Stopped Press

PERHAPS this is how an era ends. Workmen chip away at a section of the rundown colonial building on Fraser Road, in the heart of Patna. A co...

int(2)

PERHAPS this is how an era ends. Workmen chip away at a section of the rundown colonial building on Fraser Road, in the heart of Patna. A couple of men loiter about, smoking. The spacious halls and rooms inside are completely deserted. Only on the second floor, in a room under the legend ‘Editorial’, there’s some sign of life.

But not for long. Indian Nation and Arya Varta, once Bihar’s largest selling English and Hindi dailies respectively, have finally given up the battle against mismanagement, unionism and, ironically, the modern methods the papers themselves had ushered in. While there is talk of Arya Varta staging a comeback, Indian Nation proprietor Kumar Subheshwara Singh — cousin of late Darbhanga Maharaja Kameshwar Singh, who launched the paper — says that for the moment, the English paper is dead.

‘‘It was a Bihar paper — it had done a lot for the state,’’ says Singh. ‘‘We took up local causes and fought for them, but now the liabilities are simply too much for us.’’

Story continues below this ad

Indian Nation, founded in 1930, is the last of Bihar’s indigenous English papers, in recent days the only one whose editorial policies were decided in Patna. For many in Bihar, the paper was the main source of information. ‘‘It was a paper for the middle-class, we’ll all miss it,’’ says Amarnath Singh, a professor at Patna University. ‘‘But then, the media has developed over the years.’’

In the midst of all the development, the paper stuck closely to its self-prescribed middle path. “During the Independence movement, the first lead would be on the Viceroy’s statement and the second lead on Gandhi,’’ says Dinanath Jha, who edited Indian Nation for almost two decades. ‘‘They couldn’t afford to displease the British, and maintained a balance.’’

Even later, Singh says, the paper consciously steered clear of any biases.

By the ’60s, the paper’s circulation had touched 50,000 and became known as the voice of Darbhanga and North Bihar. ‘‘The paper inculcated a sense of belonging in the region by contributing to development work, from roads to bridges,’’ says Jha. Furthering that sense was the former maharaja’s decision to deploy two of his personal planes in ferrying papers to the inaccessible parts of North Bihar.

Story continues below this ad

In another two decades, however, mismanagement and unionism combined with the paper’s inability to move with the changing times triggered a downslide that was to be terminal.

But there are those who have unshakeable faith in Indian Nation. Though all its 300 employees have been asked to resign, news editor Ashok Thakur is among those who say, ‘‘The publication has been suspended, but Indian Nation is not shutting down. There’s still a market for the paper among the intelligentsia.’’