Even as debates rage over whether journalists should make their political affiliations public, a niche market of political publications continues to exist - and grow, if their editors and publishers are to be believed. According to the Executive Editor of Kamal Sandesh - the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) self-proclaimed mouthpiece - “with more than 100,000 new subscription requests in 2014, we are all set to be one of the highest circulating magazines of the country”. At a time when the viability of the print model is under acute scrutiny that is a lofty claim. One that very few Indian editors will dare to make, but the rules are evidently different for Kamal Sandesh and its likes.
Kamal Sandesh, according to its executive editor Shiv Shakti Bisht, currently sells 70,000 copies per issue – a number which is expected to rise by more than 150 per cent in the wake of new subscriptions. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) “party organ”, Ganashakti has a daily circulation of around 120,000 according to its Executive Editor, Aveek Dutta. The Shiv Sena-owned Marathi daily, Saamna is read by more than 3,00,000 people every day according to its Chief Copy Editor, Ravindra Palekar.
The numbers are quite remarkable considering most of these publications are very open about their political allegiance. The editorial guidelines seem to be quite simple according to Palekar. “We report everything from politics to sports but will never carry an anti-Shiv Sena story.” Saamna is “published out of most major districts” of Maharashtra and has bureaus in Pune, Nasik, Aurangabad and Nagpur in addition to the main newsroom in Mumbai. “We have a team of some 60 sub-editors and more than 70 reporters on the ground, easily making us one of the most exhaustive networks in the state”, said Palekar. More exhaustive than Newslaundry, for sure.
Not all party-backed publications are as transparent as Saamna. The Ambedkar Today which refers to itself an “Ambedkarite Buddhist magazine” has long been considered a mouthpiece of the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Yet, its editor and publisher, Rajiv Ratan denies being an “official” mouthpiece. However, Ratan did admit that he has strong links with the BSP and would not report an anti-BSP story. Ratan who works with a team of 12 people said, “our readers consist primarily of BSP supporters and ‘Amberdkar-ites’”. To my query of the magazine’s revenue model, Ratan said that most costs are borne by “like-minded” people.
As printing costs rise exponentially, occasional largesse doled out by supporters isn’t a reliable revenue-model for most of the bigger party publications. Ganashakti, which has around 70 employees on its rolls and is published out of Durgapur, Siliguri and Kolkata, is competitively priced. The newspaper costs between Rs 3 and Rs.4.50 depending on the edition. Aveek Dutta, who is assistant editor with the newspaper, informed me that it even has an advertising policy and is open to almost all sorts of advertisements – even ones which features CPM’s political adversaries. “We are open to advertisements, but the Trinamool of late has been bullying our advertisers into advertising in their publication instead of ours”.
The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress launched a monthly English news magazine All India Trinamool Congress Leads in 2012 to complement its Bengali daily, Jaago Bangla. The All India Trinamool Congress Leads is edited by the party’s spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Derek O'Brien. The Saamna carries advertisements as well which do not give negative publicity to the Shiv Sena and its allies. Even a much smaller outfit like Ambedkar Today, according to its publisher Rajiv Rattan, publishes advertisements as long as “they’re not anti-BSP”.
The mouthpieces of the BJP and the Congress - named Kamal Sandesh and Sandesh respectively - work with relatively small teams and in less professional settings. Unlike Saamna and Ganashakti, they don’t have reporters on the field. Pages are mostly filled with opinion pieces by party leaders – which are essentially extensions of the party’s stand on current issues. For instance, the December 15 issue of the Kamal Sandesh carries an essay on Article 370 by the leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley. In an article titled “Article 370 has nothing to do with Secularism. It’s an instrument of oppression against citizens of India”, Jaitley defends the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s much talked about stand on the issue and argues that certain provisions under the act are “discriminatory and violative of fundamental rights”. However, the Kamal Sandesh is not all propaganda. The same issue carries a well-intentioned piece by veteran politician and party vice president Prabhat Jha reminiscing about his younger years as a politician when there were no “shackles of partisan politics” and politicians across party lines used to be friends.
Kamal Sandesh, which is published in both Hindi and English, has an eight-member core team that also includes designers. Executive Editor Bisht, who has a PhD in Modern History from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, explained that the aim of Kamal Sandesh is to convey the BJP’s ideas and ideologies to its supporters. He insists that the fortnightly, which has an annual subscription of Rs100, is self-sustaining in spite of being an ad-free platform. “I can proudly say we recover all our costs through subscriptions and do not need to use party funds”, said Bisht.
The Congress’ mouthpiece Sandesh is similar to the Kamal Sandesh in terms of functioning and content but is a monthly as opposed to the latter’s fortnightly frequency. Edited by Chittorgarh MP Girija Vyas, the magazine has senior party leaders Salman Khurshid and Jairam Ramesh as “members of the editorial board”. The September issue of Sandesh (the last one to be uploaded online)” – with party president Sonia Gandhi on the cover – reads like a Rahul Gandhi special issue with his quotes and photos splattered generously through the magazine. The monthly is run by a Trust called Sandesh.
The Times of India on Thursday, January 23, 2014, carried a note titled “to our readers” on its front page (the third page to be fair - the first two pages were dedicated exclusively to a toothpaste). The note – absurd in ways more than just one - claimed that the paper’s “sole allegiance is to our reader, not to any politician or party”. On the same day, Saamna’s front page featured a close-up high-resolution photograph of deceased party patriarch Bal Thackeray and nothing else. A picture as they say is worth a thousand words.
