A JOURNAL OF THE PRESS INSTITUTE OF INDIA ISSN 0042-5303 July-September 2017 Volume 9 Issue 3 Rs 50 Trust diminishes as an editor is knocked off his pedestal The Economic and Political Weekly is one of India’s most respected academic and journalistic publications. It now finds itself embroiled in one of India’s most unseemly media controversies. CONTENTS • An editor’s exit reflects Ranjona Banerji provides the background and brings us up to perils of investigative speed on the latest developments journalism / Bharat Dogra • Needed: Sentiments of orn from the Economic Weekly started by Sachin Chaudhuri in 1949, the daring and social vigilance / Economic and Political Weekly emerged when Chaudhuri closed down the Sakuntala Narasimhan Economic Weekly in 1966. Friends and well-wishers got together to form the • Can ‘peace-mongering’ B ever be news? / Sakuntala Sameeksha Trust, so that the journal could run freely and without interference. Sadly, the last two editors have left because of problems of interference from Narasimhan the Trust. First C. Rammanohar Reddy quit after 10 years with EPW. Admirers • Keeping options open in thought the ship would steady when Paranjoy Guha Thakurta was appointed a changed global order / Shastri Ramachandaran last year. Instead, his resignation has really shaken not just the EPW community but the larger world of the media and academia. • Time higher education is given the focus it deserves / Guha Thakurta is a formidable business and investigative journalist. His Mario Noronha work has targeted some of India’s biggest industrial and business houses from • Getting the better of online Sahara to the Ambanis. In 2010, he co-authored a report with L. Sreenivas Reddy, harassment isn’t easy / commissioned by the Press Council of India, on the paid news menace which Pushpa Achanta was destroying the credibility of the media. (That the report was buried by the • Land contouring proves a PCI is another matter.) boon for marginal farmers / Guha Thakurta was apparently hired by the Sameeksha Trust because of his Rina Mukherji reputation as an investigative journalist. What sense did it then make to attempt • Are journalists relatively to humiliate him because he added investigative articles to EPW? To go back safe in the Northeast? / in time, Guha Thakurta worked with a group of journalists to investigate a tax Nava Thakuria rebate which an Adani Group company received, apparently for a tax it did not • Visionary editor, father of pay in the first place. Anyone who follows the news in India knows that the Indian Renaissance / Mrinal Adani Group is perceived to be close to the current NDA Government at the Chatterjee Centre. • Interview with Aparna Sen / The Group sent a legal letter toEPW. So far, so normal. Any journalist who has Shoma A. Chatterji written anything remotely controversial will have received legal notices. In most • Swinging Sixties, echoing cases, the management appoints a lawyer or the company’s legal department the scent of youthful exuberance / Partab asks questions of the journalist and editor and a reply is drafted or further action Ramchand is taken. • Remembering Roger Moore, Guha Thakurta’s 'mistake' is that he hired a lawyer without consulting the C.N. Reddy, Vinod Khanna, publishers, in this case the Sameeksha Trust. He also put up the legal letter and Reema Lagoo (Continued on page 3) July-September 2017 VIDURA 1 FROM THE EDITOR A passing phase, or are ominous dark clouds gathering overhead? Paranjoy Guha Thakurta is a Business manager of The Hindu who reportage and democracy. name that is well known in media helped found the Research Institute So, did the Sameekhsha Trust circles. His is a familiar byline for Newspaper Development in bow down to pressure from the in print; his is a familiar face on 1979. Rammanohar, too, has had a powers that be or was it due to the television. He is a journalist and close view of the Emergency, with fear of litigation? In any case, it’s editor of stature and repute. I his father (CGK) being arrested in not something you would expect was pleasantly surprised to learn 1976. In an article (When Friends from the trustees – all people of that he studied in La Martiniere, Disappeared) he had written forThe eminence – of such a respected Calcutta, the city where I grew Hindu some years ago, he mentions journal like the Economic and up. Paranjoy would probably how the “memories of the summer Political Weekly. You would expect a have become an economist or an of 1976 in Delhi occasionally still journal with such pedigree as EPW Economics professor if he hadn’t send a chill down my spine”. to stand up and be counted. But not decided to become a journalist – he Paranjoy’s resignation now has in this fashion. graduated in Economics from St created more than just ripples. Harsh words have been used Stephen’s, Delhi, and went on to There’s been a lot about it in the in some of the articles that have earn a master’s at the Delhi School media; prominent figures like appeared (Murdering a Great of Economics. But Journalism Ashok Mitra and Ramachandra Journal, etc), but suffice to say gained (it got a top-draw Guha have written about how he that what has happened at EPW investigative reporter) and, am was unceremoniously shown the is deeply dismaying and does sure, Paranjoy did as well (nothing door (you can read all of it on The not augur well for healthy and can compensate for the satisfaction Wire website). The two lead articles robust journalism. The least the derived as a journalist in exposing in this issue, by Ranjona Banerji and Sameeksha Trust can now do is to wrong-doings/ corruption). Bharat Dogra, dwell on the subject. provide its side of the story and It is said that it was the Emergency It all really boils down to an article try to clear the air, appoint another of 1975-77 that motivated Paranjoy being taken down (from the EPW editor of stature, never again bow to become a journalist. And, no website) at the behest of Sameeksha down to pressure or succumb doubt, it must have been the Trust and the editor’s position being to fear of any kind, and restore Emergency and all the things that compromised, the editor being badly EPW's lost glory. Strangely, the were wrong during the period that let down. Yes, there might have headline used in my edit piece (As goaded him to become not just an been some administrative matter freedom shrinks, it’s hard times ordinary reporter, but a hardcore that Paranjoy didn't handle the right for investigative journalism) in the investigative reporter. That then, way and which the trustees didn't previous issue of Vidura once again is the background of the man who like, but letting go of an editor this echoes loud and clear. It’s high has been a journalist for forty years way is definitely not on. time we took notice. now, who has earned his spurs. When the Trust appointed In April last year, the Sameeksha Paranjoy as editor-in-chief, the Sashi Nair Trust, which publishes the Economic trustees must surely have known [email protected] and Political Weekly, hired Paranjoy his background as an investigative as editor-in-chief to replace C. journalist. His report (he was part Rammanohar Reddy who was of a committee set up by the Press editor of the publication for a decade Council of India) on ‘paid news’, or so. Reddy resigned; his was not for example, had created a storm a happy exit as some reports have seven years ago. He had written suggested. However, there were no books – on crony capitalism and ripples as such then. Rammanohar the Ambanis (no less), and how is the son of C.G.K. Reddy, corporate entities were affecting 2 VIDURA July-September 2017 (Continued from page 1) written in detail about how the scholarly articles and also reports on way the Trust functions has greatly growth and development issues that damaged the journal. Several few mainstream publications would academics have also questioned the touch now finds itself in that same Trust’s decisions in this case. Ashok miserable cesspit of power play and Mitra, economist and former finance fear of authority. Rather than draw minister of West Bengal, wrote in a courage from EPW’s strong past letter to some of the trustees: “But and its independent nature, the the latest development, which has Trust appears to have fallen prey gone to the length of the trustees to the current atmosphere of media insisting that the editor must abide capitulation in the face of a massive Photo: Internet by the views of a co-editor who will electoral force.An open letter by 150 Paranjoy Guha Thakurta. vet whatever he writes is against academics to the Trust goes straight the very purpose of setting up the to the crux of the matter: the EPW response on the journal’s trust in 1966... “It is one thing to wonder if the website. For these “transgressions”, "Please allow me to recount editor may have erred in initiating the Trust asked him to take down some bits of past history. Sachin legal action on behalf of the Trust the article and the two letters from Chaudhuri had founded a unique without first consulting its board, the website. He was also told that journal, the Economic Weekly in and quite another to withdraw an whatever he wrote in the future 1949. It was a unique experiment already published article from the would have to be vetted by a co- because alongside comments on journal.