Author: Rahul Singh
Publication: Dawn
Date: March 15, 2008
URL: http://www.dawn.com/2008/03/15/op.htm
The Indian media takes great pride in being
independent and fearless, among the freest in the developing world. Indeed,
the press is held up as one of the mainstays of Indian democracy. But is this
really so? Take the abrupt and recent sacking of one of the country's most
distinguished editors, Mubashar Jawed Akbar.
On March 2, the erstwhile editor-in-chief
of The Asian Age was on his way to his office in New Delhi when he got an
SMS on his cellphone from one of his staff members, asking him to look at
the masthead of his paper. To his astonishment and dismay, he found his name
was missing! When he arrived at his office he was met by an editorial staff
in mourning, some of whom broke down.
Word had clearly reached them of their boss's
unceremonious ouster. MJ, as he was known to his friends and colleagues, quickly
emptied his drawers, said farewell to his staff and departed.
He had launched The Asian Age almost two decades
ago and made it into probably the country's most outspoken and readable newspaper.
With publication centres in several parts of the country, it boasted a daily
circulation of close to one million copies, second only to The Times of India
in the English-language category of papers.
Many questioned its financial viability, since
it carried few advertisements. But Akbar claimed that the paper was 'franchised'
out to various businessmen-cum-politicians, which is how it survived - and
apparently thrived.
One of the franchisees was a certain Venkatram
Reddy, a successful entrepreneur who owned the Deccan Chronicle, a money-spinning
publication centred in the south Indian city of Hyderabad.
Deccan Chronicle Holdings became a publicly
listed company on the stock exchange a few years ago and its IPO (initial
public offering) brought in a considerable sum of money to Reddy.
This enabled him to buy out the other major
franchisees of The Asian Age, so that he was able to corner 90 per cent of
its shares, the remaining ten per cent being held by Akbar. Though the details
have not yet been made public, it seems that Akbar also recently sold his
shares to Reddy, which ultimately cleared the way for his removal.
Word has it that Akbar had seen the writing
on the wall some months back.
Reddy was keen to enter politics by getting
into the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament. He wanted
to be nominated by the Congress Party. But there was a problem: The Asian
Age had been critical of the present government, the Congress-dominated United
Progressive Alliance (UPA), in particular over the proposed nuclear deal with
the US on which both the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, and Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh have staked their prestige.
Was Reddy told that the Congress Party would
support him for a Rajya Sabha seat, provided he got rid of Akbar? That is
the speculation and it will be confirmed if such a scenario actually comes
to pass.
For the record, Akbar is arguably the most
outstanding journalist of his generation. He started as a trainee in the Times
of India, moving on to its sister publication the Illustrated Weekly of India,
which was then edited by Khushwant Singh, who happens to be my father. (I
was the editor of Reader's Digest at the time.)
Akbar then became the founder editor of the
hugely successful Sunday magazine, brought out by the Kolkata-based Anandabazar
Patrika group.
He had several political scoops to his credit.
With the same group, he also started The Telegraph, a daily paper from Kolkata
which soon overtook the then dominant Statesman. Following differences with
the Anandabazar Patrika group owner, he started The Asian Age.
In between, he flirted with politics when
Rajiv Gandhi persuaded him to stand for parliament in 1989 from Kishanganj
in Bihar, his home state. To everybody's surprise, he won.
After Rajiv Gandhi's assassination in 1991,
however, he seems to have drifted away from the Gandhi family, in particular
from Rajiv's widow, the Italian-born Sonia. So he went back to journalism
and also authored a number of highly acclaimed books, including one on jihad,
Shade of Swords.
Akbar is by no means the first successful
editor to have been fired in humiliating circumstances. Khushwant Singh took
the circulation of the Illustrated Weekly from 100,000 to over 400,000, making
it a power to reckon with. He was close to Indira Gandhi and her son Sanjay,
and supported their dictatorial 'emergency' rule from 1975 to 1977.
When the Congress was routed in the 1977 election,
the new prime minister, Morarji Desai, sent word through his son to the owners
of the Illustrated Weekly, the Jains, that he should be removed.
His contract was not renewed. But worse was
to follow. Thinking that his farewell editorial would contain something damaging
to them, he was sent a letter of dismissal, asking him to leave the office
immediately.
The same thing happened to George Verghese,
the most eminent and respected editor of an earlier generation, in the Hindustan
Times and to H.K. Dua, when he was removed as editor of The Times of India
(he is now editor of the Chandigarh-based Tribune, which is run by a trust
and is one of the few truly independent papers in the country).
In the confrontation between Rajiv Gandhi
and V.P. Singh (who later went on to defeat Rajiv and become prime minister),
Prem Shankar Jha, then the editor of the Hindustan Times, decided not to take
sides and to treat news stories on their merits. A clear message was sent
from the Rajiv Gandhi camp to the owners of the Hindustan Times that Jha should
be asked to go. He was.
Independent editors have become a rarity in
India. The Times of India, which boasts of being the largest circulating English
broadsheet in the world, has not had a proper editor for over a decade, with
various 'editors' given meaningless designations and put in charge of different
sections of the paper: edit page, news, sports, supplements. The owners of
the Hindustan Times and The Telegraph, the biggest dailies in north and east
India respectively, are the real editors of their papers.
The four Fs now rule the Indian press - films,
fashion, food and frolic. The wedding of Amitabh Bachchan's son, the shenanigans
of Sanjay Dutt and the liaisons of Saif Ali get front page treatment.
The marketing departments, not editorial,
run the show, often making editorial appointments and deciding how the front
page should look and what it should display.
Indian newspapers have become brands and products,
not agents of change and enlightenment. This trivialisation of what is one
of the main pillars of democracy should disturb all thinking Indians.
The writer is a former editor of Reader's
Digest, The Indian Express and Khaleej Times.
