Dialogue October - December 2005 , Volume 7 No. 2
Prabhat Khabar:an experiment in journalism
Prabhat
Khabar is an experiment in Hindi
journalism. When readers, hawkers, and newsagents were given gifts amounting to
crores of rupees by other newspapers as part of their ‘aggressive marketing’
tactics, none of this influenced the editorial policy of Prabhat Khabar.
When in the nineteen-nineties, newspapers were sold at lower rates to attract
new readers, capital-starved Prabhat Khabar did not take any such step.
When it was generally accepted in journalism circles that ‘entertainment’
and ‘information’ were the principal virtues of newspapers, Prabhat
Khabar raised high the flag for development issues. When it was quietly
agreed in this age of free market and globalization that ideas and values have
no place, Prabhat Khabar considered ideas and values to be the very basis
of journalism.
Recently, some research was
conducted on the content of Hindi journalism and it was found that there was an
abundance of rumour, gossip, and sensationalism. This analysis was undertaken in
a period when it was announced that newspapers have become a product and are no
longer a mission. Things are now slowing changing. Prabhat Khabar has
started giving information on science, information technology, economics, and
the comparative financial progress of different states. Simultaneously, Prabhat
Khabar has become the torchbearer for various ethical agitations in civil
society. Prabhat Khabar did not learn from the market that the
‘consumer is king’, but accepted the Gandhian principle that ‘readers are
the masters’. The nearly bankrupt Prabhat Khabar was given a new lease
of life 14 years ago by a committed young team.
When we started the work to set
the newspaper back on its track, no one would have imagined that one day it
would become such a success in Hindi journalism. In 1990-91, Prabhat Khabar
conducted programmes like ‘reader’s court’, whereby readers could interact
with journalists and discuss ways of improving the media. In villages-blocks ‘Prabhat
Khabar at your door’ programmes were conducted in a similar interactive
fashion. The newspaper was linked to information about the people’s movement,
and during elections, voters’ awareness campaigns were conducted to create
awareness among the voters. Newspapers not only became a part of the cities but
also of the villages. By conducting such awareness programmes, Prabhat Khabar,
despite the absence of huge funds, became a very big newspaper in Jharkhand.
From the most backward region of Bihar, namely, Ranchi – which is now the
capital of the new Jharkhand state — the almost defunct Prabhat Khabar
forged ahead and is now published from six centres in three states.
Before Jharkhand became a
separate state, it was Prabhat Khabar that took over the job of providing
the intellectual stimulus and energy to the agitation for separate statehood.
People used to say that the agitation had come to a standstill everywhere,
except on the pages of Prabhat Khabar. Thus Prabhat Khabar had,
from the beginning, an emotional relationship with the structure of Jharkhand
state. The newspaper even published a special series on Jharkand at that time in
its editions in Ranchi, Jamshedpur and Dhanabad.
In 2000, with all the political
discussion of making Jharkhand a separate state, a big newspaper house arrived
in Ranchi with much pomp and show. It even managed to entice 33 people from Prabhat
Khabar. This silent conspiracy was framed on the hope that the promise of
huge salaries would draw away people from the various departments of Prabhat
Khabar and the newspaper, then, would not be published the following day.
The statistics of the National Readership Survey reveal that, despite the
conspiracy of the concerned newspaper, the number of readers of Prabhat
Khabar actually doubled over the last four years. In February 2003, another
big Hindi daily (claiming to be the no. 1 paper), ‘Dainik Jagran’,
launched three editions in Jharkhand, in Ranchi, Jamshedpur, and Dhanbad.
Despite its aggressive marketing and publicity tactics, it has hardly had any
impact in this region. Why have the efforts of such big newspapers been
fruitless? To my mind, this is because Prabhat Khabar has always
associated itself with public issues and conducted a direct conversation with
the people.
How did it all begin? Two weeks
before we actually started working in Prabhat Khabar, Sanjeev Kshitij and
I went to Ranchi. The then director, D.S. Sharma (from whom I learnt how to be
patient and disciplined), came to our hotel to meet us. Mr. Sharma and Sanjeev
went to the Prabhat Khabar office from our hotel. I requested Sanjeev to
give me his first impressions of the place. The day I started working would be
the day I would go for the first time to the office of Prabhat Khabar.
The well-known Hindi weekly
magazine of the Times of India group, ‘Dharamyug’, had the highest
circulation in the Hindi language press, followed by the ‘Ravivar’ weekly of
the Anand Bazaar group in Kolkatta. Prabhat Khabar’s circulation at
that time was lower than all these – at 500 copies. Being a journalist
in big cities like Mumbai or Kolkatta is very different from being one in Ranchi.
It is the difference between glamorous journalism pertaining to Central
government politics and metropolitan cultures, versus the journalism of jungles
and of mountains. In those days, questions related to one’s career graph were
of great importance. Many of my friends and journalist-colleagues had already
warned me of the impending end of my journalist life. Well-wishers did not want
me to go to a small and unknown place and get lost there. Senior journalists
from Delhi-Bombay (from whom I learnt much about journalism) were extending
proposals for me to join them.
The truth was that I was drawn to
the simple life of the tribal community in Jharkhand. My meetings with
missionaries and activists in this community (while working with ‘Ravivar’
and ‘Dharmyug’) had made a huge impression on me. The ladder of success in
journalism in metropolitan cities – indeed many of my journalist friends had
chosen this path — can easily lead to power, wealth, fame, glamour and
parliamentary politics. But my calculations were different. I had left my
previous jobs as lecturer and Reserve Bank officer and opted for
‘journalism’ in order to be part of a changing society. Indeed, my father,
who was a farmer, regretted throughout his life that I had quietly left my
officer’s job in the Reserve Bank.
During my younger days, I felt
that journalism was a powerful tool to break the social complacency around me.
My background did not allow me to think about personal security, like a house,
vehicle, property, or bank balance. Our generation was habitually very careless
about these things. The people from whom I learnt about culture or social
etiquette, and in the company of whom I spent most of my time, were purposeful
and honest. Perhaps they were poor, but they had pride. My companions were
innovative, restless, always enthusiastic about doing something new, and willing
to face dangerous challenges. If I had succumbed to the present trend of
thinking only about my future, owing to the pressures of market-arrangements in
a globalised world, then I would not have come to Ranchi. I would not have got
the experience of working in Prabhat Khabar.
In the
life of every human being there is a turning point when decisions have to be
taken. Given my stubborn determination not to turn back, I knew what I would do.
It was necessary to choose, whether to sing glorious songs praising a group of
power brokers or to take up dangerous challenges and do something new. I had
already chosen. I believed that a magnificent defeat was far more prestigious
than a victory gained at the cost of self-respect. By the time I reached
Kolkatta, I had strongly resolved to try my luck in this seemingly impossible
vocation in Prabhat Khabar.
After
a week, we returned to Ranchi. For the first time on 22
Since the news agencies were
closed, the main source of news was to cut and paste the news from other
newspapers. I heard about this ‘cutting-pasting’ style of journalism only
here. Old decrepit machines (which were repaired often) were used to print the
headings. If the headings did not come out properly, then they were written by
hand. There was no system at all. There was no value for time. No planning was
done. There was no printed supplement or Sunday edition. Who would provide the
stationery? There was no provision made for this. There was no allotment of
responsibility anywhere. Who was doing what work? Who was in control of what? In
the personal department there was no record of appliances. There was a big
difference between the information given by the old organization about the
people engaged in work and the information we got on 22
I had told the organization
initially that I would take up the responsibility of the editorial department.
But right from the first day I knew that it was necessary to make every
department professional. It is easy to start a new job, but to set right things
that have gone off-track is close to impossible. Therefore a list was prepared
of well-known people in the newspaper industry. We decided to get suggestions
from these people regarding production, circulation and marketing. These experts
were also called to attend the discussions of the top team of our organization.
Given the rising power of the
visual media in the early nineteen-nineties, the only way a newspaper could
survive was by providing substantial and fresh information to readers. ‘Ranchi
Express’ was already a very successful newspaper. From Ranchi, Jamshedpur and
Dhanabad, ‘Aaj’ was published and sold for one rupee. The idea of a third
newspaper standing up to these two powerful, well-established newspapers was
daunting, to say the least. When there was little chance of success, it was hard
to see a future beyond one-and-a-half months. In those early days, I tried my
level best not to allow my pessimism about the future of Prabhat Khabar
to percolate to my enthusiastic team members.
It was necessary to set right
everything in this disorganized place. The end of work was not in sight. Since
there was a chronic shortage of time, the team of Prabhat Khabar started
its work at 9 in the morning and continued to work till 3 or 4 the next morning.
This routine was followed for five or six years continuously in the early
period. In every department many people stayed back in the office to complete
their work. Perhaps no one in our office ever had any leisure time during
week-days in those early years.
In November 1989, on the twin
occasion of the Jawaharlal Nehru centenary and the festival of Divali, we
planned a special supplement. We requested various well-known, national-level
writers to write for us. The problem, however, was that we did not have the
infrastructure to print anything – leave alone a supplement — beyond six
pages. Strangely enough, if a team has courage, interest and great zeal, then
nothing is impossible. Even though we were less than a month old, we managed
somehow to bring out the special supplement!
Our first collective attempt was
to streamline every department. It is noteworthy that many old journalists,
belonging to our office in earlier difficult times, had worked with interest and
honesty, even before the new leadership had come into existence. Our priority
was to organise the editorial department, starting from the duty chart, meetings
with reporters, to maintaining rules of editing and a code of conduct for the
workers. This system was imposed on everyone, from the editor downwards. It was
a violation of the code if photo-descriptions of the editor were published in
our newspaper. Serious journalism and developing an impartial work-style
favourable to journalism was the first editorial priority for our entire team.
It was decided that only one correspondent would attend a press conference and
that that person would not accept any gifts. These values I had learnt from
people like Dharamveer Bharati, editor of ‘Dharmyug’, who had taught me the
ABCD of journalism.
For our team, there was another
challenge, namely, how to frame an editorial policy? We had to decide on the
content of the paper. Our idea was not to foster unhealthy competition among the
bigger newspapers in the Ranchi – the then south Bihar — area. The aim of Prabhat
Khabar was not to compete with these newspapers; it was simply to become a
better Hindi newspaper. The tradition of publishing information according to the
wish of the editor was stopped. Instead we framed an open policy for every topic
and asked co-workers to function according to it. The moral conduct to be
followed was always discussed during our meetings. With this transparent policy,
from the beginning itself, we struggled to create an identity of a good, clean
and modern newspaper.
Today, in this age of
globalisation, newspapers are raising slogans for ‘localisation’. From the
‘Times’, London, to the big newspapers of the country such as ‘The
Telegraph’ or ‘The Times of India’, the incidents in the life of a common
man or woman may now constitute the lead in a newspaper. But in those days,
there were severe constraints imposed on the exposure of the ‘local’ in big
newspapers. Only incidents related to the lives of big personalities could
constitute the main lead in the newspaper. In Hindi journalism, the situation
was even worse. We broke with this sorry tradition in the initial stages of Prabhat
Khabar by publishing important and local events in the lives of ordinary
people as the main lead on the first page of the newspaper. This was perceived
by some to be a very bold experiment. Others considered this to be a foolish
step. The fact of the matter was that we started acquiring an identity in the
eyes of our readers. This step also brightened our own prospects in Prabhat
Khabar.
Within two or three months, our
team had acquired its own editorial voice. Instead of focusing on topics related
to politics, crime and sensational content, we gave importance to local talents,
toppers in school and colleges, successful farmers, women and shopkeepers. We
published stories about the lives of ordinary people who struggled for success
and excellence. Prabhat Khabar decided that instead of reports about
specialists, prosperous people, and the ruling class, it would focus on the joys
and sorrows of ordinary people.
During the early period, the
electricity tower fell down because of a cyclone in Ranchi. The government had
announced that there would be no electricity in the city for the next 15 days.
The situation of the city telephones and the hospitals could well be imagined.
Officers used the generators provided by the government and led a relaxed life,
while the public had to suffer. Prabhat Khabar, in the role of an
activist newspaper, invited people to join in an agitation against this
announcement. This agitation was headed by women and other ordinary people.
By this time, the madness of
innovation had crept into our minds. Big functions, publicity-expansion in
crores of rupees – these are important steps. But we did not have the luxury
of unlimited funds at our disposal. Instead, we made pamphlets and arranged for
their distribution. Our agenda was publicity, daily meetings with the editorial
and circulation departments, and sustained work on new ideas. Towards this end,
we had to rise above narrow considerations of religion, caste and society.
One important incident in the
early nineteen-nineties forged the identity of Prabhat Khabar. The
Ayodhya issue was in the news at that time. Hindi newspapers had published
rumours as headlines and thereby fostered communal tension in society. There was
curfew in Ranchi, and rumours about the number of dead people were rife. There
was a competition between different papers to exaggerate the number of the dead.
Some newspapers were putting up banner headlines that 200 to 400 — even 800
— people had been killed. Not only this, the number of people who were
‘dead’ varied in the eight editions of a single newspaper. Exaggerating
facts and producing wrong facts — perhaps this had never happened on such a
scale in independent India! There was no accountability or fear of the law. The
Press Council wrote a sternly-worded report about this phenomenon, exposing six
big Hindi newspapers. For our part, in Prabhat Khabar, we were publishing
the correct information – that only six people died in the Ayodhya dispute —
with the help of our old friend, who was the editor of the Lucknow ‘Navbharath
Times, and of the BBC team which had been present there.
Around the same time, our
publicity department gave information to the then Director D.S.Sharma that there
was no demand for Prabhat Khabar in the market. People were dubbing it a
‘Muslim’ newspaper and distributing pamphlets against it. (I, too, had
received several threatening letters many times). We told our Director that we
had to decide whether to stand for the truth or resort to rumour-mongering. Need
I mention the fact that our entire team opted for the former? Some of the
newspapers which had earlier sold lakhs of copies on the basis of lies and
rumours are today almost on the verge of closing down. Prabhat Khabar,
which sold 500 copies to begin with, now has around 10 lakh readers, according
to the statistics of the National Readership Survey.
This was the period when the term
‘advertorial’ had already taken root. Advertisements were published in
editorial form. There was a pressure in the market. Our top team decided that
when it was a question of the good of lakhs of people, then we would rather
choose the side of the public than that of commerce and advertisements.
Our
priority was to become the voice of people in a locality. We provided a forum
for the oppressed tribals and urged official recognition of various tribal
languages, like Nagpuri, Mundari, Kudukh, and Khadiya. For the first time, we
identified intellectual voices among the tribals. As part of a new experiment in
Hindi journalism, we started new columns to publicise the local affairs of the
region. Questions about the jungle, land and water problems of Jharkhand have
always been considered to be important by us. Displacement and progress became
important issues to be dealt with. Prabhat Khabar started campaigns
against those who had made this place a pastureland.
In
1992-93 our newspaper published several investigative reports on the
cattle-fodder scam. In 1996, the rest of the country came to know of this scam. Prabhat
Khabar had a leading role in exposing this scam. Later on various big and
famous newspapers of the country gave the credit to Prabhat Khabar for
being the first to expose the scam. In 1997 a BBC team arrived from London and
made a film on the issue, and also acknowledged the role of Prabhat Khabar
in this regard. But what was the cost of exposing the scam? Criminals (who were
protected by the then state government of Bihar) entered our office and
threatened us. At every step, we were harassed by the police and other
administrative officers.
After
the formation of the new state of Jharkhand, the same work culture and
corruption continued. We raised our voice against this phenomenon and paid the
price for it. The electricity department in Jharkhand threatened Prabhat
Khabar with dire consequences for publishing news about the corruption going
on in their department. Those who feel that corruption is not a serious issue
are mistaken. Prabhat Khabar has tried to bring to light issues like the
misuse of government facilities, wastage of money on half-completed jobs, lack
of accountability and the lies of politicians. Our correspondents visited every
village with the programme ‘Prabhat Khabar at your door’. We heard
about the sufferings of village people from our readers. A list of basic
problems was framed and it was published continuously. During the voters’
awareness campaigns, readers were told about the importance of their votes. We
also brought to light the activities of honest leaders. We discovered, in
interior villages, various tribal leaders (who had been ministers or members of
parliament) ploughing fields in villages and living a life of deprivation.
In the early part of the 1990s,
news about starvation deaths started coming out from the Palamu area. We used
the power of journalism to fight on the side of the people suffering from
hunger. In Ranchi a people’s committee was formed. People like Dr. Siddharth
Mukherjee, Tridev Ghosh, and army colonel Bakshi, came forward to offer help.
The committee asked people for immediate relief work, like donation of food and
clothes. Processions were taken out. Meetings were held. The names of people who
had donated to this cause were published in the newspaper. The experience of
getting involved in social issues empowered Prabhat Khabar. And such
power or strength cannot be obtained from market publicity or by giving gifts.
In 2002, Prabhat Khabar
again published news about deaths due to starvation in a village belonging to
the Palamu area. It is notable that six months prior to the printing of this
news, the state government had declared this area as drought-stricken. When an
area is announced as being drought-stricken, relief work has to be immediately
started in that division, according to the law. But the work had not been
started and an affidavit based on the news published in Prabhat Khabar was
submitted in Daltongunj court.
As soon as the news about the
starvation deaths was published in our newspaper, government ministers visited
the area on helicopters. A big battalion of officers occupied the streets of
this area. There were no roads, no electricity and no water. Although the
government admitted that relief work had not been carried out here, it refused
to acknowledge the fact that people had died of starvation. According to the
official version, people died of various illnesses.
Prabhat Khabar
published whatever was told by the government very prominently but it also sent
its correspondent to these regions for a period of 10 days. These areas were not
the ones visited by the government representatives, and the paper continued to
publish reports of starvation deaths. At last the Jharkhand government wrote a
threatening letter to Prabhat Khabar on the ground that it was publishing
inaccurate information. Till that time, the other newspapers were either silent
on the issue or they simply published the government version of events.
This information about starvation
deaths reached the ears of the famous economist, Professor Jean Dreze (who has
co-authored books with Amartya Sen). Jean Dreze visited Kusumatand village and
stayed there for four days. This incident was covered by the national
newspapers. Jean Dreze himself wrote articles in the English language
newspapers. In the ‘Frontline’ magazine (26 August 2002), he mentioned the
fact that the Jharkhand government had threatened Prabhat Khabar for
printing the news on starvation deaths. Later on, the High Court started
monitoring this issue. The other newspapers then started publishing news of the
starvation situation and the Jharkhand government started its relief work.
With these experiences, it became
clear that new techniques had to be adopted and strong attempts made for
networking in rural areas. Even at a time when the country’s big Hindi
newspapers were not engaged in this sort of thing, Prabhat Khabar started
linking the faxing system to the villages in 1991. This attempt to link
ourselves to modern technology helped us in the progress of our paper.
After this our ‘top team’ was
wondering how to start editions of the newspaper in Jamshedpur and Dhanabad.
Shortage of funds was a big issue. Our team members, K.K. Goenka and R.K. Dutta
went to Jalandhar and purchased a ‘third-hand’ black and white machine at a
nominal rate. By that time in Prabhat Khabar, Ranchi, the machine which
was used for printing was declared as scrap. The third-hand machine was
installed in Ranchi, and the ‘(almost) scrapped machine’ at Ranchi was
installed in Jamshedpur. After that it was taken to Dhanabad. The third-hand
‘Orient’ machine installed in Ranchi also started creating problems. For two
to three months, Goenka and I used to stay back in the office till 5 or 6 in the
morning, because the newspaper was late in being distributed.
The Patna edition of Prabhat
Khabar was started in the year 1996, the Jamshedpur edition was started in
1997, and the Dhanabad edition was started in 1999. We launched our Kolkatta
edition in 2000.
So in Jamshedpur we started Prabhat
Khabar with the nearly scrapped black and white 8-page printing machine with
minimal infrastructure. Before we started new editions at any place, we
purchased a guest house there. In Jamshedpur, all of us, starting from the chief
editor to the clerk, resided together. Goenka and Dutta had a list of useful
household tips for every guesthouse. How would the bench be made? The wooden
boxes which were used to transport the machines were used as benches to sleep
on. With hardly any expenditure, bedspreads and other arrangements were made. In
the guesthouse all of us did odd-jobs like cutting vegetables and cooking meals.
For several years our top team members travelled in second class compartments in
trains and even on buses. How did we deal with the publicity and expansion of
the newspaper? For this also new ways were devised. Today people who spend
crores and crores of rupees for every edition would surely laugh at our tactics
in such matters. Our team decided that just as a person would open a recurring
deposit account in the bank to ward off a financial crisis, we would open
recurring accounts of five or ten thousand rupees each for the different
editions of Prabhat Khabar. Thus we were able to purchase land for the
offices of Prabhat Khabar at Dhanbad, Jamshedpur, and Ranchi.
Not all our experimentation
succeeded – especially in the early years between 1990 and 1995. For the first
time in Hindi, a weekly newspaper about financial news was published by Prabhat
Khabar from Kolkatta called ’Karobar Khabar’. This newspaper went on for
about two years and then it stopped. For women a magazine called ’Ghar’ was
started which went on for four years. Today this work is carried on by the Jagran
group as ‘Sakhi’ and it is going on very well. We started a fortnightly
magazine which was about social problems. After some time we had to stop this
also. All these experiments were started without investment of much money. The
only serious mistake we committed was that our already overworked editorial
staff members in Prabhat Khabar were handed over the extra responsibility
of looking after these magazines!
In the meantime, we were also
hassled by administrative problems. According to government rules, after six
months of publishing, a newspaper is expected to submit an application form to
the information ministry of the Government of India to get recognized according
to the D.A.P.V standard. When this recognition is obtained an application has to
be given to the state government for registration. Then the state government
investigates the affairs of the paper, and if everything is in order, it gives
it a ‘recognition’ certificate. For several years in succession, we at Prabhat
Khabar fulfilled all the formalities and were running after the Bihar
government authorities for the recognition certificates for the Patna, Dhanabad
and Jamshedpur editions. The Patna edition got recognition after six years of
waiting, in the year 2002. But, the Jamshedpur and Dhanabad editions could not
get recognition or any explanation for the delay.
Despite all these problems and
against all odds, we have carried on our work at Prabhat Khabar. Over the
years, there were many hopes that the Hindi newspapers – given their
rootedness in the culture of the people — would raise their voices against the
different kinds of exploitation taking place throughout the country. But most
big Hindi newspapers tend to imitate the style of English newspapers and become
the spokespersons for the ’haves’ of society. Why is this phenomenon the
general case in Hindi journalism?
With globalisation, the
mainstream media in Hindi journalism are getting uprooted and are only
interesting in promoting the interests of the middle class. In the big
newspapers a new stream of journalism favouring the “page three” lifestyle
is gaining momentum. This involves leading names and faces in the field of
films, fashion, politics, and bureaucracy. Their main topics of discussion
include beauty, sex, ways of earning money, costly clothes, the latest fashion,
ornaments, love affairs, titillating behind-the-scenes political events, costly
drinks, the world’s best hotels, and so on. This class truly belongs to the
world of globalisation.
A second important problem is the
contribution of Hindi literature to the Hindi-speaking society. Earlier, till
the nineteen-seventies, Hindi writers tried to represent the changes occurring
in the society. Now consider the writings in Hindi over the past 10 years. How
many Hindi readers and writers know what the various states in the country are
doing new on the financial front? Until issues related to ‘non-fictional’
topics are given importance, it is not possible to break free from the shackles
of society. Especially in the past 15 years, the content of big Hindi newspapers
is becoming fictional and sensational. Poverty, suffering, unemployment, social
atrocities, backwardness – these are no longer topics of interest in Hindi
journalism in the 21
In the Hindi media, it has become
a habit to shamelessly publish false information. Even if this happens on a
single day, it could lead a lot of readers astray. Such serious mistakes take
place every week, while smaller mistakes are committed everyday. Still no one is
answerable to anybody — to the readers, society, or one’s own organization.
Frequent transfers, postings, contracts — all of these have become a pastime
for senior journalists. Indeed if this trend continues, Hindi language
journalism is likely to have the same unstable and undesirable trajectory as
that of politics today in the Hindi-speaking belt.
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