140 Years of a habit called “The Hindu”!

On the 20th of September, the very popular newspaper from the South – The Hindu completed 140 years since its first issue! In these “cash out and exit” times, one cannot but acknowledge and revere the newspaper for 140 years of sustenance and survival. For those from South India in general and Tamil Nadu in particular and for those who were born in the pre-liberalisation era, The Hindu is not just a newspaper but a habit!

I presently live in Mumbai and I don’t read The Hindu daily these days and my Hindu reading is limited to when I travel to Tamil Nadu. On and off, I do get to read some interesting articles from The Hindu which land in one’s social media timelines!  This week, my memories flash back to my growing up days when reading The Hindu daily was a karma one performed religiously.

I probably started reading The Hindu newspaper when I was in class 2 or 3. Initially it was just the last page which was the Sports section where one would catch up on the previous day’s action mainly of Cricket and later Tennis! I have vivid memories of writer Rajan Bala’s lucid writing on some of the test matches accompanied by some fantastic action pictures from the cricket field.  Once Rajan Bala moved on from The Hindu, the cricket column was taken over by R.Mohan. Both were extremely knowledgeable of the game and with their command over the Queen’s language, brought the nuances of the game in front of our eyes in the pre-TV era. The following day in the school, we used to discuss not just the game but also the style of writing and the language used. Such was the impact of the writing on us!

Gradually, we graduated from the last page sports columns to the first page political news and also the Sunday supplements. The Hindu those days had an impeccable reputation for being factual and accurate in News reporting. So much so, the joke those days was that even if a murder happens in broad day light right in front of its office at the Mount Road in Chennai and their reporters saw it with his/her own eyes, the news will get published only after the police FIR was filed and police confirmed that it was indeed a murder!

For many in Tamil Nadu, The Hindu was the teacher for the English language! The newspaper was seen as an ultimate authority on the language. One could hardly find a mistake in the spelling or the grammar those days. These days it is no more the case, I’m told. ‘Know your English’ – a weekly column which used to appear in the newspaper was extremely popular and as kids we used to read the same with immense interest and curiosity to discover unknown aspects of English!  If today, I am in a position to write this blog in half decent English, some credit certainly goes to The Hindu!

After being in the habit of reading The Hindu, whenever I used to travel outside Tamil Nadu and got to read other English newspapers, the difference used to be glaring! One, The Hindu those days was in the forefront of adopting technology, though from a very conservative and traditional ownership background. So the typesetting and page layoutting were top class. You will never find an article in the first page with “Continued in Page ….” line. I see this even today in papers like The Indian Express! The reproduction of photographs even in the B&W era was again of highest quality. Talking of adoption of technology, I clearly remember that The Hindu was the 1^st to use “facsimile” technology to transmit and receive pictures from outside when reporting events outside of Chennai. Those pictures used to carry a line (received through facsimile technology!). That fax as a technology became very common place later is a different aspect altogether. When The Hindu adopted it, it was a pioneering effort.

As far as I remember, political reporting of The Hindu used to be pro-establishment. It never used to taken an antagonistic line. But, I reckon that this changed when N.Ram took over as the Editor. Ram as an individual is known to be unapologetically left leaned and since him taking over the reins, one can clearly say that the paper ceased to be neutral.

It was under Ram’s leadership that The Hindu broke one of the biggest corruption story of the country namely the “Bofors scandal” which broke the back of the Rajiv Gandhi government. Any pretensions of The Hindu being pro-establishment ceased after that. Somehow, for reasons not very clear, The Hindu didn’t pursue the Bofors story to its logical conclusion. In fact, journalist Chitra Subramaniam who was the architect of that story had to continue her expose in the Indian Express later!

When I moved to Bombay in the late 80’s, no filter coffee and not able to read the The Hindu every morning, meant serious withdrawal symptoms! The Hindu used to be available only with select newspaper vendors that too in select suburbs like Matunga! The day’s paper used to be available only by 4 pm. Initially for a few Sundays going to Matunga in the evening to have filter coffee and pick up the Sunday Edition of The Hindu was a routine that I did not miss. Slowly, one got weaned over this habit and started getting used to The Times Of India albeit very, very reluctantly!

Today, when I go to Tamil Nadu and pick up a copy of The Hindu to read, I do see it as a pale shadow of its former self! The language is no more engaging and the political reporting has clearly moved from being neutral to be clearly biased. And I notice that this is what many of my folks also felt.  Even those who were very loyal to The Hindu those days, talk of it with a tinge of irony!

Probably this is a sign of the times where not just The Hindu, but media in general have lost their moral compass and have started to pursue an agenda. Even amidst this, I do feel that The Hindu commands a sense of respectability among its peers. With Times of India invading into the South, The Hindu is no longer the dominant newspaper it used to be till the beginning of this decade. Still in these days of 140 characters of Twitter journalism, for The Hindu to chug along for 140 years, is no mean achievement. To the habit called The Hindu, here’s wishing another 140 years of a re-engineered future!

Postscript: While on the newspaper reading habit, please do read my humorous take –‘Paper Vandhaacha?’ (Read here) on how the newspaper is intertwined with the lives of a Tambrahm mama!

Pic Courtesy: The Indian Express!