S R Ramanujan
The adversarial role of the media in a democratic society is an accepted phenomenon though views differ over the extent to which an adversarial role can be played. But the issue can no longer be confined to academic discussions or seminars since it is assuming serious dimensions in Andhra Pradesh. The reportage in the Telugu newspapers and to an extent in the Telugu television channels and the response of the establishment for such a coverage have led to an open and acrimonious war between the government of Andhra Pradesh and the Telugu newspapers, notably the largest circulated dailies Eenadu and Andhra Jyoti. (Eenadu has a circulation of more than 10 lakh copies while Jyoti’s claimed circulation is around 4 lakhs copies, while the rest are poor cousins)
The open "war" began with a clash of interest over real estate though all was not well between Eenadu and the government from the time the Congress returned to power. There is no doubt that the government of Andhra Pradesh turned out to be a land mafia in order to finance its "Jala Yagnam" (Irrigation projects). Its urban development wing - Hyderabad Urban Development Authority (Huda) had gone an acquisition spree from small and marginal farmers around Hyderabad city for a pittance and sold it to corporates at an unbelievable price. In the process, it earned the dubious reputation of a real-estate broker. An acre of land in Jubilee Hills was sold for Rs 60.1 crore. In just one auction, Huda earned a revenue of Rs 335 crore and in another city neighbourhood - Golden Mile - the auction proceeds went beyond 700 crore of rupees. During 2006 alone Huda had in its kitty Rs 1461 crore. As long as these lands belonged to poor farmers who were taken for a ride by Huda, there was no problem.
But, all hell broke loose when the work for the prestigious Outer Ring Road (ORR) began, for which the Prime Minister laid the foundation stone recently. The land required for this 162-km project in the Hyderabad city periphery is around 6000 acres and most of these lands belong to 3000-odd agricultural land owners in 81 villages. However, among them there are top politicians and ministers who bought them recently hoping to make a rich "harvest" at a later date. Interestingly, TDP politicians outnumber the rest. Since a sizeable portion of their lands came under the ORR layout or the ORR junctions, the government sought to acquire the lands at market rates. The allegation in the public domain is that the ORR layout was changed quite a number of times to exempt a favoured few. The Eenadu proprietor was not among the favoured ones nor some of the oppositionTelugu Desam Party (TDP) bigwigs.
When there were a number of reports both in Eenadu and Andhra Jyoti pointing out the irregularities in Huda changing the layouts, Huda did not want to take it lying down. This urban development agency issued a full page ad in all the Telugu dailies blasting the Eenadu mangement for its "double standards". The advertisement accused the daily of confusing its public interest with personal interest as the chieftains of Eenadu owned 2.29 acres of land that was sought to be acquired for the purpose of ORR. The manner in which the daily sought to take legal remedy by approaching various courts of law including an SLP before the Supreme Court was also explained in great detail. The thrust of the advertisment was that Eenadu had been desperately trying to create obstacles in a development project. It was most unusual for a government department to issue a full page advertisement against a newspaper. In fairness to Eenadu, the advertisement, making serious allegations against itself, was published in the daily.
Expectedly, Eenadu was quick to react with a series of news reports returning the ‘compliments’ to Huda. The daily’s defence was that Eenadu was not alone in filing cases, but 78 others, who too lost their lands, filed cases. Another argument was that Eenadu’s land was not included in the original ORR plan, but added in the second notification a year later obviously with no noble intentions. Eenadu did not stop with its "exposes" on the ORR project, but questioned the bona fides of Huda’s action on other projects as well. It was a campaign pure and simple against Huda. For an average reader, it was obvious that it was a proxy war between Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy and Ramoji Rao.
In all these "adversarial" exercises, Andhra Jyoti, though Eenadu’s professional competitor, was no less aggressive in its campaign against the government. There is a background for these two professional competitors coming together against the establishment. From the time of late NT Rama Rao’s entry into Andhra Pradesh politics, the media was getting polarized on caste lines. The media was the monopoly of NTR’s caste and all was well till the TDP was ruling the roost. With the Congress storming back to power in 2004 after a gap of 9 years, hailed as the return of "Reddy Raj", with Reddys traditionally considered to be the "ruling class" there was change in the media mindset. Both the major Telugu dailies - Eenadu and Andhra Jyoti - and ETV, which did not don the role of an "adversary" so long as the TDP was in power, became bitter critics of YS Rajasekhara Reddy’s administration.
In fact, YSR, too, has not been hiding his displeasure, anger, and at times disappointment with these dailies. He has been quite vocal, both inside the Assembly and outside, in his criticism. On one occasion, he made a sarcastic remark that "Journalistic freedom means, freedom for the managements to purvey untruths and falsehood". On the floor of the House, he named Ramoji Rao, proprietor of Eenadu and ETV, for being against Nehru-Gandhi family, from the time he founded Eenadu thirty years ago. Whenever provoked by inconvenient reports in these two dailies, the oft-repeated reaction of YSR has been to say that "there are two newspapers in the state which have been more upset and dejected over the defeat of the TDP than the TDP itself". In the initial days of his rule, he even stopped government advertisements for Andhra Jyoti and they were restored only after the daily approached the AP High Court.