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Hindustan Times
4 days ago
- General
- Hindustan Times
How community journals are soldering on against winds of change
MUMBAI: In a city where identities jostle as tightly as commuters on a local train, Mumbai's regional, community-based publications continue to thrive—quiet sentinels of memory, language and belonging. While 'Parsiana', the polished SoBo journal of Zoroastrian life, is perhaps the most well-known with its global readership, it is within the pages of the less celebrated but equally vibrant Marathi, Gujarati and Konkani periodicals that the city's diverse inner lives find an expression. While Urdu journal 'Shayar' folded up after a 93-year run in 2023, 'Kalnirnay' stands out as a rare success. Consider 'Marmik', the Marathi weekly founded in 1960 by Bal Thackeray. Initially conceived as a political cartoon magazine, it quickly transformed into a platform for Marathi pride and grievance—what the late Sena supremo described as 'anxieties of a community pushed to the margins of its own city'. It eventually galvanised a linguistic identity into a political force, showing the mettle of regional publications. But beyond political assertion lies a quieter world of Marathi magazines and journals. 'Society newsletters, temple magazines and monthly cultural journals continue to hum gently,' says Dr Vidyesh Kulkarni, a Pune-based scholar who chronicled these for his doctoral thesis in 1991. He points to titles such as 'Sahyadri', 'Antarpat' and 'Deepstambh', which offer poetry, short fiction, essays on saints and rituals, and commentary on theatre and literature. 'Produced by cultural mandals, these magazines circulate through homes, temples and libraries—carrying the scent of agarbatti and old paper. They are cultural bridges between generations.' However, Kulkarni notes a growing fragmentation. 'There's a tendency I call 'sociocultural meiosis and mitosis' — where every sub-group within a community demands its own platform. In the age of WhatsApp and social media, this proliferation is becoming unsustainable.' Among Marathi publications, 'Kalnirnay' stands out as a rare success. For 53 years, it has had a pan-Maharashtra presence. 'It began as a way to democratise the panchang, but quickly became more than an almanac,' says Shakti Salgaonkar, the current director. 'The back pages featured writers like Durgabai Bhagwat and P L Deshpande. We've included recipes, lifestyle columns, even train timetables.' So deeply woven is 'Kalnirnay' into the Maharashtrian ethos that its jingle is played on the shehnai at weddings and naming ceremonies. Mumbai's Gujarati-speaking communities offer a similarly layered ecosystem. 'Kutchi Patrika', a newsletter for the Kutchi Jain community, has run for over 60 years. 'It's our mainstay for news, obituaries and event updates,' says Kanji Savla Vamik, part of the team that produces and distributes it. 'It's particularly vital to the Kutchi Visa Oswal Jain community, whose ties stretch across the world.' Religious institutions also publish journals — 'Anand Yatra', 'Shree Yamuna Krupa', 'Vallabh Ashray'—distributing discourses, festival calendars, and moral reflections. 'We tried to keep the younger generation connected,' says Hemal Rawani, who edited 'Raghuvansham' till it shut in 2005. 'But it's a losing battle—they don't even want to learn the language.' His lament finds an echo in Hamid Siddiqui who recalls with anguish the folding up of the Urdu 'Shayar' after a 93-year inning. 'Despite being a top-notch literary publication, it was becoming increasingly unsustainable to produce and we had to stop in 2023,' he says, recounting how his family still 'has sack-loads of the mail' from the readers. 'I wonder why none of them came forward to keep 'Shayar' going…' Among Mumbai's Konkani-speaking communities—Catholics, Goud Saraswat Brahmins, and others—journals have long served as spiritual and cultural anchors. Weekly 'Raknno', printed in Roman-script Konkani since 1938 and distributed from Mangalore to Mumbai, blends religious reflection, fiction and news, often touching on migration, memory, and the sea. Closer home, 'Voice of GSB', a monthly GSB Konkani magazine, features articles on festivals, recipes, wedding traditions and proverbs. What binds these publications—across language, caste, and faith—is their intimacy. They are not driven by TRPs or algorithms. Their contributors are often retired teachers, community elders or enthusiastic youth. Their pages, modest in print and design, pulse with lived experience. 'They are guardians of language in a city where English and Hindi often drown out the subtler cadences of mother tongues,' says Dr Kulkarni. 'In their pages, Marathi, Gujarati and Konkani breathe—not as relics, but as living entities that argue, console and dream.' To read them is to walk the bylanes of Matunga, Dadar, Girgaon and Mahim, listening in on the inner life of communities that built this city long before it reached for the skies.
The Hindu
07-07-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Political Line Newsletter: Thackerays try a new language
(This is the latest edition of the Political Line newsletter curated by Varghese K. George. The Political Line newsletter is India's political landscape explained every week. You can subscribe here to get the newsletter in your inbox every Friday.) The attempt by the BJP-led State government to promote Hindi has opened up new space for the cousins. It remains to be seen whether the sagging political fortunes of the cousins could be revived because of language politics. Bal Thackeray combined Marathi and Hindu identity; the BJP took over the Hindu identity space from the Sena and rose to become the leading force in the State in the last decade. Raj has said he is 'Marathi and Hindu' as opposed to 'Hindi and Hindu.' Simultaneously, a controversy over Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde raising 'Jai Gujarat,' along with Jai Maharashtra, at an event has erupted. During the 2021 Assembly elections, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee had said she would not allow 'Gujaratis to rule West Bengal.' Ms. Banerjee tries to claim a distinct Bengali, Hindu identity. In that sense, she mimics the Thackerays, in trying to create a vernacular Hindu politics. The State government built a Jagannath Dham in West Bengal, much to the discomfort of the Odisha government. The custodians of the Puri Jagannath temple were up in arms. You can read our reporting here. Between the censuses of 2001 and 2011, Hindi speakers in Maharashtra grew by 35.57% while Marathi speakers grew by 16.23%. In the same period, the percentage of people with Hindi as their mother tongue has risen to 43.63% from 41.03%, country wide, and Hindi is the fastest growing language in India. The new census will likely prove that this trend continues. Past and future in TN politics Archaeological excavations at Keeladi near Madurai in Tamil Nadu continue to animate politics in the State. The antiquity of the Tamil people and delimitation are set to be key campaign issues in the Assembly elections in the State next year. At the heart of the debate is the question whether Tamil Nadu had ancient urban settlements. The TN government has asked the Centre to release the latest findings from the excavation. Experts from Liverpool John Moores University in England studied the skulls excavated from Keeladi and reconstructed the facial features of ancient people who lived around 2,500 years ago. While the Indus Valley Civilization has been proven as urban, the exact nature of Keeladi settlements remains a dispute. While the State government's archaeology department has concluded that the settlement that dates back to the 6th century BCE was indeed urban, some experts in archaeology feel there must be more evidence before that conclusion can be reached. The lead archaeologist for the first two phases was asked by the Archaeological Survey of India to rewrite his report. He refused and his successor thinks there is no continuity in the structures found in the excavation. Politics is often based on disputes rather than conclusions. Tamil identity politics always had claims of antiquity and fears of dominance by the north. All in a name The Central Board of Film Certification thinks the name Janaki, which is another name of Sita, the wife of Rama in the epic Ramayana, cannot be part of a film title. The matter is now in the Kerala High Court. Union Minister and BJP leader Suresh Gopi is the lead actor in the film. The reasoning of the Censor Board is that the title cannot be allowed as the character Janaki is a victim of sexual assault. There are many films that have Janaki in the title that are approved by the Board. A counsel of the Censor Board cited a norm that films are not supposed to have 'adverse references to religion or caste.' 'To this, counsel for the petitioner firm contended that the character Janaki portrayed in the film was a fighter for justice. The court observed that the character was a victim who was fighting for justice, and not an accused.' The arguments of the Board and the filmmakers and the observations of the Court, all seem to agree in principle that a human fictional character can use the name Janaki only when they meet certain qualities. That is certainly an interesting line of reasoning and application of law and norms. That sets a new bar, a very high one, for the mortals among us. Would it be possible that in the future, Indians may be called upon, nay forced by law, to live up to the character of the names that someone with pious intentions had given them? Russia woos Afghanistan Russia became the first country to accord recognition of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and it is only to be expected that the latter's location as a battlefield of grand power conflicts continues. I considered saying history comes a full circle in Afghanistan, but then this might be just another chapter. Islamists, including the forebears of the Taliban in Afghanistan, gained legitimacy in the West as fighters against the Soviet occupation of the country. Now, with Russia and the West locked in an intense geopolitical conflict both in Europe and West Asia, this new alignment between Moscow and Kabul is notable.
Indian Express
07-07-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
Hindi protests, and why DMK support for Sena (UBT) is a leap
In the tumultuous language politics of India, few ironies cut deeper than Tamil Nadu's ruling DMK hailing the protests against 'Hindi imposition' by Shiv Sena factions in Maharashtra. Just over six decades ago, the then undivided Shiv Sena was among the first political parties to weaponise regional identity in post-Independence India when it targeted South Indians, especially Tamils, in Mumbai, for 'stealing' jobs of locals and 'refusing to assimilate into Marathi culture'. Sena founder Bal Thackeray was vituperative in his attacks on 'Madrasis', as he dubbed all migrants to the city from South India, fuelling violence against them in Maharashtra in the 1960s and 1970s. Now, in a moment of political and historical significance, the Shiv Sena (UBT)'s protests against the Centre's language policy, seen as promoting Hindi, have earned it the praise of none other than Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK chief M K Stalin. 'The language rights struggle waged by the DMK and the people of Tamil Nadu across generations is now spiralling beyond state borders,' Stalin said on Saturday, hailing the 'protest storm' in Maharashtra, particularly in the wake of a joint 'victory rally' held by Uddhav Thackeray and estranged cousin Raj Thackeray after the Maharashtra government withdrew a government order that seen as promoting Hindi. Given the Sena's history, Stalin's remarks seem little more than transactional in nature. However, it could be built by the Opposition into a resistance to the BJP's 'majoritarian language policy', cutting across the North-South axis. Pointing out that 'Hindi imposition' was not new to Tamil Nadu, DMK organisation secretary R S Bharathi said, 'Our leader (DMK founder and former CM) C N Annadurai said this six decades ago that Hindi imposition is a crucial threat. It's just that every other state is realising it. We implemented the two-language formula many decades ago, realising this threat of Hindi imposition.' Tamil Nadu had earlier taken the lead in opposing the Modi government's New Education Policy (NEP) for its three-language formula, which sees such moves as both unconstitutional and culturally invasive. In Tamil Nadu, the opposition to Hindi goes deeper, to the legacy of the Self-Respect Movement and anti-Hindi agitations dating back to the 1930s. Stalin has been raising the fact that Tamil Nadu has been denied over Rs 2,000 crore in funds for refusing to implement the Centre's Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan. Ramu Manivannan, a political scholar who taught Politics at the University of Madras, and is currently working on a book on India's language debates from the 1940s, termed the alignment politically potent but ideologically awkward. 'If Stalin sees this as just another anti-Hindi protest, it is inadequate,' he said. 'For Tamil Nadu, language politics is cultural and civilisational. Marathi pride, on the other hand, often flirts with exclusionary populism.' Manivannan's reference is to the fact that unlike in Dravidian parties, where Hindi opposition is linked to cultural identity, the Sena's renewed protests originate as much from Maratha pride as political survival. After a string of electoral defeats, and the looming threat of irrelevance in the coming municipal polls, the Sena (UBT) is looking to consolidate its traditional Marathi vote behind it. 'The language plank offers a way to reconnect with its base, putting a distance between itself and its Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) allies,' Manivannan said. Incidentally, after Stalin's remarks backing the Sena (UBT), the latter clarified that there was a difference between their stands. Sena (UBT) Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut said Sunday that while the party opposes the Centre's efforts to make Hindi mandatory in primary education, it does not support a complete rejection of the language. 'The southern states have been fighting for this issue for years. Their stand is against the imposition of Hindi, which means they will not speak Hindi and neither let anyone speak the language. But that is not our stand in Maharashtra. We speak Hindi… Our stand is that the strictness for Hindi in primary schools will not be tolerated,' Raut said.
Mint
07-07-2025
- Politics
- Mint
‘I may be Marathi but…': Bal Thackeray's old video resurfaces amid Hindi language row, MNS slapgate
Amid the ongoing Hindi language row and the MNS 'slapgate' incident, an old video of Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray has surfaced on social media and gone viral. In the video, Bal Thackeray speaks in Marathi, saying that he may be a Marathi in Maharashtra, but he is also a Hindu. 'I may be a Marathi in Maharashtra, but I am a Hindu in Hindustan,' he is heard saying in the video. On Saturday, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray shared the political stage after almost 20 years. Raj claimed that the three-language formula, which the BJP-led state government tried to impose, was a precursor to its plan to separate Mumbai from Maharashtra. After two decades, the two cousins shared the public stage and hosted a victory gathering, titled 'Awaj Marathicha', to celebrate the rollback of two Government Resolutions (GR) issued earlier by the government introducing Hindi as a third language from Class 1 in state schools. 'The Maharashtra Government reversed the decision on the three-language formula due to the strong unity shown by Marathi people. This decision was a precursor to the plan of separating Mumbai from Maharashtra,' the MNS chief said. 'This was an unnecessary issue, and there was no need for it. You may have the majority in the Vidhan Sabha (Assembly), but we rule the streets,' he said. Late on Sunday, 48-year-old shopkeeper Babulal Chaudhary, who runs the 'Jodhpur Sweet Shop' in Mumbai's Mira Road suburb, was slapped and threatened by seven MNS workers because his staff member spoke to the men in Hindi. The MNS workers asked Chaudhary and his staff to speak in Marathi, to which the shopkeeper replied that all languages are spoken in the state. The MNS workers also filmed their assault and posted it on social media. Referring to the assault, Raj said news channels showed that a Gujarati man was assaulted, but his identity was not known to MNS workers when the altercation started. "There is no need to hit anyone without any reason. But if anyone does drama, then a slap has to be given. But they have to be at fault (for doing so).' 'And whenever you do it, do not shoot videos. The person who gets hit must say that he has been assaulted and not the one who hits. This does not mean there is any need to hit anyone,' Raj said.
Deccan Herald
07-07-2025
- Politics
- Deccan Herald
Language politics rekindles Thackeray unity: A new twist in Maharashtra's political landscape
If we look into the history of Shiv Sena, Bal Thackeray built the party's political identity on the plank of 'Marathi Manoos'.
