MxMIndia

Tag: Saamna

  • He wasn’t the social hypocrite that many politicians can be. Even journalists who disliked his politics became his friends, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Bal Thackeray and the media

     

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Bal Thackeray started life as a cartoonist in a newspaper. He carried that necessary incisive humour and sarcasm with him to his political life to great effect. From this, one might conjecture that he should then have had very good relationships with the media. But instead, it was up and down, like a see-saw. Once he got into his particular brand of divisive, identity politics, a difficult relationship with the media was inevitable.

     

    Thackeray’s irresponsible off-the-cuff remarks made for great reading but he rarely accepted that they had consequences that could be potentially dangerous. As he started to flex his muscles in Bombay – as it was then – and control his cadre to do his will, his relationship with the media continued on this shaky path.

     

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    Ranjona Banerji: How the channels & papers fared

     

    Jaldi 5 with Bharat Dabholkar: Thackeray was unique… he was a Brand

     

    However, it is important to keep in mind that the media was not this over-bearing constant presence in our lives the way it is now. The mainstream Marathi and English newspapers both were somewhat distant from the reader and the media was placed far more to the left than it is today. And Thackeray was initially used as a tool to attack trade unions, a domain of the left. The very erudite ivory-tower editors of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s were rarely impressed with either Thackeray’s bluster or his tactics.

     

    When the Shiv Sena started its mouthpiece newspaper Saamna in 1989, this was Thackeray’s answer to the mainstream media. It was where he got to have his say and take pot shots at all his rivals which could range from other politicians to the cultural elite. The more outrageous his pronouncements, the more his followers loved it. The Saamna edit would sometimes determine the events of the day and how they panned out in Mumbai. It was Thackeray’s revenge on the Govind Talwalkars and Madhav Godboles, you might say.

     

    When Thackeray turned from his Marathi identity politics to Hindutva, as especially after the riots of 1992-93, any gloves that were on came off. His interview to Anita Pratap for Time magazine where he talked about his admiration for Adolf Hitler became something of a scandal. He had a long-running battle with Nikhil Wagle and Mahanagar. And he made some rather needlessly derogatory remarks about women journalists which did not go down too well.

     

    He also kept track of what was said about him. Once in the late 1990s I had a very difficult time as deputy editor of Mid-Day in trying to organise an interview with him for an anniversary issue. The senior reporter who approached him for the interview he felt had been too critical of him. It took a bizarre meeting with Sanjay Nirupam, then still with the Sena, to get Thackeray to agree to meet Mid-Day but he absolutely refused to meet the chosen journalist. The odd thing was none of us could find any critical articles of him by her! (Some of the most critical were in fact written by me, but I had not asked to meet him!) But Thackeray was adamant and initially messages of his anger came to us through various sources ranging from the publisher-owner to the distributor.

     

    Shiv Sainiks also gained a reputation for attacking newspaper offices – a tradition which they have maintained to this day, now expanding their scope to television as well. It was here where the Sena and Thackeray’s relationship with the media reached its lowest point. There have been instances where Thackeray expressed regret or made some kind of amends for the physical attacks on the media including when a woman journalist was roughed up by Sainiks. But it was his aggressive posturing and his subtle encouragement of violence which allowed his party workers to use violence as an answer.

     

    However, almost every journalist who met Thackeray was charmed by him. He had wit and charm and could even display a sense of warmth up close. He was not the sort of social hypocrite that so many politicians can be, and this made him unique. Even journalists who disliked his politics became his friends.

     

    But with a generation change in newsrooms, Thackeray became larger than life and his fans in journalism grew. To many who arrived in Mumbai, he was a grand figure that they had only heard about, and they admired his celebrity. This was the new kind of journalist which emerged in the 2000s, less discerning and more starry-eyed, fed on myths and legends. An older, ailing Thackeray became less accessible, and the legend grew.

     

    The sort of fawning, laudatory TV interviews which were being replayed after Thackeray’s funeral may have amused the man himself. If there was one thing that was undeniable – he was always up for a sparring match.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator based in Mumbai. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. The views expressed here are her own.

     

    Big Story image cartoon is by Manjul in DNA (www.dnaindia.com). Used with permission from Mr Manjul. Please refer to Mr Manjul’s recent cartoons on Mr Bal Thackeray at http://www.manjul.com/tag/bal-thackeray. One of the toons he had drawn on the Sena chief won him the Maya Kamath Memorial Awards for Excellence in Cartooning 2009.
    Background image of crowds at the funeral: Fotocorp

     

  • A good section of the English language media has often gone out of its way to prop up the Shiv Sena, writes Vidyadhar Date.

    Newswatch: Vidyadhar Date on the Thackerays and the English media

    By Vidyadhar Date

     

    There are several dimensions to the way the Shiv Sena looks at the media. I was present at the launch of the party’s mouthpiece Saamna in 1989. Bal Thackeray, the Sena chief, declared quite clearly that the Congress had made money in the municipal corporation in Mumbai for all these years and now they are going to do that.

     

    That was the ideological framework in which their mouthpiece was launched. Uddhav Thackeray had not arrived on the scene then. But now the Sena has launched his son, Aditya as well. The Sena now gets respectability from various quarters.

     

    The recent full page write-up, in what can be termed as ‘paid news format’, praised the Shiv Sena’s performance in the civic body in a ‘Response Connect initiative’ in Maharashtra Times on December 21. The feature can be seen as virtually the launch of the campaign for the civic elections in February 2012.

     

    What takes the cake is the projection of Aditya Thackeray as a youth leader whose efforts gave a roof to poor municipal students to study for their examinations. Night-time study centres were started in 16 municipal schools because of his alleged efforts. The credit is also been given to the Yuva Sena which he heads.

     

    Now a team from the civic body will also inspect sanitary facilities in civic schools, again thanks to the young man’s virtual directive to the municipal standing committee.

     

    A good section of the English language media has often gone out of its way to prop up the Shiv Sena. I have seen this from close quarters in The Times of India where I worked for over 30 years.

     

    A senior executive of the paper claimed that it was because of the Shiv Sena that Hindus in Mumbai were saved, post Babri Masjid demolition riots. Maharashtra Times, headed for many years by Govind Talwalkar, an erstwhile follower of MN Roy, has changed considerably in the last few years. Its editor, Bharatkumar Raut, went on to become a Shiv Sena MP. After this, he ceased to be the editor but remained as editorial adviser to the TOI group.

     

    A Hindustan Times Media Marketing Initiative of December 22 gave full page coverage to the Shiv Sena for providing allegedly ultra-modern health facilities. The page is full of pictures of Uddhav Thackeray, Shiv Sainiks and medical equipment. All credit is given to Mr Thackeray.

     

    Ironically, Uddhav Thackeray released CDs of the historic daily Maratha earlier this month at a function organised by his family. Maratha, now defunct, was a roaring voice for ordinary, poor people during the Samyukta Maharashtra agitation in the 1950s. It was fairly left-wing and its famous editor, litterateur Acharya Atre, was often accused by the Sena in the past of being a Communist sympathiser. Atre and Uddhav’s grandfather, Prabodhankar Thackeray, were at loggerheads and indulged in much mud-slinging in the media in the late 1950s. It is said that the term Shiv Sena was actually coined by Atre though he had quite a different kind of Sena in mind.

     

    The Atre family deserves credit for preserving the paper for posterity in digital form. Even large media groups with huge resources have failed to preserve their history in this way. The TOI, which claims to be the world’s largest selling daily, has not democratised its content, and one has to pay high fees to see a single page of the microfilm content of the paper.

     

    Curiously, the Atre family was approached by the Congress party, the Sena and the Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, for preservation of Maratha’s old files, according to Meena Deshpande, daughter of Acharya Atre and author of a Marathi novel on the Samyukta Maharashtra agitation.

     

    Interestingly, Narayan Rane, a former Shiv Sena chief minister, and now Congress minister, used his Marathi daily Prahar (assault) to attack the media calling it “dirty media”. “Dirty picture, dirty media” is the headline of the front page signed article by Narayan Rane on December 22. He was incensed by the electronic media’s coverage of legislators when they went to see Dirty Picture at a theatre inNagpurduring the legislature session there. The media had no right to intrude on the privacy of the legislators, he claimed.

     

    The writer is a veteran journalist.