Here is a sensational story suppressed by the “national” toilet papers. The premier Hindi daily, Nav Bharat Times (NBT), wound up its publication from Patna recently. Perhaps the popular daily’s closure will remain a mystery if not told in elaborate detail. It also exposes the vice grip of the Manuwadi forces on the “national” press, Ostensibly, it was closed down for continuing losses. A Dalit, Upendra Prasad, an Assistant Editor in the daily, who was appointed Resident Editor of NBT at Patna in Oct. 1994 summed up the story of the daily’s closure:
“The brahminical forces who failed in their bid to oust me from the editor’s chair finally chose to shut down the paper itself which had increasingly become a fearless spokesman of truth and justice”.
The Patna NBT closed on March 21 last, a day after the Assembly polling concluded in Bihar. During the short tenure of Prasad the daily had begun to fairly project the ground realities in Bihar and had been able to accurately predict the outcome of the Assembly polls in the State.
Role of Seshan: Prasad, a young journalist with NBT in New Delhi, was from the outset determined to correct the distortion in coverage of Bihar due to upper caste monopoly over press. Patna had editions of the Hindustan Times, its Hindi counterpart, Dainik Hindustan, the Times of India, the NBT, the heavily saffronised Aaj (Hindi), and the Darbhanga Maharaj- owned Indian Nation and its Hindi counterpart ‘Aryavarta’ (recently revived).
The entire press had jointly raised the bogey of the law and order situation being too bad for peaceful conduct of elections. However once Seshan took upon himself “the challenge of holding elections in anarchic Bihar”, the press changed the tone and the tact.
False reports: In unique unison the press was now engaged in showing the upper caste representative, the Congress and the BJP in lead. This happened almost overnight. News began pouring about the “manufacture of country-made weapons” and “preparation for rigging the polls” by goons of sundry affiliations.
Rumours were paraded as facts and facts were concealed from the public knowledge with total agreement by “competing” media. If press was to be believed, Laloo Prasad Yadav was doomed and his alliance of parties was heading for a crushing defeat.
Mercifully the dubious pollsters were not confident enough to concede for the Congress and the BJP an absolute majority. The hostile upper caste press had for five years run a campaign against Laloo Govt. on the basis of concocted stories, half- truths and even downright falsehood.
But the announcement of poll schedule had made the entire upper caste press fraternity jittery as Laloo Yadav had clearly emerged as the politician with the largest vote bank with BCs, Muslims and the Dalits standing behind him solidly. it was quite foreseeable that the Laloo-headed Janata Dal was a clear winner in absence of a splintered upper caste alternative.
Kayasth havoc: Prasad’s appointment as the Resident Editor seemingly came in the wake of Laloo Prasad Yadav’s request to Ashok Jain, Chairman and Managing Director of the Bennett Coleman & Co. publishers of the NBT. Yadav had spoken about the distortive coverage and unfair criticism from the me- dia. The circulation of the NBT had then stood at 40,000, way behind the Dainik Hindustan.
Soon after Upendra Prasad took over at Patna on Nov.1, 1994 things began to look up at the NBT. The daily had 31 journalists. Except three, all of them were upper caste with a preponderance of Kayasths, a community which makes up only 2% of the State population.
Of the newspapers 80 stringers, 72 were upper castes. Prasad inducted nearly half a dozen BC stringers. A couple of BC reporters were also appointed to provide a modicum of reflection of social composition of the newspaper readership to the staff.
Hindu nazi rule: But it took no time for Prasad to invite trouble. He was soon accused of promoting BCs and all his detractors got a sympathetic ear from Achutanandan Mishra, the Brahmin incharge of the Patna edition of the NBT, a man with loyalty to Hindu nazis but a friend of Mulayam Singh Yadav. But NBT coverage began making waves. The daily started curtailing the statements from paper parties such as Samata Party, a splinter of Janata Dal, and the Bihar People’s Party of mafia don Anand Mohan Singh. Such parties were devoid of grassroots support but were propped up by the Patna’s upper caste dominated media to divide the numerical majority’s votebank.
Reservation to Muslims: Statements from the leader as of other parties that mattered were not receiving their due. On the issue of ID cards, the paper editorially pleaded the polls were more important than the cards. It also condemned Seshan’s objection to Sitaram Kesari’s advocacy for 10 percent reservation for Muslims.
In a classic instance of concoction, four Patna dailies published same photographs showing some anti- social elements manufacturing country bombs in proof of bad law and order situation in the State. The photographs were a Hindu nazi party plant, supplied to the friendly press reporters. Curiously the four dailies that published them had captioned them differently and attributed different locations in the state. The NBT exposed the origin of the planted photograph by reproducing the various captions given by the upper caste press for the same photograph. This greatly embarrassed the entire press corps in Patna who were smug with satisfaction that the media management was perfectly on its course.
The demand for the dally went up from 40,000 to 85,000. But the print order was never hiked by the Deputy General Manager Manoj Kumar Dash to show that the editorial line was unpopular.
The daily would have been the leading one in Patna had the printing and supply been commensurate to demand. So aroused was the readership with daily’s objective reporting that copies of the daily were sold in black market for Rs.10 each. Even as the other dailies were engaged in publishing concocted stories and demoralising the JD votebank, the NBT was scaling new heights of popularity with objective reporting. The upper caste administration of the paper began a harassment campaign against Prasad. In the last week of February, they were able to obtain a circular from the seniors in Delhi to the effect that Bihar election news will be monitored from Delhi. Prasad rejected the circular with contempt it deserved.
Editor persecuted: There was also a proposal to retain Prasad as Resident Editor but to shift actual powers. The seniors from Delhi even sent two journalists, Madhurendra Sinha and Kishore Kumar Malviya, for election reporting from Delhi. To slight Prasad, some journalists who were resentful of the NBT’s objective reporting and were denied leave by Prasad, were granted leave from Delhi. Continuing failure to succumb to uppercaste dictates began to bring dire reprisals. Threatening calls were received by him. Two reporters misbehaved and were evicted from the office. His salary was held up for 2-1/2 months. His tea bill was kept pending in order to undermine his position in the eyes of staff members under him.
Gangup of Journalists: The NBT went further to expose Kerala Brahmin CEC, T.N.Seshan’s antics. Prasad questioned his reaction to Bihar situation and said if polls were held in insurgency-prone Kashmir and Manipur why not Bihar. Seshan’s allergy to deploy the State Home Guard personnel and primary teachers was criticised by the NBT. The preponderance of the BCs in these category of govt. employees had obviously alarmed Seshan who had deep distrust of non-upper castes. The daily also took note of replacement of key Dalit-BC officials such as Home Secretary Jiya Lal Arya by Maheshwari, Vijay Pal Jain, Director-General of Police by Dohre of Bhagalpur riot-fame and Shankar Prasad, Chief Electoral Officer by one Pillai. Seshan’s prolongation of election schedule were clearly aimed at humiliating Chief Minister Laloo Yadav. The extended schedule led to seizure of lorries of essential commodities. The NBT attributed the crisis in detail lampooning Seshan. The upper caste press had been conveniently parading the Marxist Coordination Committee (MCC), a democratic party under another MCC, (Maoist Communist Centre), an underground outfit prone to use violence. It had thus a tool to confuse the readers. The NBT even smashed the nexus being sought to be built up between a JD ally and the violence.
But, alas, such professionalism ran counter to the larger interests of the upper caste mediamen who ganged up to seek the closure of the daily. So much for the upper caste refrain for the merit.
