The Journey of Hindi Language Journalism in India- From Raj to Swaraj and Beyond

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In India, the English-language media is considered the 'national media', while vernacular media remains regional, despite its far bigger footprint and impact. From the 1980s onwards, the demographic growth and expansion of literacy in the Hindi heartland broadened the market for Hindi newspapers.

Drawing on her intimate knowledge of the world of Hindi Journalism, well-known journalist Mrinal Pande takes us through the history of Hindi-language journalism in India, from its early days as nationalist newspapers in the colonial period, to its subservience to the English print media in the early decades of independence, and then to the fillip it received in the post-Emergency 1980s when an inclusive Hindi, buoyed by regional dialects, became the best vehicle for furthering Indian democracy.

Hindi print media continued to operate in the shadow of English journalism till the 1990s, when the increasing presence of advertising and private corporates in the field of journalism changed reporting and the way print media published news. Today, Hindi is a huge part of the mediascape in India, with new technology changing the power balance in both newsroom and marketplace. The author focuses on the current digitisation of all media, the increasing influence of social media platforms, and heavy reliance on advertisements that often shapes the very definition of what we consider 'news'.

Examining also the close nexus between politics, the corporates, and newspaper/ news channels, the book asks some key questions: Can editorials continue to care for individual rights and local cultures in view of their proximity to political and corporate lobbyists? How far will our Constitution-given freedom of information and speech stretch if media laws are amended?

Engaging, informative, and deeply insightful, this book is a must-read for students of journalism, mediapersons, and interested citizens.

Mrinal Pande is veteran journalist, television personality, and author. She was the first woman Editor-in-Chief of the multi-edition Hindi daily, Hindustan. The first woman to be Secretary-General of the Editors' Guild of India, she is also the Founder-President of the Indian Women's Press Corps, a national body of India's women journalists. She was also Chairperson of India's public broadcaster, Prasar Bharati, from April 2010-March 2014. She was awarded the Padma Shri in 2006 for her services in the field of journalism.

The basic idea for writing this book had long been dormant within me. The final nudge came from the publisher. As I began working on the book, the question arose: Where should one begin? Should one focus on internet-led changes in content and format, and the rising revenue potential of new media in Hindi? But that makes no sense without first introducing readers to the gradual development of Hindi journalism since the beginning of the twentieth century: the growth and changes within India and its media, its tryst with destiny, the actual events, led by men and women who shaped the world of India's politics and gave us a Constitution that fostered freedom of expression. Then, there is another sub-plot: the managers and marketing staff who worked day and night, often in the worst possible conditions, to finally create a vast market for Hindi media, carrying political debates and ideologies into the remotest corners of the Hindi heartland. All of them must be placed within the Hindi media story. They are the ones who actually helped restore and nurture individual self-esteem and an overarching need for human freedoms in a country that had no living memory of a democratic State.

True, today there are many regional biases against the Hindi language, especially in the non-Hindi speaking areas. They stem not from a dislike for the language, but from Hindi's perceived proximity to political leaders and prime ministers, most of whom have belonged to the Hindi heartland. Several times, powerful political leaders, keen to play up to their vote-banks in the northern plains, have unfairly pushed for Hindi to be India's sole official language. Then, there are the upwardly-mobile, urban middle classes, convinced of the superiority of the English language over all of India's vernaculars. Their representatives in the bureaucracy, the academy and the media houses describe the English-language media as the 'national media', while vernacular media to them remains regional, despite its far bigger footprint and impact. Hindi is the largest spoken language because it is mother tongue to almost a dozen northern states. The unfettered demographic growth and expansion of literacy in the Hindi heartland expanded the market for Hindi newspapers, even though literacy levels and incomes in the north have been much lower than those in the southern states. All these together created a mindset that overlooked the full commercial and political power of Hindi media for many decades after Independence. This impacted the quality of Hindi publications, which were seldom noticed, quoted or awarded technical and human resources on par with the English media by the owners of multi-language publications, the publicity departments of various governments, and the advertising and marketing agencies.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages