The murder of Gauri Lankesh
The murder of Gauri Lankesh
Once an Indian woman begins to discard English, turns down marriage and motherhood and then voluntarily accesses and fraternizes with vernacular-speaking people not of her own class, she becomes anathema as well as an irritant.
It is well known that journalists working in small town India, writing in regional languages, often see the most brutal aspects of the State, which is often hand-in-glove with criminals patronized by powerful politicians. Fact is, journalists writing for big media publications in metros seldom see that home truth.
Gauri Lankesh, initially working for a Calcutta-based English weekly in Delhi, took to writing almost exclusively in her mother tongue Kannada, after she returned home to Bangalore and inherited Lankesh Patrige, a Kannada weekly, from her charismatic father and highly respected journalist, Lankesh. Those who knew her say she took the job voluntarily because she knew that in the handling of a language weekly with a rock solid reputation for defying power in the pursuit of truth, she would see different things, meet different people. Being the owner publisher, she could travel when the need arose, to areas where the story was breaking, and tap the necessary sources.
Based on the truth she met face to face, often under dangerous circumstances, she wrote her column, ‘Kanda Hagey’, As I see It. Her last column was about Fake News and the vast propaganda machine of the ruling Party that churned out lies and then seeded both the mainstream media and the social media with it. She did this because as a restless journalist, like the one in Andrezej Wajda’s film ‘Rough Treatment’, she found the stories about a Party mercilessly murdering truth compelling, not necessarily because she was waging a political war against individuals (though she did call the great Party leader ‘Boosi Basiya’, someone who opened his mouth only to utter an untruth).
Karnataka is a state that has had a strong regional personality : sometimes sad , some times impenetrable but always engaging. It is a dynamic and aggressive state with a faith in science and an analogous faith in history, scientifically analysed and recorded. And it was in recording her times that Gauri found her real voice in Kannada and moved away effortlessly from English, retaining, unlike many other journalists writing in Indian languages, a certain confidence and self respect her middle class upbringing and education gave her.
It is well known that journalists working in small town India, writing in regional languages, often see the most brutal aspects of the State, which is often hand-in-glove with criminals patronized by powerful politicians. Fact is, journalists writing for big media publications in metros seldom see that home truth.
Gauri Lankesh, initially working for a Calcutta-based English weekly in Delhi, took to writing almost exclusively in her mother tongue Kannada, after she returned home to Bangalore and inherited Lankesh Patrige, a Kannada weekly, from her charismatic father and highly respected journalist, Lankesh. Those who knew her say she took the job voluntarily because she knew that in the handling of a language weekly with a rock solid reputation for defying power in the pursuit of truth, she would see different things, meet different people. Being the owner publisher, she could travel when the need arose, to areas where the story was breaking, and tap the necessary sources.
Based on the truth she met face to face, often under dangerous circumstances, she wrote her column, ‘Kanda Hagey’, As I see It. Her last column was about Fake News and the vast propaganda machine of the ruling Party that churned out lies and then seeded both the mainstream media and the social media with it. She did this because as a restless journalist, like the one in Andrezej Wajda’s film ‘Rough Treatment’, she found the stories about a Party mercilessly murdering truth compelling, not necessarily because she was waging a political war against individuals (though she did call the great Party leader ‘Boosi Basiya’, someone who opened his mouth only to utter an untruth).
Karnataka is a state that has had a strong regional personality : sometimes sad , some times impenetrable but always engaging. It is a dynamic and aggressive state with a faith in science and an analogous faith in history, scientifically analysed and recorded. And it was in recording her times that Gauri found her real voice in Kannada and moved away effortlessly from English, retaining, unlike many other journalists writing in Indian languages, a certain confidence and self respect her middle class upbringing and education gave her.
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