Among the adverse criticisms made of the Indian press are:
it is too smug, too highly concentrated in the hands of a relatively few
owners, it lacks journalistic initiative, permits banal and ineffective
writing, shows little respect for and interest in technical excellence, fails
to lead the nation in social progress, and is too partisan. Such charges and
others are from insiders. Some brief examples:
M. Chalapathi Rau, editor, National Herald, Lucknow, a major
English language daily, and one of the foremost Indian journalists: ’Considered
as an expression of the elite, not of the mass, the English Language Press is
remarkably anti-intellectual, furnishing mass emotion, mass thinking and mass
appeal to the mass mind. The political writing may be vigorous and independent,
if literary and ugly in style, but as long as it is cliche-bound, it cannot
be free and convincing. The political columns lack clarity of thought and
expression and consistency of vision ... Art criticism is rarely free from
verbiage and jargon or the trite phrase ... ’
C. P. Ramaswamy Aiyar, member of the Press Council :
’Excepting for the Sunday Supplements of certain newspapers, very little notice
is taken of anything except the daily, and almost hourly, utterances of
Ministers and party leaders and their rhetorical, and not always consistent,
enunciation of policy on subjects not their own.... A newspaper too often
concentrates on constant denunciation of Government personages and parties and
periodic suggestions of corruption or misdemeanor. On the other side another
group furnishes a continuous record of propagandist views and news in which
facts are subordinated to rhetoric.
Other views along these lines also come from outsiders, such
as John P. Harris’ reaction, after that American editor toured India
and visited numerous newspaper plants. The compliments are for the press’s
fortitude in surviving through the years of revolution, war, government
repression, and unsuitable social and economic conditions, for its ability, at
times, to serve as a check rein on government, and for its defense of all
freedoms. Dr. Nadig Krishna Murthy, former Indian newsman and now head of the
Department of Journalism at the University of Mysore, put it thus: The press
has molded public opinion and truly laid the firm foundations of democracy.
It has striven to propagate views without malice and free from fear. And
whatever its shortcomings, it has been true to India ’s culture, heritage and
destiny. To speak the truth, the Press in India has dedicated itself to work
sincerely and with devotion, to promote freedom and peace in the world.’
Both sections of blame and praise are true. India ’s press
is so diverse and irregular in quality it is possible to find numerous examples
of statements that point out either faults or virtues. In the main, however,
one who has observed that press over the past decade or more must admit that
weaknesses predominate. The shortcomings are not all, however, the result of
proprietary stinginess or the native inabilities of the working pressman. In a
nation with at least 10,000 newspapers and magazines of many sizes, types, and
frequencies the delinquencies of the extremely weak should not be saddled on
them all any more than the excellences of a comparative few should be credited
to the whole group.
Natural conditions or economic problems, of which the press
is the victim and not the cause, are at the center of much of the weakness. As
Michael Hides put it earlier this year: ’A visit to almost any newspaper office
outside the metropolitan centers of Delhi, Calcutta, Madras and Bombay will
quickly show, however, that the urgent need is for printing machinery. Much of
what is being used is little less than antediluvian, yet the results achieved
from it are remarkable. ’India’s shortage of foreign currency has for some
years permitted the import of only a minute amount of newspaper equipment and
as is noted elsewhere in this article, there are explanations for other
shortcomings. Perhaps of more importance than to dwell on what is right or
wrong about the Indian newspaper is to consider what may be ahead for it.
Long range predictions as to the future of the press of a
nation such as one of those of Europe or North America
generally devote much attention to the possibilities and effects of such
devices as computers, television, and taping machines. In some combination or
other these are expected, by certain prophets, to replace the print media
entirely, so that the consumer merely switches on his television receiver,
presses a button, and his newspaper or magazine appears on a wall screen.
Troubled as they are by inadequate conventional type-setting and printing
equipment and with some exceptions, generally poor facilities for all phases of
their work, Indian press proprietors are not looking that far ahead, especially
since broadcasting is entirely in government hands except for the commercial
radio broadcasts beamed to India
from other countries, such as Ceylon .
One might think, therefore, that the professional and
technological development still lacking in India would simplify any forecast.
But other circumstances complicate the look ahead. The International Press
Institute, through its main organization and its Indian affiliate, the Press
Institute of India, are doing much to raise standards and provide practical
guidance through short training courses and meetings at which editors may
discuss problems, as are the departments of journalism in the universities. But
the work proceeds in a nation with an uncertain political and social future.
A rapidly commercializing press, as is India ’s, is
increasingly dependent upon the economic order which surrounds it. If India , through
conquest by the Chinese People’s Republic or economic dominance by too close a
relationship to the Soviets of Russia, should become as totalitarian as they,
the privately owned press is doomed. Both these are real possibilities, as China ’s attack in 1962 shows and as the strength
of the Communist Party press in India
indicates. Should wars elsewhere, notably that in Viet
Nam , break out in worldwide proportions, India
could be bowled over easily. Should Pakistan ,
already ultra-friendly with China ,
come again into military conflict with India ,
China
might have her way.
If such events do not occur, India ’s press then is dependent
upon internal conditions. These are not hopeful. India ’s main economic and social
problems are too widely known to need detailed repetition here. But food
shortages, illiteracy, too rapidly rising population, lack of foreign
investment, mounting indebtedness, insufficient agricultural and industrial production, rising costs of raw materials,
failure for good and bad reasons alike to reach certain goals of the various
Five-Year Plans, the persistent low purchasing power of the mass of the people,
unrest among linguistic or regional groups, natural disasters such as monsoon failures
or floods, internal political strife - all these are calculated to make the
going rough for all but the wealthiest publishing firms, many of whom have
learned the lesson of the wisdom of diversification of interests as a hedge
against trouble in any one enterprise.
The most likely prospect, therefore, is for one of these
three outcomes: a government owned press, one subsidized but not owned legally
by government, or a government press existing side by side with a powerful small press. Only a continued fight for freedom, such as that which
made India the world’s
largest political democracy, combined with a new, unlikely, and at present
unforeseeable change in conditions, both world and national, may preserve India
