PROPRIETORY CONCERNS (OWNING NEWSPAPERS)

By international standards a lot of people own Indian-language newspapers. These owners perform the role of connecting their regions to ‘India’ and ‘India’ to their regions. They do this unconsciously. Their calculated goals are influence and profit and not necessarily ‘national integration’,

From the 1980’s – earlier in some regions of south India – proprietors of Indian-language newspapers began to enjoy a growing deference from politicians and officials. Just as advertisers slowly came to believe that Indian-language newspapers reached people with real purchasing power, politicians began to realize that Indian-language newspapers now influenced very large number of voters. From the 1977 national elections, the electorate seemed less and less amenable to the old ways of lining up voters through local bigwigs and landowners. These more autonomous and unpredictable voters were also more likely to be literate and to see newspapers. And newspapers were more interested than ever before in the lives of such people. The people who owned such newspapers thus assumed a new importance.

Proprietors had to become capitalists to survive. Some were already capitalists. Others were traders with printing presses who transformed their businesses into capitalist enterprises. Still others failed, and their newspapers folded. Individual proprietors sometimes brought to their newspapers a crusader’s zeal for a particular cause etc.

-         Diversity

If one looked at newspapers in India in all languages, ownership was fairly widely dispersed, especially compared to countries like Australia, Canada or United States. In India it proved difficult to run an outstandingly successful newspaper in more than one language area. This was because of competing proprietors.

The diversity of owners helped in spreading and localizing of newspapers from the late 1970’s. As printing technology became easier and cheaper, it became possible for the owners of smaller newspapers to expand.

-         Traders to capitalists

The origins of newspapers explained aspects of their ownership and capacity to survive. Eleven of the family owned newspapers were founded during the freedom struggle against the British or within a year of independence. The owning family created its newspaper partly to further a cause and gain influence and large profits were rarely the principal motivation. Once independence was achieved, however, the newspaper became a financial asset – perhaps a family’s major asset. It was possible to make a profit from an Indian-language newspaper, but such a newspaper could be sold only with difficulty. Some families were almost trapped into the newspaper business.

The Indian Express Empire of Ramnath Goenka (1902 – 91) was the grandest version of newspapers with some link to the ‘freedom struggle’. Goenka’s origins and experience with Indian-language newspapers illustrated widely shared aspects of newspaper proprietorship. All of the eight large chains that controlled Hindi newspapers were owned by similar, non-Brahmin but commercial-caste families. The owners of the Marathi, Gujarati and Bengali newspapers came from similar backgrounds. 

In south India the social origins of proprietarily families were slightly more varied. The Kandathil family of Malayala Manorama was Syrian Christian. The Kasturi family of the Hindu were Brahmins, but they published only English language publications.

India’s diversity of languages, federal structure and language policy helped to sustain proprietors of Indian-language newspapers. Of the twenty-five states, thirteen had one of India’s official languages as their state language of education and administration. Most of the remainder used Hindi. The newspapers that propelled these entrenched languages had guaranteed readerships in schools and offices, and as readerships grew, so did the importance of the proprietor who influenced readers. Such proprietors became leading members of regional elites, and once so established, they could make it difficult for others to encroach on their territory.

The important contrast with other countries was that no Indian newspaper was a listed company on the stock exchange.

The twelve big newspapers that dated from the independence struggle or its immediate aftermath in 1948 were by no means extravagantly idealistic or commercially naïve. But most began small. From the 1970’s, as capitalist pressures and practices spread, so did the pressure for newspaper expansion, and an emphasis within newspapers on modern management and maximizing profits.

Because Indian-language newspapers were almost all family affairs, they were especially vulnerable to the problems that arise when a new generation takes over from its seniors. An able heir produced a successful newspaper; less able heirs frittered away the inheritance.