Is this the golden age of Hindi journalism, which was born 200 years ago in Kolkata with the publication of the first Hindi newspaper, Udant Martand (Rising Sun) on May 30, 1826? Many editors and analysts assert that Hindi journalism today is richer in its coverage, makes more profits and is politically more influential than ever.
This is due to the expansion of the Hindi news media industry, especially after the liberalisation of the Indian economy in the 1990s.
They claim that it has become more professional. The number of pages in the average newspaper, its circulation and its reach have increased manyfold; printing has improved; and colour pages and supplements have become more frequent.
The scope of its coverage and the variety of topics have expanded. There are more trained journalists in newsrooms, many of them experts in various subjects. Their salaries and service conditions have improved.
Hindi journalism, they note, is not merely an extension of “Big Brother” English media or a translation of English newswire services.
They also argue that the popularity, expansion, and influence of Hindi news channels have made up for the remaining gap. Editors of major Hindi newspapers and anchors of Hindi news channels are stars in the media world.
There is no doubt that many of these claims are correct. But they need to be seen in perspective.
Many of these claims ring true when compared to Hindi journalism before the 1970s. While most of these claims relate to a golden age for Hindi news media companies, they do not necessarily address the state of Hindi journalism.
Can colourful glossy paper, better printing and the glamour of Hindi news channels be considered evidence of improvement in the quality of Hindi journalism?
In 1925, at the Hindi Editors’ Conference in Vrindavan, renowned Hindi editor Baburao Vishnu Paradkar gave a long-remembered speech in which he declared, “Aachhe din, pachhe gaye.” The good old days have gone.
A century ago, he predicted that the newspapers of the future would be more colourful with better paper and printing but they would lack a soul. In this era that some are hailing as its golden age, does Hindi journalism have a soul?
Writer Arthur Miller once noted that, “a good newspaper…is a nation talking to itself”. In our multi-edition, colourful, profit-making mainstream Hindi newspapers and Hindi news channels, can we hear India having a conversation with itself?
Is the nation and its concerns, struggles, anxieties and thoughts reflected in those pages? Do we find reporting on rural areas, farmers, agriculture and their challenges or on factories, labourers and labour-related matters?
How many Hindi newspapers and channels allow their journalists to consistently report from the ground in Kashmir, North East India, Odisha, and other invisible parts of India? Do the coverage and newsrooms of mainstream Hindi news media reflect India’s cultural, ethnic, linguistic, caste, class and religious diversity as well as its diversity of ideas and concerns?
The poor representation in newsrooms of Dalits, Adivasis, backward classes, minorities and women has been noted by scholars like Robin Jeffrey, Chandra Bhan Prasad and Yogendra Yadav? Is it a swarn yug (golden age) or a savarn yug – an era of upper castes?
Similarly, while a few senior editors and anchors receive indulgent compensation packages, the salaries and service conditions of journalists working in most Hindi newspapers and channels are still very poor.
As for the thousands of stringers on whom the sector relies, their salaries are poor, their service conditions precarious and their working environments are often hostile.
The brutal murder in January of stringer Mukesh Chandrakar in Chhattisgarh is a tragic example of the status of stringers.
There is no doubt that the Hindi news media industry has expanded tremendously in the last 35 years. In the post-liberalisation era, the majority of family-owned, mid-sized and geographically restricted Hindi news media companies have transformed into organised, multi-lingual, multi-state and multi-edition large corporate entities with the entry of massive domestic and foreign capital into the sector.
Traditional Hindi media houses have raised capital from the share markets, formed alliances with foreign firms and diversified into sectors such as real estate, power, mining, retail business and education. Their ownership and management are deeply interlinked with big capital and corporate interests.
Today, many large Hindi media companies are publicly listed. As in the rest of the corporate sector, large houses are acquiring smaller ones. Many once-thriving Hindi newspapers have shut down or been bought by bigger players.
In 10 Hindi-speaking states, five major newspaper companies now dominate the print media space – Jagran Prakashan, Divya Bhaskar Corp, Hindustan Media (all listed companies), Amar Ujala, and Rajasthan Patrika.
As concentration grows, small and medium newspapers struggle to survive. Digital transformation, falling print circulations (especially during Covid) and the shift of advertising to online platforms have worsened the crisis.
Increasingly, Hindi news media companies are relying heavily on government support for survival, jeopardising editorial independence. As a consequence, public relations and propaganda is replacing public interest journalism.
As small and medium-sized voices fade out, media pluralism shrinks. With fewer owners and outlets, the public receives narrower perspectives. Originality, investigative journalism, and ideological-political diversity are vanishing.
In the last decade or so, Hindi news media has become the loyal mouthpiece of the ruling establishment. Neo-liberal economic ideas and communal politics dominate editorial agendas.
In this corporatised public sphere, the Hindi media speaks for the affluent few and only through their lens. Hindi journalism, once a voice of the people, now chases elite interests and imitates India’s English media.
This is fuelling another crisis in Hindi journalism today: professional dissatisfaction among its journalists. Many feel they no longer have the freedom or space to do honest, independent, critical, and socially concerned journalism. The golden age is marked not by vitality but by suffocation. Corporate pressure is mounting. Paid news is rising. Institutional corruption is becoming normalised.
Hundreds of journalists have either been thrown out or have quit big Hindi news media outlets in recent years. That, too, is a reality of this so-called golden age.
None of this is good news for Indian democracy.
May 30 is Hindi Journalism Day.
Anand Pradhan is a professor of journalism and regional director at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication in Dhenkanal, Odisha. Views are personal.
