Bal Thackeray's media legacy

IN Opinion | 01/12/2012

HERE’S LOOKING AT US

Jyoti Punwani

Bal Thackeray was not just a political leader with a mass following, with whom the media had a close interaction. The media and Thackeray were linked in other ways too. He was part of the media as editor, first of the popular weekly Maarmik, and then of his equally popular party paper Saamna.

There was a third connection – through his editorials, Thackeray regularly abused journalists who opposed him. The number of times journalists were attacked by Thackeray’s followers was probably far more than attacks they faced from other parties.  

His journalism was intrinsic to Thackeray’s growth as a mass leader.  Maarmik, started in 1960, immediately became one of the most sought after weeklies not because it attacked South Indians, but because its contributors were the leading names of Marathi literature.  Later, when it became overtly political, its initial fans stopped reading it, but it gained another kind of mass readership.

Saamna’s readership when it was launched in 1989, was initially confined to party loyalists (these ran into tens of thousands), but its circulation crossed a lakh just before  the 92-93 riots.  Thackeray described Saamna’s role during the riots  as the ``spark that lit the fire of patriotism which kept the country, god and religion alive.’’ Saamna was one of the weapons used by Thackeray during  the riots (``a blazing sten-gun in the hands of patriots,’’ to quote him). It  instigated  its readers, all Hindu and Marathi-speaking,  to participate in the “dharmyudh against traitors’’, celebrating the burning of mosques (``The smell of Hindutva rises from ashes of burnt mosques  all over the city’’),  lamenting the fall of ``brave patriots’’ at the hands of ``anti-nationals’’, exhorting readers to kill Muslim police officers, mocking the Congress government for ``standing on Bhendi Bazar naka in a green  burqah and bangles.’’

From then on, there was no looking back for Saamna. 

As a professional newspaper, Saamna could not be taken seriously. Not only was it a party paper, it  was perhaps the only mass-circulated daily that regularly carried  three-part interviews with its own editor, which would take over half of Page One and an entire page inside.

Yet, Saamna can’t be ignored as just another party paper because of the impact it had. The support that the Sena mustered during the riots,  could perhaps be attributed to Saamna. Had Saamna not been bringing to readers the Sena view of the violence, would a large spectrum of Hindus in Mumbai continue to believe that the Sena saved them during the riots?  It’s difficult to say, for even the English press in those days conveyed the impression that Mumbai’s Muslims had started the riots both in December  1992 and January 1993. It took the Srikrishna Commission to discover that the reverse was true.

Saamna’s impact  can be guaged by the popularity it enjoys among the city’s police force.  Everywhere riots have taken place, the police has behaved as a  communal force. But in Mumbai, their intuitive feeling that Muslims are anti-national and have  criminal tendencies, have been fuelled by Saamna.  Thackeray’s  writings  must have contributed to the viciousness with which the Mumbai  police  treat Muslims in their custody. 

Journalists perturbed by the Hindu-Muslim divide cannot ignore  Saamna; nor can those on the political beat in Maharashtra. At the same time, Saamna presents us with an uncomfortable question: can we call ourselves a secular country if a newspaper such as this is allowed to be published? Take a look at the headlines of its Page One leads as well as its edits – in peace-time, not riot-time.

``Keep infiltrators in your homes!’ (edit)

``The decision to create another Partition will result in another Nathuram (Godse)!” (edit)

``Black Monday! The Himalayas got wet with the blood of Hindus!!” (page one lead)

``Don’t insist on Babri, else Ram Mandir wahin banayenge’’ (headline of interview with Thackeray).

``Hindus will never wake up!’’ (interview headline)

``Moghul tyranny during Navratri” (edit)

``Can we call these (people) brothers?” (edit)

``Hindus, get read to carry arms” (interview headline)

``Azaan from Red Fort’’ (edit)

 ``Won’t let the ISI step into India!” (news headline)

``If Nathuram (Godse) gets applause, why does the Congress get a stomach ache?” (edit)

``Hindu trader burnt alive in Nandurbar’’ (news headline)

``Allah-o-Akbar at Mantralay’’ (edit)

In his edits, Bal Thackeray had a simple formula.  Any pro-Muslim measure suggested by any government was interpreted as an anti-national measure that would lead to Partition. The implication clearly was that Muslims should be kept in their place, else they would get too big for their boots and demand another Partition. After putting in the mandatory line: ``I am not talking about patriotic Muslims’’, he would go on to lambast the community for being pro-Pakistani, for insisting on its own laws and increasing its population. The edit would then lament that Hindus have become victims in their own motherland. Often he would conclude by saying that since all other parties were interested only in calling out the azaan, or  wearing fez caps,  only his leadership, or that of the BJP,  could prevent the descent into another Partition. He  would misrepresent Muslim views, and use language and imagery   designed to stir up anger and hatred against Muslims.  The Congress would be likened to Moghul rule, specially to Aurangzeb and Afzal Khan. `We’’ (he always used the royal we ) and ``our’’ Sena would be cast in the mould of Shivaji and his army. ``Our army , inspired by our thoughts, has been born to teach Muslims a lesson,’’ he wrote in one edit. In another explosive edit, he wrote, ``Stones just lie on the road,. But when they are picked up for use in an andolan (movement), they acquire a strange glow, they become gods.’’

Unlike other newspaper edits, Saamna edits were the star attraction of the paper. Anyone reading them on a daily basis would end up regarding Muslims as a savage, illiterate, violent, fanatic lot, a burden on the country, out to pounce on innocent Hindus. The urge to hit back at them would fill the reader. Not all readers could, so it would be natural to support the one man who could take Muslims on.

The Press Council did occasionally reprimand Thackeray. That  made no difference to him. Governments rarely used the laws specially meant for such writings against him. Even after Saamna lit the fires of the riots, Congress CMs Sudhakar Naik and Sharad Pawar did nothing, until forced to by a PIL filed by ex-bureaucrat J B D’Souza and journalist Dilip Thakore.  Pawar then gave sanction to prosecute Thackeray for four of the six cases filed by the police during the riots against Saamna. These four cases were withdrawn when Thackeray’s party came to power two years later.

It was only when Chhagan Bhujbal, who left the Sena and became Thackeray’s bete noir, took charge of the State’s Home Ministry  in 2000, that the two riot cases against Saamna that had remained pending, were dug up.  But that was only to make the point that he alone could arrest the `Tiger’  who had  challenged every government to arrest him. The case was dismissed, the government sat on the appeal.

When the Sena was in power from 1995-99,  Saamna would front page news about Shiv Sainiks attacking  various people, naming those who took a leading role in these attacks, thereby providing the police enough clues on the offenders. As if the police wanted to arrest them!

If Thackeray the editor remained unpunished for his writings, Thackeray the political leader remained similarly unpunished for instigating attacks against journalists.  One box headline in Saamna read: ``The way you write determines the attacks on you.’’ This was in the context of an attack on Nikhil Wagle’s eveninger ``Aapla Mahanagar’ . The bold tabloid had often been at the receiving end of attacks  by Shiv Sainiks; hence it was surprising, to say the least, to see Wagle gushing over Thackeray when he died (on IBN Lokmat).

Interestingly, whenever Wagle was attacked by the Sena, the entire Mumbai press did not stand unitedly behind him.  Marathi editors felt his editorship was more activism and less journalism.  Even on the  one occasion in 1991, when the English and Hindi press marched on the streets against Bal thackeray, the Marathi Patrakar Sangh stayed away.

In October 1991, addressing his annual Dusehra rally, Thackeray had declared that the Pakistani cricket team would not be allowed to play in Mumbai. Five days later, Shiv Sainiks dug up the Wankhede stadium pitch. On October 25, three journalists were attacked when Shiv Sainiks stormed the office of Aapla Mahanagar for having  criticised Thackeray on this issue. To protest this attack, the Bombay Union of Journalists organised a dharna outside Sena Bhavan , in which leaders of Left parties as well as trade unionist Datta Samant participated. Four journalists returning from the dharna were attacked with crow bars. Freelancer Manimala’s skull was cracked. 

Journalists across the country came out on the streets against this attack, but in Mumbai,  not all did.  The Marathi Patrakar Sangh, which was the first to issue a statement condemning the attack, did not join the morcha against it, because it felt  that political leaders should not have been part of the journalists’ dharna. The Left  had attacked journalists in W Bengal, it pointed out, and Datta Samant was no believer in non-violence. Madhav Gadkari, editor of Loksatta, too had some questions on Mahanagar’s conduct. Interestingly, in all this, the inaction of the government against those who had attacked journalists became a side issue.

However, the government was forced to register a case, and it was this case that forced Thackeray to appear in person in front of a magistrate in 1997, when he was the remote control of the State. This was the first time the demagogue had to do so, after his first arrest  in 1969, which had sparked off riots.

While  Nikhil Wagle was physically atatcked, other Marathi editors such as Kumar Ketkar and Aroon Tikekar were abused in Saamna. The personal allegations made by Thackeray against the latter, who was then editor of Loksatta, marked a new low in journalism. Indeed, Thackeray’s language in Saamna left a bad taste in the mouth. So did his rantings at public rallies.  Reporting them posed a dilemma for journalists. Reported verbatim, they could create enmity towards Muslims. Yet they could not be ignored.  But did they deserve the Page One status they always got?  Often, the English press made entire news items of what appeared in Saamna,  thereby carrying its message wider. That was probably easier than getting an interview with Thackeray on the latest controversy.

What happens to Saamna now? Executive editor Sanjay Raut, used to doing marathon interviews of his editor,  will probably carry on  the latter’s unique ``Thakri bhasha’. The edits will be easy to write, for utimately, where Hindus,  Muslims, ``secular’’ parties and the country are concerned,  Thackeray more or less said the same thing again and again. But readers will know it’s not the Hindu Hriday Samrat roaring. Will that affect Saamna’s impact? Let’s hope so.