistic practices as identifying sources and getting elucidation and reactions from persons in office and outside. “The Guild calls upon the government to enlarge access and engage more actively with professional journalists and the news media,” the statement said. The Guild, a professional body of editors, unreservedly welcomed the increasing use of social media by the

new government to get its message across. “But a top-down, one-way interaction in a country with limited internet connectivity and technological awareness cannot be the only answer for large masses of readers, viewers, surfers < and listeners. Debate, dialogue and discussion are the essential ingredients of a democratic discourse,” it said.

(Courtesy: exchange4media.com)

October-December 2014 VIDURA 45 REMEMBERING ZOHRA SEHGAL (1912-2014) She was simply irresistible

With the passing away of Zohra Sehgal, the world of acting has lost a unique person whose experience spanned three generations of performers. Zohra acted till she was a 100 years old. She was mentally alert and as physically active as her age would allow – or perhaps even more. Besides being an actress, dancer, choreographer and recitation artiste, what stands out is the way she lived life on her own terms. Over to Shoma A. Chatterji

ahibzadi Zohra Begum Mumtaz-ullah Khan was born Sin Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, into a Sunni Muslim Rohilla Pathan family. She lost her mother when she was very young; she was rebellious and tomboyish and loved to climb trees. At the first chance she got, she joined an uncle she was close to, on a tour of India, West Asia and Europe by car, getting her first taste of the outside world. The hunger for seeing more of the world remained within her, to be fulfilled later. Zohra completed her graduation from Queen Mary’s College in Lahore, which she had to attend wearing a burqa. The tipping point was when, as a teenager on vacation at Dehra Dun, she happened to see an Uday Shankar performance. She joined Uday Shankar’s Ballet troupe after graduation. Subsequently, she enrolled in Mary Wigman’s ballet school in Wesden, Germany, the first Indian to do so. Later, she travelled to Edinburgh with a cousin and did her apprenticeship in theatre under a British actor. As part of Uday Shankar’s troupe, Zohra travelled across Japan, West Asia, Europe and USA. The trip became the platform for love to blossom between Zohra and Kamleshwar, also a member of the troupe. He was a scientist, an artist and a dancer, born into a Hindu Punjabi family, and was eight years Photo:Internet younger than Zohra. Though their respective families initially opposed the marriage, they relented later. The one and only Zohra Sehgal. Life for her changed after she watached an Kamleshwar was ready to convert Uday Shankar performance. to Islam but Zohra’s family did

46 VIDURA October-December 2014 not insist on it. They got married in 1942 and had two children, a son, Pawan who worked for the WHO, and daughter Kiran who is an accomplished Odissi dancer. The children were given the freedom to choose their religion, but they decided to follow their atheist parents. However, it remains open to speculation whether Zohra had converted to Hinduism at some point, because she was cremated and not buried like Muslims are. Kamleshwar and Zohra worked with Uday Shankar at Almora for a time, and then formed their own dance troupe and went to Lahore. But the pre-Partition years were Photos: WFS filled with communal tension, so the two came back to Bombay after dismantling the troupe. They joined Prithvi Theatre and Prithviraj Zohra Sehgal in action with another Hindi cinema legend Amitabh Bachchan. Kapoor became a willing mentor to Zohra. She remained grateful to including Raj Kapoor’s Awaara now). In 1993, Zohra and her sister him to the end and worked with his (1951). Her first interaction with Uzra Butt presented the play Ek Thi group for 14 years. She was also a television in India was as an actor in Nani in Lahore for the first time. part of the Indian People’s Theatre a serial called Mullah Naseeruddin, The English version, A Granny Association during the same time. based on the adventures of a hero in for All Seasons, was staged at the Zohra’s first role in films was Muslim folk tales. UCLA in 2001. perhaps in Neecha Nagar (1946) After the passing away of her Zohra came back to India in the adapted from Maxim Gorky’s husband in 1959, Zohra first moved 1990s and made her presence felt The Lower Depths, which won to Delhi to assume directorship in significant feature films where the Grand Prix at the Cannes of the Natya Academy. She won she spiked her performances with Film Festival that year. She also a drama scholarship in 1962 and her wonderful sense of timing, her choreographed a few films, went to London. She worked for humour and her unceasing smile some time as dance teacher at Ram crinkling up her heavily lined face. Gopal’s academy at Chelsea. Hindi films saw her in grandmother In 1983, Zohra chanced upon a roles from 1996, in films like Dil Se, completely different performance Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Veer aesthetic – reciting poetry to Zara, Saawariya and Cheeni Kum. invited and ticketed audiences in She was 90 when she did the film India and Pakistan. This began Chalo Ishq Ladaye in which she was with an invitation from Pandit shown riding a bike and fighting

Ravi Shankar to recite poetry at a villains. She passed away on July function organized as a tribute to 10, 2014 at the age of 102. < Uday Shankar. It was so successful that it became an alternative creative performing art for Zohra. She recited verses at An Evening with Zohra on invitation from Pakistan and often gave impromptu solo performances in Punjabi and Urdu which became very popular. After a performance, the audience would often cajole her One of India's best loved actresses with to recite Hafeez Jullundari’s famous a glorious career that spanned more nazm (a genre of Urdu poetry) Abhi than 60 years. To Main Jawan Hoon (I’m young

October-December 2014 VIDURA 47 Feisty, irreverent and candid

and staircase clean, and who very Lady Lili Chatterjee. My dialogue kindly looked after my plants and was artificial and brittle and mail when I was away, either on my appearance, far from being holiday in India or on work filming aristocratic, made me look like a outside London. All such amenities tarted-up ayah. At the end of the as the doctor, the post office, the first episode I undressed and got bank, the shops, the library, etc into bed. With tears in my eyes I were within easy walking distance, said to myself, "If this is all you are and there were some lovely walks in capable of, Zohra Segal, it would the neighbourhood. The connecting be better if you gave up acting!" underground station of Finsbury But there's always a silver lining, Park was easily reached by three and after Jewel in the Crown, my different buses, from where both fees went up and I began receiving the Victoria and the Picadilly lines offers without having to try for connected you to Central London, them. Following Jewel, I acted in reached within ten minutes. The Honorary Consul, Courtesans My lucky break came with of Bombay, Arthur Joffe's Harem, Jewel in the Crown. There was a Caravaggio and The Red Bindi.

Photo: WFS revival of interest in the Raj - I think Theatre work, too, continued partly because of M.M. Kaye's The apace, with Sue Townsend's The Book cover: Close-up - Memoirs Far Pavilions - and the Granada Great Celestial Cow at the Royal Of A Life On Stage & Screen by Television decided to film a multi- Court, and a tour in the Midlands Zohra Segal; Published by Women episode series of Paul Scott's The and Scotland with Our Own Unlimited. Raj Quartet. They called it Jewel in People, and Hedda in India at The the Crown, a reference to India, of Upstream Theatre. n April 1981, I was very lucky to course. It was my first real break and I had never worked so busily as get this compact and pretty attic it put me in another class altogether. I did from February '87 onwards. Iflat in Crouch End, Hornsey, N8, Although the series was shot from While I was still shooting the last belonging to the Hornsey Housing February 1982 to June 1983, my own episodes of Never Say Die, a six- Trust. I had been familiar with the shooting took only a few weeks in episode series (February 9 - April area since 1970 as it was adjacent to India, and two trips to Manchester 2) for Channel 4 produced by our Highgate flat, and I often came where the Granada studios were Humphry Barclay and directed by to Crouch End to buy the Jewish located. my very dear friend, the actress chola bread, as well as borrow books I was cast as Lady Lili Chatterjee, Lou Wakefield, the second series of from the Haringay Library. Kiran's and sometimes while filming in 'Tandoori Nights' was launched by wedding cake was also made by Mysore and Manchester, I would the Picture Palace Productions of one of the bakeries in this area. look at my reflection as I passed Malcolm Craddock. There was a gorgeous view from through the corridors and feel quite The actual filming began on my kitchen window of 'Alley Pally' thrilled at what I saw. I was made April 6 and finished on May 19, (Alexandra Palace) in the distance, up as a wealthy matron, grey hair which meant that while I was on with the entire Muswell Hill valley parted on the side, lipstick, ring location on Wendle Valley Hospital in between. on my fingers, snow white sari, in Mitcham, Surrey, for Never Say Two large skylights, one in the living in a large bungalow. Lots of Die, when I was not required in

kitchen and one in the bathroom, servants. I was to the manner born between shots I would be learning made the place look very light - opinionated and bossy. After all, my lines for Tandoor, perched up < and airy, the two rooms being just I said to myself, I am aristocratic on a chair in the costumes van. about sufficient for my needs. The and I know several princesses and rent was very reasonable and all the nawabs, so the role suited me to a (Courtesy: Women’s Feature Service. other eight residents pensioners like T. Excerpted from Zohra Segal's Close- myself, most friendly and helpful. But when I saw the televised up - Memoirs Of A Life On Stage We had a caretaker living next door premiere on January 9, 1984, I & Screen; Published by Women who kept the common passages was horrified. I hated myself as Unlimited; Price: Rs 375; Pp: 291)

48 VIDURA October-December 2014 REMEMBERING VIDYA MUNSI (1919-2014) A communist and a journalist

She never lost faith in the power of the printed word to change the world. In 2013, she wrote for the umpteenth time about violence against women and the patriarchal bias that exists in every sphere of life, including all the religions that prescribe to women how to conduct themselves if they want to remain safe. After the brutal gang rape and murder of the medical intern at Delhi in December 2012 that shocked the world, Vidya Munsi took up the pen once again, with the hope her readers would pause to think about the human rights of women. It was to be her last appeal. Rajashri Dasgupta describes India’s first working woman journalist

n July 7, 2014, she passed meeting place for journalists where, to protest the Rajashri away. Vidya- di, as she was over cups of tea, colleagues would rise of one Dasgupta Opopularly known, was 94 discuss and share stories. Since paisa tram fare, years old. Vidya Munsi began her most newspapers were unwilling to injuring veteran reporters and tryst with journalism at the age of publish reports that they considered smashing their cameras. During her 33. She became the first working “dangerous”, fearing defamation cross-examination by lawyers in an woman journalist in 1952, when she cases, Vidya-di had a ready supply enquiry commission, she repeatedly was offered the post of the Kolkata of such news, and her editor willing resisted the pressure to indict Blitz. correspondent for the Mumbai- to risk being hauled up. Her boldness made her famous and based weekly, Blitz. She began by One of her most exciting ‘‘scoops”, endeared her in the media circles. reporting on trade union matters remembers Vidya-di, was on two When the government of India set on a part-time basis; as her reports Canadian pilots who would fly up a pay commission for working grew bolder, the editor, R.K. from Hong Kong with gold to drop journalists, Vidya-di was the only Karanjia, offered her a full-time job. it on an island in the Sundarbans woman on board. It involved the For the next 10 years, she wrote a in the Bay of Bengal, which would drafting of the questionnaire to regular column for the weekly, be smuggled by small boats into speaking to at least 200 working a well-known paper critical of Kolkata. Another of her major journalists on their family budget, government policies and excelling stories that made headlines was on their expenses, etc. in investigative journalism. “I the horrific Chinakuri mine disaster A Gujarati by birth, Vidhya was never short of ideas and Blitz in Asansol, an industrial city, the Kanunga was born in 1919 in was willing to publish the stories,” second largest in Bengal, where Mumbai. Her father was a well- Vidya-di said, smiling. hundreds of miners were killed; the known criminal lawyer and her Her workspace, a corner of the famous playwright Utpal Dutt was mother, a social worker. It was her PTI office at Dalhousie Square near to script the tragedy into the chilling uncle and aunt in Ahmedabad, the state assembly, was a popular play, Angar. Her information on staunch and active followers of the mine was “firsthand” as her Mahatma Gandhi who were to husband’s cousin, a mine engineer, have a deep influence in Vidya-di’s escaped death as he was on leave life as an activist later. Her family with a broken bone; through him, members always wore khadi, and Vidya-di met many young miners it was a matter of pride, she recalls who narrated the horrors of the that they were frequently in and out accident. Though it was unusual for of jail in defiance of the British rule. a young woman to be working on “As youngsters, we played cops such issues, Vidya-di said she never and Swadeshis. Nobody wanted faced any problems. to play the police and of course the “Journalism those days – as cops always lost,” laughed Vidya- even now - was not without its di. At 18, she sailed to the UK to

Photos: RD professional hazards,” Vidya-di study medicine, got involved in remembers. The police once beat the anti-fascist movement, gave up Vidya Munsi, before boarding a ship up journalists, including her, at the studies to become a member of the to England in 1938. Maidan during the famous rally Communist Party in 1942, when

October-December 2014 VIDURA 49 War-time Memories and Thoughts on Women’s Movement”, Vidya-di has captured vividly the times and the three important phases of her political life – the war years spent in England and in the headquarters of World Federation of Democratic Youth; visits to different countries as representative of the women’s movement, and some important debates and events on women’s problems in India. Decades later in 2006, it is significant that the Network The only woman among a group of journalists assaulted by the police in Calcutta of Women in Media, India, an after an agitation relating to tram fare. association which works for gender equality and justice within it was still illegal in India. Till her can’t have an editor who does not the media and society in its annual death, she remained astute in her know the language.” Earlier, it was meet in Kolkata released her book belief; once when asked about her the New Age and the Bengali daily, and felicitated her as the first phenomenal energy, multi tasks Swadhinata, and that she wrote working woman journalist in the and interests, she said, “I am a for occasionally; interestingly, the city. It was a proud moment for Communist, this drives my other paper was the training ground for Vidya-di, she told this reporter, activities.” several stalwarts of journalism. “To be recognised as a reporter, a It was as far back as 1945 that Vidya-di, as an editor, patiently professional among professionals.” Vidya-di when chosen to be a trained novices in the skill of Whenever we met later, she would speaker at the March 8 International writing and thinking through ideas. enquire softly, “Are you and your Women’s Day, seriously started Shampa Sengupta, disability rights friends writing? Don’t forget the to think about women’s issues. activist, remembers how Vidya- power of the word.... Use it with She never looked back and joined di encouraged her to write based a purpose. ” All her life, Vidya the Paschim Bangla Mahila Samiti on her real-life experiences, from Munsi never stopped believing in

in 1960; since then she has been child abuse to domestic violence. her dream: of being a journalist deeply involved and engaged “From her I learnt the importance of with a mission. < with local and national initiatives documentation; despite our young around the women’s question. age she encouraged us to articulate (The writer is a senior journalist She was a member of the State our ideas.” In her book, In Retrospect. based in Kolkata.) Women’s Commission; and will be remembered dearly among activists for her role as a comrade in arms of various agitations and demonstrations; and for her ready wit and acerbic comments. Vidya-di’s grooming as a reporter began in The Student, a fortnightly English journal based in Mumbai which she joined on her return from the UK. It was edited by the geographer, Sunil Munsi, whom she married later; when the journal shifted to Kolkata, she moved in as the Blitzcorrespondent (unfortunately there are no writings of her available). Vidya-di learnt to write Bengali “from sheer necessity”, she guffaws. “I was suddenly asked to In 1947, Vidya Munsi (extreme right) at an executive committee meeting of edit the Bengali Chalar Pathe. You WFDY.

50 VIDURA October-December 2014 REMEMBERING M.V. KAMATH (1921-2014) A giant of the old school of journalism

Veteran journalist M.V. Kamath passed away in Manipal, Karnataka, after a brief illness. He was 93. Kamath was known for his integrity as a journalist and his courage to call a spade a spade. He worked as the Washington correspondent for The Times of India during 1969-78 and as editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India from 1978 to 1981. He also served as foreign correspondent in Bonn and Paris. After the BJP-led NDA came to power in 1998, Kamath was named chairman of the Prasar Bharati Board and subsequently in 2004 was conferred the Padma Bhushan. A prolific writer, Kamath has more than 40 books to his credit, besides his regular columns which he continued to write till the last. His book, À Reporter At Large, is a must read for any aspiring journalist. Here’s a personal tribute, by Vinay Kamath Vinay Kamath n the late 1970s, I was moving byline of M.V. Kamath. I asked my of Udupi, where my dad spent his into senior school and though it father who this namesake of my early days of school too. Iwas early days, my imagination grandad’s was (he was Dr M.V. News of his passing away was fired up with thoughts of Kamath). I was quite surprised then this morning brings back many becoming a journalist. Reading The to learn from my dad that Madhav memories of spending time Illustrated Weekly of India, which Kamath was my grandmum’s with him in his small book-lined I used to regularly, starting with cousin and that they had grown up apartment in Khar, Mumbai, where the comics, I was chuffed to see the together in the small coastal town I would have long conversations with him on journalism and my career while he would also recount anecdotes from his glittering career as a journalist. He would himself make tea for us if his help was not around. I always made it a point to visit him whenever I was in Mumbai and he warmly made the time for me; he was retired, no doubt, but kept up a punishing schedule of reading and writing columns for many newspapers. It kept him alert, he had said. And, of course, not to mention his prodigious output of books. I recall my father writing to him when he was with the Weekly, asking him about a career in journalism for me. I must have his neatly typed out letter somewhere, but do recall him saying that journalism is a hard

The Hindu Business Line grind and that I should venture into it only if I was fully convinced about

Photo: it. I guess I was, since 28 years on, I am still a journalist! M.V. Kamath. Even post-retirement, he kept up a punishing schedule of reading I last visited him in his elegant and writing columns for many newspapers. home in Manipal, an hour’s drive

October-December 2014 VIDURA 51 from Mangalore, a few years ago. because Elinor was an American interest she should have a good It was a small bungalow given to and knew a great deal about UN night’s rest. She had told me that him in his capacity as the honorary organisations. That evening, the she loved Paris a great deal and I director of the Manipal School of American community in Paris promised her that the next time Communication. I had a 1 pm train had arranged for a film show on she was back in the city, I would to catch from Mangalore, so took a President Kennedy’s last three days personally show her around.” cab early that morning to visit him. before he was assassinated. Elinor MVK goes on to write that she did He was almost 90 years old then, wondered whether we should come to Paris soon enough, this time but very alert and spry as usual. His invite Mrs Gandhi to join us. She as Prime Minister! And, the meeting memory at that age surprised me seemed only too pleased to accept had an unexpected denouement. as he remembered everyone in our our invitation, considering that she At an interview organised for him family, enquired about my career, knew the Kennedys well. It was a and the PTI correspondent, Mrs and all the while mindful too of poignant evening. Gandhi refused to recognise him! the fact that I had a train to catch. "The show was over by 8.30 pm. “Right away it became clear to me He lived alone but had a maid who At this point, Elinor whispered to that Mrs Gandhi had decided that offered my brother and me a tasty me whether she can ask Mrs Gandhi she did not know me. She was as breakfast of idlis and sambar. to come over to our apartment for cold as a refrigerated fish and just MVK never used the computer or dinner. “What have you got?” I asked as stiff. Having anticipated such e-mail; an assistant would help him and Elinor replied, “Darling, only a likelihood, I was not taken by with e-mails sent to him. He pointed left-overs!” Mrs Gandhi, who must surprise and behaved as if that was to his trusted Olivetti typewriter on have overheard our conversation the first time I had set eyes on her,” a table in his workroom which he seemed amused and said she could he wrote. had used for years. At that time, he most happily come with us despite MVK’s book is a fascinating still kept up his column in the local my protestations that we could only story of the life and times of Kannada daily Udayavani. serve her pot-luck! someone who became a journalist MVK’s output as a journalist, "We had a wonderful evening. through sheer serendipity (he had even much after he retired from The Elinor managed to whip up a dinner set out in life to be a chemist!). Weekly as its editor was formidable. of sorts but Mrs Gandhi turned out Having become one, he went on He has written over 40 books to be the ideal guest. The food did to live life to the fullest in a career on diverse subjects, including not bother her. She said she enjoyed spanning Europe, the US and then many biographies, ranging from it. What amazed me was the chatter back home to a prolific career as a Kissinger to Verghese Kurien. But, she kept up, about herself, her political and social commentator.

to me, his autobiography A Reporter family, her daily routine and a host His passing away at a grand old at Large is not only a compelling of other things like how her husband age brings to a close an era of old-< read, but also a commentary on the proposed to her on the steps of the school journalists. epoch-making times he lived in and Sacre Couer (the famous cathedral the redoubtable personalities he in Paris); how much she liked French interviewed. On many occasions he bread, how she saved money during (Courtesy: The Hindu Business was literally writing the first draft her foreign trips to send it to her Line.) of history as it was being made. two sons studying in England and His book has many anecdotes of so on. She enjoyed being teased and encounters with the well-known ever since then I had always had the personalities of his time. One of feeling that what she needed most those is a fascinating account of his was not a husband or sons, but a interaction with Indira Gandhi who younger brother who could tease had visited Paris as Information her and love her, but never be a Minister when MVK was posted competitor in her power game. there as a correspondent for The "We must have talked endlessly Times of India. It was at a party for from around 9 pm to 2.30 am when M.C. Chagla. To quote: “I met her a she caught me looking surreptitiously couple of days later at the farewell at my watch; whereupon she asked: party she gave to Mr Chagla. My “Do you want to throw me out?” wife and I had been invited to the She was enjoying the evening and party and Mrs Gandhi was most would have happily sat throughout charming. My wife and she got the night chatting merrily and we along very well. I suppose in part had finally to tell her that in her own

52 VIDURA October-December 2014 OTHER NEWS

V.S. Maniam bids goodbye by his wife, daughter and journalist son Luv Puri. His cremation took Veteran journalist V.S. Maniam place at Jogi Gate in Jammu. Puri was passed away peacefully in the early conferred the Padma Bhushan for his hours of August 16 in Ft. Lauderdale, contribution in the fields of Literature Florida, where he was living for and Education in 2005 and also the many years after retirement. Maniam Indira Gandhi Award for national entered journalism as an apprentice Balraj Puri. integration on October 31, 2009. He in March 1947, when he was hardly was an author and co-author of about V.S. Maniam. 20. He went on to work in political 40 books and approximately 1000 articles for various weeklies, served as press assistant in dailies in India and abroad. the British Information Service, was general editor of (Courtesy: PTI) publications in the national cooperative organisation NCUI, and features editor in a US Information Service publication, before joining mainstream journalism in Pran Sharma signs off at 75 1964, as a reporter with The Statesman. He stayed on Eminent cartoonist Pran Kumar for 29 years, reporting on almost every aspect of the Sharma, popularly known as Pran, national scene and writing about some of the tallest who gave life to lovable comic leaders in India. When he retired in May 1993, he was characters Chacha Chaudhary and a leader-writer for the newspaper. The past few years, his friend Sabu, is no more. Pran Maniam was a regular contributor to Vidura, a Press succumbed to cancer at a hospital in Institute of India journal. Gurgaon, according to his publisher “Our father took exceptional care of his wife and Pran Kumar Diamond Comics. He was 75. Born three daughters and was a mentor to them until the Sharma. in Kasur, near Lahore in Pakistan in very end. He took the time to have long conversations 1938, Pran began his career in 1960 as with his sons-in-law on wide ranging issues. All three a cartoonist for Delhi-based newspaper Milap with a sons-in-law were very kind towards him and treated comic strip called Daabu. him like their own father - a rarity in this day and With a career spanning over five decades, Pran age. He was very proud of his two grandchildren employed a simple style of art and sense of humour - a granddaughter who is in the university and a to create a family of characters like Shrimatiji, Pinki, grandson who is in elementary school and tried to Billoo, Raman and Channi Chachi, which are regularly understand the world as they saw it. He was very published in Indian magazines. Chacha Chaudhary, comfortable with digital media and kept himself the now legendary comic character, popular among up-to-date on events happening around the world - the young and old alike had humble origins over four especially in India - including the swearing in of the decades ago, as a mere three-page comic strip in a current prime minister, which was shown live from children’s magazine. Rashtrapathi Bhavan,” says Gita Varagoor, one of his While the eponymous comic is now a collector’s three daughters (Mythili Sriram and Satya Varagoor item, its creator Pran first imagined Chacha, the are the others), in an email the editor of this journal endearing red-turbaned avuncular man, during his received. stint as a freelancer with the Hindi magazine Lotpot. “Regarding his professional career, he was very Pran was not just a cartoonist who looked at the happy and oh so proud of his tenure with The world with laughter in the corner of his eye, but the Statesman. He would attribute his success to his creator of a world peopled with characters whom mentors and peers at that time who took the time to we looked at with admiration, amusement and a full groom him and give him the space and independence range of human emotions. He discovered a variety of regarding the areas he covered and more so regarding people from our own midst, gave them unmistakeable his writing. We are very privileged to have had him and easily recognisable identities, and presented them as our dad and will continue to honour him through to us, especially generations of children, who grew up our travels, in understanding people and in exploring watching them. issues in social justice (thanks to his Jesuit teachers in The world of comics in India had only known Loyola College, Madras),” she said. superheroes from the west like Phantom, Flash Maniam’s book, A life in Journalism, is a must-read Gordon and Superman. Children were only familiar for aspiring journalists. with Archie, Peanuts, Tintin and the like. Pran showed that heroes could be made of ordinary stuff too. Balraj Puri passes away Indian collective memory and lore are not short of great heroes who fought evil and conquered the Veteran journalist Padma Bhushan Balraj Puri world with the strength of brawn and the power passed away after prolonged illness at a Government of the mind. But Pran found them in middle class Medical College recently. He was 86. He is survived homes and neighbourhood streets and made them

October-December 2014 VIDURA 53 OTHER NEWS

contemporary, so that we could relate to them like we was first published by the Left's in-house, People's do to our friends and acquaintances. Publishing House. Cartoons and comics are social documents too, and (Courtesy: The Times of India) not just stories of individual characters with strengths and weaknesses and foibles and eccentricities. In the India of the 1960s when the society was trying Open appoints Mohit Hira as to shake off a firangi (foreign) sway on its mind and CEO to discover itself, Pran imagined a world and people Mohit Hira has joned weekly current affairs and who appealed to the popular mind. features magazine Open as CEO. Earlier, R. Rajmohan (Courtesy: PTI/ Deccan Herald) had resigned from the position of publisher at Open. Hira had joined JWT in November 2012 as senior Bipan Chandra is no more VP and regional business director. He was given charge of JWT India’s digital operations in April 2013. Historian Bipan Chandra, whose He was then promoted to CEO, Hungama Digital books ripped open the innards of Services in January this year. Hira’s career spans over communalism and mapped the two decades with rich and diverse experience across ebb and flow of India's freedom advertising, marketing, journalism and digital media. struggle in a novel, sweeping and Prior to joining JWT, he had worked with NIIT. Hira cohesive framework, passed away has worked in the print business earlier with Times of at his Gurgaon residence recently. India as VP. Bipan He was 86. The historian, who was Chandra. born in Kangra (now in Himachal (Courtesy: exchange4media.com) Pradesh), brought clarity to opaque concepts without sacrificing complexity, even when writing for school kids. For decades, his NCERT Vijayavani is leading Kannada textbook on Modern India was a bible for CBSE daily students across the country. And even today, no civil service aspirant feels comfortable without reading Compared to the furore created by the Indian his co-authored, India's Struggle for Independence, Readership Survey (IRS) data, response to the Audit a bestseller since it went to print in 1988. Bureau of Circulations (ABC) numbers have been As a scholar, Chandra's range was staggering. Any tame, as no publisher has raised the red flag yet and debate on economic nationalism, freedom movement, advertisers and media planners have responded to it colonialism and communalism is incomplete without well. proper reference to his work. Communalism in According to ABC (Jan-June 2014), Vijayavani is Modern India is a masterly book that traces the the leading daily in Karnataka, with total number of phenomenon's social roots, ideological elements and copies having increased by 182345. In the last survey, the role of British policy in its growth and spread. As the Kannada daily was circulating 485834 copies, but political scientist C.P. Bhambhri puts it, "He was a this time it has increased to 667879. Vijay Karnataka formidable scholar whose writings contested colonial grabbed the second position with 618879 copies. The and communal historiography." daily has lost 6,078 copies this time. Prajavani got The historian, who went to Lahore's Forman the third spot with 558453 copies overall. The daily Christian College, often came up with fresh has lost 26,022 copies in the duration of six months. conceptual formulations. Chandra's view of history Udayavani has gained this time, but still at number was grand and comprehensive. Taking elements from four position, adding 641 copies. Kannada Prabha Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci, he theorised and Samyuktha Karnataka are at the fifth and sixth the Indian national movement into a meta-narrative positions. Kannada Prabha lost 3749 copies while paradigm of struggle-truce-struggle to explain the Samyuktha Karnataka lost 15369 copies. gaps between the three major movements in 1920, 1930 and 1942. His classroom lectures in JNU -- Chandra also taught at the capital's Hindu College -- were marked by a matchless enthusiasm that often rubbed off on his students, who would wonder how he could be so passionate about history even when he was well past 60. Chandra was a Marxist historian; however, in the last few decades, he also developed an admiration for Gandhi and his methods. In fact, his book on the rise and growth of economic nationalism in modern India

54 VIDURA October-December 2014 Annual Subscription Advertisement Tariff A JOURNAL OF THE PRESS INSTITUTE OF INDIA for VIDURA for VIDURA

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