The Hindu

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The Hindu newspaper logo

The Hindu is one of India's leading English-language newspapers, with its largest base of circulation in South India. Founded 125 years ago, by Subramanya Aiyer, it was later headed by a co-founder, Veeraraghavachariar. Kasthuri Iyengar, the then legal adviser of the newspaper, bought it in the early 1900's and from then on his family has retained the ownership of the paper. The two basic priciples on which the founders flagged the newspaper were - Fairness and Justice[1]. It is said to enjoy a readership of 3 million and an annual turnover of around 4 billion rupees ($80 million). Headquartered at Chennai (formerly Madras), The Hindu was published weekly since 1878 and then daily since 1889. It has grown steadily to its current circulation of 1 million copies and a readership of over 3 million, both in India and abroad. It was also one of the first Indian newspapers to offer an online edition.

About The Hindu

Started as a nationalist newspaper mildly opposed to the then British rulers of India, The Hindu still enjoys a status of being tradition, not merely a newspaper, in South India [2]. In a post-colonial India where the printed word was much respected, more so if it was in English, The Hindu was to the citizens of Madras what The Times was to pre-tabloid-era Londoners. 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. The Hindu's journalism for a major part of its life was staid, non-controversial almost to the point of being self-effacing and never on the wrong side of the Establishment. The paper may have minced words on occasion, it may have adopted a purposefully vague, on-the-fence stand once in a while and may have killed controversial stories now and then. The paper was also known to have occassionally peddled propaganda [3]. (There are also indications that the newspaper may have become biased in the recent times. See Criticism below).

The Current Editor-In-Chief of The Hindu

Its current editor-in-chief, Mr. N Ram, is a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and a former first-class cricketer. Prior to his present position he was Associate Editor until 1991 and then Editor of Frontline and Sportstar between 1991 and 2003. He was also the vice-president of the Students Federation of India (SFI) [4], (the students's wing of the Communist Party of India - Marxist) at the time of its formation in 1970. A staunch supporter of the Chinese regime, he is on record claiming that no damage was done to Tibet by China . He was also part of the BJP watch group which termed the rule at the centre in the late 1990's "fascist".

The Hindu in Recent Times

Things changed for the newspaper since the late 1980's when its ownership passed into hands of the family's younger members. Of late, the newspaper has been displaying a strong pro-left tilt. Venkatachari Jagannathan, a business journalist based in Chennai (Madras), quotes its Joint Managing Director N Murali, saying that the newspaper's readers have complained that its reports are biased and its objectivity is lacking [5]. Its neutral image has been affected to such an extent that it was probably one of the factors that led to Mr. N Ram being appointed recently as its editor-in-chief [6], [7]. However, whether this change has made the newspaper any less biased is debatable. [8], [9]. In an article in August 2003, The Hindu itself recognized that it was affected by the 'editorialising as news reporting' virus and expressed a determination to restore the objectivity of its coverage [10].

There are however a number of instances of the paper reflecting a radical tenor in its opinionating, even if this is pro-left opinion. A case in point is the general consensus for neo-liberal economic policies, espoused in all other newspapers, with support for disinvestment, privatization and foreign investment at the cost of concern for the rural poor, food security and employment. The Hindu, with 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, rabid corruption.

While the younger generation of The Hindu's editors have been responsible for the partial politicization of the paper, they have also contributed much to its commercial success. They built a modern infrastructure for news-gathering, printing and distribution. With a colorful, photo-heavy content, The Hindu sports a lively yet dignified look. But even this commercial dominance is increasingly coming under attack. Deccan Chronicle, a broadsheet with a tabloid spirit, was recently launched in The Hindu's stronghold of Madras, and is reputed to be causing some damage to the latter's circulation. The Times of India, India's (and the world's) largest circulated English langauge daily, is set to launch in Madras, and is projected to cause further damage to The Hindu.

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, K Balaji, K Venugopal, Ramesh Rangarajan and publisher S Rangarajan are directors of The Hindu and its parent company, Kasturi and Sons.

The Hindu's Achievements

In the late 80's, The Hindu played a pivotal role in exposing the federal government's corruption. It ran a series of news articles containing documentary evidence of corruption in a major arms deal involving the ruling party's top brass, much to the government's embarrassment. The investigation was led by Chitra Subramaniam in Geneva and supported by Ram in Madras. Thoroughly discredited by and The Hindu's coverage of the corrupt deal, the ruling party lost a subsequent election. However the politics of this scoop did not stop at this development- there was a regime change within The Hindu too, and N Ravi took over from G Kasturi, with Malini Parthasarathy as Executive Editor and Nirmala Lakshman as Joint Editor.

In 2003, the Jayalalitha Government of the state of Tamil Nadu, of which Madras (now Chennai) is the capital, filed cases aginst the paper 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 politcal 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 [11].

Criticism of The Hindu

The Hindu has also been criticized by many for what they consider as double standards and lack of objectivity [12]. The following examples are arguably some (though by no means all) instances in which the newspaper has fallen short of its original standards of objectivity and fair journalism.

1. When the Bihar Assembly was dissolved by the Indian Union Government in May 2005, The Hindu justified the dissolution in its editorial [13]. However, when the Supreme Court of India termed the dissolution unconstitutional, The Hindu supported the verdict of the Supreme Court [14].

2. When the Indian politician Laloo Prasad Yadav was caught on camera distributing 100 rupee notes before elections in Bihar, The Hindu wrote an editorial where it suggested that he ought to have acted with greater responsibility because he was being watched by his opponents and went on to claim he hardly needed to resort to any kind of skulduggery to win the election[15]. It is possible that this mincing of words in its criticism is due to the newspaper’s bias against the BJP which (along with its allies) is the main rival of Mr. Yadav in Bihar.

3. On the day after the Varanasi blasts in March 2006, the newspaper made just a passing reference to the "inhumanity" of the terrorists [16] but dedicated a disproportionately large space in its opinion and editorial page to criticize the BJP (for its so-called attempts to draw "political mileage" out of the incidents) [17], [18], [19]. Further, the criticism of the UP government is very mild and criticism of the Union government is virtually non-existent. Incidentally, the BJP was in opposition at the Centre as well as in UP, when the bombings occured.

4. While The Hindu has (rightly) condemned Narendra Modi (Gujarat Chief Minister), for the "action-reaction theory" which he provided as a means to justify the pogrom of muslims [20], the newspaper itself has exhibited some sympathy to this theory in some recent incidents of Islamic terrorist attacks [21].

5. While the newspaper does not mince words in criticizing any human rights violations committed by the West in general and America in particular, the (arguably far more worse) human rights record of China and the Middle East is rarely under scrutiny in its editorial and opinion pages. Glorification of the Communist parties is the norm and any criticism targeted at them is virtually non-existent. And the rivals of the Left's political parties, most notably the right-of-center BJP, rountinely unfavourable coverage. As late as 2003, Jagannathan mentions a general feeling that some of its reports are "anti-Hindu" [22]

6. 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 [23].

7. The Hindu is also known to have given an unequal coverage to news events. An example of this would be when the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) unearthed evidence for a massive structure (possibly a temple) beneath the Babri Masjid stite. While the finding, which is arguably significant for the Ayodhya dispute, gets a passing reference in the newspaper [24], the allegations of some historians that the ASI “twisted” evidence get a more significant coverage in its front page [25].

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Popular Columns include This day that year, and Religion.

Other publications

• The Hindu Business Line – Business Daily
• The Hindu International Edition – Weekly
• The Sportstar – Weekly Sports magazine
• Frontline – Fortnightly features magazine
• Praxis – Quarterly Journal on Management
• Survey of Indian Industry – An annual review on Indian Industries
• Survey of Indian Agriculture – An annual review on Indian Agriculture
• Survey of the Environment – An annual review of the Environment
• Indian Cricket – An annual record book on Cricket
• The Hindu Index – Monthly and Cumulated Annual
• Special Publications under the series THE HINDU SPEAKS ON Libraries: Information Technology, Management, Education, Religious Values, Music, ...
• From the pages of The Hindu -- The Last 200 Days of Mahatma Gandhi

External links

• Online edition (ePaper)
• Breaking News

• History of The Hindu
• Core values of the newspaper
• 125 years of The Hindu