The Hindu
The Hindu is a leading
English-language newspaper in
India, with its largest base of
circulation in
south India. It is over 125 years old. Founded in 1878 by Subramanya Aiyer, it was later headed by a co-founder, Veeraraghavachariar. Kasturi Iyengar, the legal adviser of the newspaper from 1895, bought it in 1905. Since then his family has retained ownership of the paper. The two basic priciples on which the founders flagged the newspaper were
fairness and
justice. Headquartered at
Chennai (formerly called
Madras),
The Hindu was published weekly since 1878 and daily since 1889.
The Hindu enjoys a status of being a
tradition, not merely a newspaper, in
south India.
Indeed, in popular Indian perception,
The Hindu was one of the defining characteristics of
the city of Madras, among other charcteristics such as the hot and humid weather,
vegetarian cuisine,
filtered coffee,
Tamil Cinema and
South Indian art. Its current net-paid circulation exceeds 1 million copies. It is said to enjoy a readership of 3
million in India and abroad and an annual turnover of around 4
billion rupees ($80 million). In 1995,
The Hindu became the first Indian newspaper to offer an online edition.
History
The first issue of
The Hindu was published on September 20, 1878, by a group of six young men, led by
G. Subramania Aiyer, a radical social reformer and school teacher from
Thiruvaiyyar near
Thanjavur. Aiyer, then 23, along with his 21-year-old fellow-tutor and friend at Pachaiyappa's College, M. Veeraraghavachariar of Chingleput, and four law students, T.T. Rangachariar, P.V. Rangachariar, D. Kesava Rao Pant and N. Subba Rao Pantulu were members of the
Triplicane Literary Society. The
British controlled English language newspapers of
Madras Presidency had been campaigning against the appointment of the first Indian, T. Muthuswami Aiyer, to the Bench of the Madras High Court in 1878. 'The Triplicane Six', in an attempt to counter the dominant attitudes in the English language Press started the paper on a
[British] rupee and twelve
annas of borrowed money. Aiyer was the editor and Veeraraghavachariar the Managing Director. The first editorial declared, "[the] Press does not only give expression to public opinion, but also modifies and moulds it". Three of the students soon left the paper and took up careers in law, while Pantulu continued to write for
The Hindu . The founders of the newspaper were anglophiles. In an editorial of 1894,
The Hindu held that British rule had been beneficial to Indian people. "However, it was equally convinced that the Anglo-Indian Press should be challenged, despotic bureaucrats condemned, and the abuse of power exposed", writes historian S. Muthiah.
Initially printing 80 copies a week at the Srinidhi Press in Mint Street, Black Town,
The Hindu was published every Wednesday evening as an eight-page paper, each a quarter of today's page size, for four annas. After a month with the Srinidhi Press, the newspaper had its printing shifted to the Scottish Press, also in Black Town. The earliest avaiable issue of the paper is dated June 21, 1881. In 1881, The Hindu moved to Ragoonada Row's 'The Hindu Press' of Mylapore, planning to make the paper tri-weekly, but this plan did not materialize until it moved to the Empress of India Press, where, from October 1, 1883, it became a tri-weekly, appearing every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening, but maintaining the same size as before. The paper moved to rented premises at 100 Mount Road on December 3, 1883. The newspaper started printing at its own press there, christened 'The National Press' established on borrowed capital as public subscriptions were not forthcoming. The building itself became
The Hindu's in 1892, after the Maharaja of Vizianagaram, Ananda Gajapathi Raja, gave The National Press a loan both for the building and to carry out needed expansion. Its assertive editorials earned
The Hindu the nickname, the Oracle of Mount Road. "From the new address, 100 Mount Road, which to remain
The Hindu's home till 1939, there issued a
quarto-size paper with a front-page full of advertisements - a practice that came to an end only in 1958 when it followed the lead of its idol, the pre-
Thomson Times - and three back pages also at the service of the advertiser. In between, there were more views than news."
After 1887, when the annual session of Indian National Congress was held in Madras, the paper's coverage of national news increased significantly, and led to the paper becoming an evening daily starting April 1, 1889. The partnership between Veeraraghavachariar and Subramania Aiyer was dissolved in October 1898. Aiyer quit the paper, Veeraraghavachariar became the sole owner and appointed C. Karunakara Menon as editor.
In late 1980's when its ownership passed into hands of the family's younger members, a change in political leaning was observed. Worldpress.org lists the Hindu as a
left-leaning independent newspaper.
[Worldpress.org, the directory of online Indian newspapers and magazines lists The Hindu as "Left-leaning, independent", and its biweekly sister publication Frontline as "Independent biweekly".] This political polarization is supposed to have taken place since N. Ram took over as editor-in-chief. Joint Managing Director N. Murali said in July 2003, "It is true that our readers have been complaining that some of our reports are partial and lack objectivity. But it also depends on reader beliefs."
N. Ram was appointed on June 27, 2003 as its editor-in-chief with a mandate to "improve the structures and other mechanisms to uphold and strengthen quality and objectivity in news reports and opinion pieces", authorised to "restructure the editorial framework and functions in line with the competitive environment".
[ An interview with N. Ram, editor-in-chief of The Hindu] On September 3 and 23, 2003, the reader's letters column carried responses from readers saying the editorial was biased.
An editorial in August 2003 observed that the newspaper was affected by the '
editorialising as
news reporting' virus, and expressed a determination to buck the trend, restore the professionally sound lines of demarcation, and strengthen
objectivity and
factuality in its coverage.
While a general consensus for
neo-liberal economic policies, is evident in most English language newspapers in India, with support for
disinvestment,
privatization and
foreign investment at the cost of concern for the rural poor,
food security and employment,
The Hindu, with rural affairs editor
P. Sainath as a primary contributor has repeatedly provided a voice to the critiques of the neo-liberal policies by pointing out the growing incidences of
agrarian distress, growing
unemployment and rabid corruption.
In 1987-'88
The Hindu's coverage of the
Bofors arms deal scandal, a series of document-backed exclusives on the murky financial transactions, set the terms of the national political discourse on this subject. The Bofors scandal broke in April 1987 with Swedish Radio alleging that bribes had been paid to top Indian political leaders, officials and Army officers in return for the Swedish arms manufacturing company winning a hefty contract with the Government of India for the purchase of 155mm howitzers. During a six-month period the newspaper published scores of copies of original papers that documented the secret payments, amounting to $50 million, into Swiss bank accounts, the agreements behind the payments, communications relating to the payments and the crisis response, and other material. The investigation was led by part-time correspondent in Switzerland, Chitra Subramaniam reporting from
Geneva and supported by Ram in
Chennai. The scandal was a mojor embarrassment to the party in power at
the centre, the
Indian National Congress, and its leader Prime Minister
Rajiv Gandhi. The paper's editorial accused the Prime Minister of being party to massive fraud and cover up.
[ See paragraph #30] In 1991, Deputy Editor N. Ravi, Ram's younger brother replaced G. Kasturi as Editor. Malini Parthasarathy, Kasturi Srinivasan's grand-daughter, became Executive Editor of
The Hindu and her sister, Nirmala Lakshman, Joint Editor.
In 2003, the Jayalalitha Government of the state of
Tamil Nadu, of which
Chennai is the capital, filed cases against thepaper for "breach of privilege" of the state legislative body. The move was widely perceived as a government's assault on freedom of the press. However,
The Hindu emerged unscathed from the ordeal, scoring both poitical and legal victories, as it instantly commanded the support of the journalistic community throughout the country, as well as the national government's political leadership.
In October 2005
The Hindu was the first paper in India to break the story on the Volcker Committee findings, relating to allegations of corruption in the Oil-for-Food Programme of the UN in Iraq. Subsequently a high-level enquiry was initiated and Foreign Minister Natwar Singh suspended for his involvement in the scandal.
The younger generation of
The Hindu's editors have also contributed much to its commercial success. They built a modern
infrastructure for news-gathering, printing and distribution. On the look of the newspaper, editor-in-chief Ram writes, "The Hindu has been through many evolutionary changes in layout and design, for instance, moving news to the front page that used to be an ad kingdom; adopting modular layout and make-up; using large photographs; introducing colour; transforming the format of the editorial page to make it a purely 'views' page; avoiding carry-over of news stories from one page to another; and introducing boxes, panels, highlights, and briefs." Major layout changes appeared starting
The Hindu, like many other Indian publishing houses, is family-run. It was headed by G. Kasturi from 1965 to 1991, N. Ravi from 1991 to 2003, and by his brother, N. Ram, since June 27th 2003. Other family members, including Nirmala Lakshman, Malini Parthasarathy, Nalini Krishnan, N Murali, KBalaji, K Venugopal, Ramesh Rangarajan and publisher S Rangarajan are directors of The Hindu and its parent company, Kasturi and Sons.Commendations
In his autobiography, Jawaharlal Nehru commented on The Hindu thus:The Hindu always reminds me of an old maiden lady, very prim and proper, who is shocked if a naughty word is used in her presence. It is eminently the paper of the bourgeois, comfortably settled in life. Not for it is the shady side of existence, the rough and tumble and conflict of public life. Several other newspapers of moderate views have also this `old maiden lady' standard. They achieve it, but without the distinction of The Hindu and, as a result, they become astonishingly dull in every respect.
The Times, London choose it as one of the world's ten best newspapers in 1965. Discussing each of its choices in separate articles, The Times wrote:The Hindu takes the general seriousness to lengths of severity... The Hindu which is published in Madras, is the only newspaper which in spite of being published only in a provincial capital is regularly and attentively read in Delhi. It is read not only as a distant and authoritative voice on national affairs but as an expression of the most liberal - and least provincial - southern attitudes... Its Delhi Bureau gives it outstanding political and economic dispatches and it carries regular and frequent reports from all state capitals, so giving more news from states, other than its own, than most newspapers in India... It might fairly be described as a national voice with a southern accent. The Hindu can claim to be the most respected paper in India.
In 1968, the American Newspaper Publishers' Association awarded The Hindu its World Press Achievement Award. An extract from the citation readsThroughout nearly a century of its publication The Hindu has exerted wide influence not only in Madras but throughout India. Conservative in both tone and appearance, it has wide appeal to the English-speaking segment of the population and wide readership among government officials and business leaders... The Hindu has provided its readers a broad and balanced news coverage, enterprising reporting and a sober and thoughtful comment... [It] has provided its country a model of journalistic excellence... [It] has fought for a greater measure of humanity for India and its people... [and] has not confined itself to a narrow chauvinism. Its Correspondents stationed in the major capitals of the world furnish The Hindu world-wide news coverage... For its championing of reason over emotion, for its dedication to principle even in the face of criticism and popular disapproval, for its confidence in the future, it has earned the respect of its community, its country, and the world.
* When the Bihar Assembly was dissolved by the Indian Union Government in May 2005, The Hindu claimed there was no alternative to the dissolution in its editorial.
* When politician Laloo Prasad Yadav was caught on camera distributing 100 rupee notes before elections in Bihar, The Hindu wrote an editorial which termed his action a grave error besides being a violation of the Model code of conduct. It opined that he ought to have acted with greater responsibility knowing that he was being watched by his opponents. The BJP along with its allies is the main rival of Yadav in Bihar. In the light of the preceding election losses sufferd by the BJP led alliance in other states, The Hindu editorial claimed that he hardly needed to resort to any kind of skulduggery to win the election.
* On the day after the Varanasi blasts in March 2006, The Hindu editorial said, "Behind the inhumanity of the terrorist strikes in Varanasi's Sankat Mochan temple and a railway station there was a clear plan and mission â€" to generate communal tension and conflict." The BJP was in opposition at the Centre as well as in UP, when the bombings occurred. BJP put the blame for the terrorist attacks on the Central and state governments. The Hindu opinion and editorial pages criticized the BJP for what it termed as "chauvinistic efforts to draw political mileage from the Varanasi tragedy".
* The Hindu condemned Narendra Modi (Gujarat Chief Minister), for the "action-reaction theory" which he provided as a means to justify the pogrom of Muslims.
* In 2003, Jagannathan mentions a "general feeling" that some of its reports are "anti-Hindu".
* When the Indian artist MF Hussain, painted some Hindu goddesses nude, The Hindu defended him in the name of freedom of expression. However, it adopted a completely opposite stand in the Mohammed cartoons incident in which a Danish newspaper published some cartoons of the Islamic Prophet.
The Hindu gives unjustifiable unequal coverage to news events, as in the case of reporting the particulars of the Ayodhya dispute. On August 26, 2003 The Hindu published a small 2-paragraph PTI report on its frontpage saying, "In what could be a turning point in the Ayodhya dispute, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has reported to the High Court here that its excavations found distinctive features of a 10th century 'massive structure' beneath the Babri Mosque site even as the Sunni Central Waqf Board (SCWB) termed the report 'vague and self-contradictory'".
* 1940 - First to introduce colour
* 1963 - First to own fleet of aircraft for distribution
* 1969 - First to adopt facsimile system of page transmission
* 1980 - First to use computer aided photo composing
* 1986 - First to use satellite for facsimile transmission
* 1994 - First to adopt wholly computerised integration of text and graphics in page make-up and remote imaging
* 1995 - First newspaper to go on Internet* On Mondays
** Metro Plus
* On Tuesdays
** Education Plus
** Open Page, Education & Book Review
* On Wednesdays
** Metro Plus
** Job Opportunities
* On Thursdays
** Metro Plus
* On Fridays
** Young World, an exclusive children's supplement. One of the more popular columns is The Hindu Young World Quiz
** Friday Features covering cinema, arts, music and entertainment
** Quest, a supplement by children for children, appears once a month.
* On Saturdays
** Property Plus
* On Sundays
** Weekly Magazine covering social issues, art, literature, gardening, travel, health, cuisine, hobbies etc.Popular Columns include This day that year, and Religion.*The Hindu Group
*Narasimhan Ram* 125 years of The Hindu
* Looking Back: The history of The Hindu as told by historian S. Muthiah.
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* * Online edition (ePaper)
* Breaking News
* The Hindu 125 Years - Special Supplement
* Education Plus
