Dainik Jagran:
the pracharak in print?
From negligible circulation before the
1980's, Dainik Jagran today is the largest-selling Hindi daily.
Its emergence and rapid growth is linked partly to its right wing activism.
Shivam Vij and Sachin Agarwal in Lucknow
In the research Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and
Muslims in India (OUP 2002), political scientist Ashutosh Varshney writes
about an incident in Aligarh. To gather statistics on the Hindu-Muslim
breakdown of business ownership in Aligarh, a member of Varshney's
research team approached the District Industries Office. "A Hindu
journalist was sitting there," Varshney writes, "The project
was introduced and a request for data made. A story appeared in the local daily
the next day that the CIA was conducting research on Hindu-Muslim relations in
India. The purpose of the project, according to the story, was to discover the
causes of riots in Aligarh so that similar riots could be incited in other peaceful
towns of India."
That the newspaper in question was the Dainik
Jagran is unsurprising. Jagran's regular readers
are all too familiar with its Right-wing activism.
During the recent Indo-Pakistani standoff it was demanded
that the Indus Water Treaty with Pakistan be abrogated. The mainstream English
press warned that it was not so simple to abrogate the treaty because it would
flood the Indian side too. But Jagran ran a page one piece headlined "Boond
Boond Ko Tarsey-ga Pakistan (Pakistan shall be desperate for every drop of
water)". The report said that the treaty was likely to be abrogated
by the cabinet within a week – something that didn't happen.
The tone of a Right-wing
activist is unmistakable: Boond Boond Ko Tarsey-ga Pakistan.
But it isn't just relentless
Pakistan-bashing that they indulge in. The newspaper's defence of the
Narendra Modi government during the pogrom in Gujarat makes it clear as to
which end of the ideological scale Jagran belongs.
Describing the
events in Godhra as proof of how 'unsafe' Hindus are 'in their own country',
Jagran said: "The manner in which pilgrims returning from Ayodhya were
burned and killed is no ordinary crime but the most obnoxious, horrendous, and
unpardonable offence against humanity. The complicity of Pakistani agents and
terrorist organisations cannot be ruled out."
However, the Hindu community was urged 'not to lose self-control':
"Hindus should not forget that Muslims are their brothers and the
Godhra incident could be part of a conspiracy by foreigners." [1] This, for the record, is a far cry from
Ayodhya 1992 when Jagran reportedly advised readers to "Consider
every village as Ayodhya and fight out." [2]
The subsequent riots in Gujarat, however,
were not condemned with equal vigour. The edit page articles instead concentrated
on blaming the media, the opposition and 'secularists' for 'worsening'
the situation in Gujarat to besmirch 'Hindutva' in the quest for
power. Some pertinent selections from the edit page:
In his 29 April
column, Bhanupratap Shukla wrote how 'minorityism' has given rise
to the majority's helplessness - 'becharigi'. On 6 May, he
questioned the policies and intentions of 'the opposition and
intellectuals': "These so-called secularists have no regard for
communal harmony. They only think about minorities' rights, ignoring the
majority's pain... They have scant respect for national security and are devoid
of national pride." The opposition was
