Business   

Role as disseminator and educator

By K.T. Jagannathan

The paper always rose to the needs of the time and context to offer relevant information.

INDIAN financial reporting has undergone a total metamorphosis ever since the process of liberalisation was set in motion in the 1990s. Today, business dictates the course of politics unlike in those distant years of the past when politics guided business. Not surprisingly, there are at least four mainline financial dailies slugging it out in the marketplace for a share of the growing business readership. There are besides at least three major business magazines apart from any number of so-called specialised publications dishing out assorted information on business, trade and industry. Where does The Hindu, which has seen 125 summers, stand in the field of business reporting?

The general perception about The Hindu's earlier years has been that it was rather reserved about accommodating business news in its pages. This perception is found baseless if one cares to take a peep into the earlier editions of the newspaper.

In the controlled era of Licence Raj, access to information proved pretty hard. That was the time when many a reader looked to The Hindu for accurate monetary and industry numbers. If it played the role of information disseminator in the `closed economy' period, in the pre-Independence years, the paper appears to have played the role of an `educator' as well. A case in point was when a nationwide debate was raging in 1933 over the need for a "Reserve Bank" for India. No less a person than the Editor of the paper, A. Rangaswami Iyengar, took time off to preside over a public meeting in Coimbatore in February 1933 where he gave a thorough exposition on the subject.

Raising the question himself as to why a bill on the issue withdrawn earlier was re-introduced, he cited the unwillingness of Whitehall and pound rate-sensitive British interests to transfer financial powers to Indians as the principal reason. He argued for some sort of an arm's length relationship between the proposed Reserve Bank and the legislatures. That he chose to elaborate the need for a Reserve Bank and its modalities at a public forum reflects the keenness of the editor (nay, the paper itself) to educate the common man about an issue of national importance.

Financial reporting of the kind one sees today has evolved mainly over the last two decades. It acquired noticeable proportions only in the wake of liberalisation and globalisation set in motion in the early 1990s.

Ipso facto, business reporting itself is caught in the crossfire of competition. Not surprisingly, one sees business publications falling over themselves to dish out information of assorted categories in a bid to win the game of one-upmanship. The Hindu of yesteryear had no such compulsion or threat to prove itself to anyone. A scan through the pages of earlier times came as a revelation for this writer, especially for the way it had covered trade, industry and business.

A look at the reportage of the extra-ordinary general body meeting of Alliance Bank in the July 4, 1916, edition would dispel any perception that The Hindu of the past paid scant attention to business news. The EGM was convened to discuss the amalgamation of Delhi and London Bank with it. The Hindu not only covered the EGM, but gave the minutest details of the deal. Often, newspapers of the present age are faulted for not pursuing an issue to its logical end. This charge could never be made against The Hindu. If proof were at all required, it was available in plenty. The Bank of Burma liquidation found sustained coverage in the editions of the mid-1910s.

Then there was the famous Back Bay Reclamation case. The fact that at a time when communication was undeveloped, a publication from Madras took serious and sustained interest in a subject affecting the citizens of faraway Bombay speaks of the nationalist character of the paper. The Back Bay Reclamation case was a heady cocktail of a story, revealing the nexus between the bureaucracy and business. Any present day publication will just go gaga over it.

The general perception is that The Hindu and scoops do not go together, particularly in respect of business stories. The exposures on Bofors might have changed this perception somewhat. A trip down memory lane to the beginning of the last century is enough to make one realise how such perceptions could be wrong. Way back in 1906, The Hindu had brought to light the fall of Arbuthnot & Co, a foreign financial institution. The episode — even as it unfolded — was covered extensively in its pages and elicited sharp editorial comments. More than the expose per se, the way the paper went about chronicling subsequent events shows its sensitivity to the public cause.

Thus, peeping into the pages of The Hindu of the pre-Depression period, this correspondent is convinced that, constraints notwithstanding, the newspaper rose to the needs of the time and context to purvey with reasonable justice relevant information on business, trade and industry. All through these, the focus remained largely on educating the lay public.

(The writer is an Assistant Editor of The Hindu.)

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Business

| Editorial | Looking back | Editorials - Views | Business growth | Advertising | Technology | Art and Culture | The Hindu & me | Business | Sports | Index |

Stories in this Section

• Integrated approach to economic issues
• From commodities to corporate news
• Role as disseminator and educator
• Currency regulation
• Always for transparency
• Support for local enterprise

Copyright © 2003, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu