Gauri Lankesh: ‘Intolerant Voices Find Strength in our Silence’
A firebrand in the tradition of her father, she was vocal on secularism, the rights of Dalits, the downtrodden and women.
From left to right: Narendra Dabholkar (murdered, 2013), Govind Pansare (murdered, 2015), M.M. Kalburgi (murdered, 2015) and Gauri Lankesh (murdered, September 5, 2017).
“Be careful about what you post on social media. We live in dangerous times,” I told Gauri Lankesh last week. She replied saying “We can’t be so dead. It is human to express and react. What we feel impulsively is usually our most honest response.”
On Tuesday night, she was shot and killed in cold blood. The killing was not impulsive. It was well thought and carefully planned, like the murders in Maharashtra and Karnataka of the rationalists and thinkers Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and M.M. Kalburgi that she had herself condemned and protested.
I grew up in a family of writers. My father, K. Marulasiddappa, and P. Lankesh, Gauri’s father, were colleagues and close friends. Lankesh was an English lecturer. My father taught Kannada.
We lived in the same neighbourhood. My mother often left me in the care of the Lankesh household. Whenever I argued with Gauri, she used to joke saying “Magane (child), I used to babysit you before you learned how to speak.”
But the best quality in Gauri was that one could always argue with her, dispute her and tell her she was wrong. And no matter how fierce our arguments, she respected our right to say what we did. We were close friends because we could disagree. It was a quality that she inherited from her father.
P. Lankesh, founder editor of Lankesh Patrike. Credit: Facebook
Gauri’s father was a firebrand writer and thinker. In 1980 he launched the Lankesh Patrike, a tabloid in black and white. It carried no advertisements. Lankesh believed that publications succumb to favouring rich corporations or powerful government officials and politicials because they sponsor ads that are a crucial to a newspaper’s survival. Lankesh believed this would kill journalistic integrity. He decided that Lankesh Patrike was to run purely on circulation.
It was a different era for the media in India. Print was powerful. Doordarshan television and All India Radio were state owned and broadcast sterile government versions of news. Print was the only independent space.
A socialist and rational thinker, Lankesh became a torchbearer for liberal thought. He exposed casteism and communalism where he saw it. He spotted and patronised rebellious and outspoken young thinkers like the scholar D.R. Nagaraj and the poet Siddalingaiah who went on to become important voices in Kannada culture and political thought. But he never groomed his children to step into his shoes.
Gauri Lankesh once said that she wanted to be a doctor. When that didn’t happen, she took to journalism. She started her career in the English press, working with reputed publications like the Times of India, Sunday and India Today, before her foray into electronic media with Eenaadu TV.
Her siblings Indrajit and Kavitha forayed into cinema. On January 24, 2000, P. Lankesh wrote his column for that week’s Lankesh Patrike and put the edition to bed. The next morning, he was dead. It was sudden and unexpected. He was no more but he left behind what was a respected and revered brand in journalism.
The siblings went to Mani, publisher of Sanje Vani and Dina Sudar, who was also publishing Lankesh Patrike and told him that they wanted to close their father’s tabloid. Gauri felt that her father did not groom his children to take over the tabloid. She did not think they were its “natural” heirs. To those close to her, she said “We can’t fit into his shoes.”
Mani is said to have chided them. He told them that they should give the tabloid a fighting chance.
Gauri Lankesh, 1962-September 5, 2017
Her brother Indrajit decided to continue the newspaper in his father’s name. Gauri started her own tabloid, naming it Gauri Lankesh Patrike. By the time she started it, she had already been a journalist for 16 years. The electronic side of the media was booming. The circulation of most Kannada tabloids was waning. She was embarking on a venture that was going to be financially downhill from day one.
Gauri held true to her father’s ideals. Her tabloid was vocal on secularism, the rights of Dalits, the downtrodden and women. And she kept her father’s firebrand nature alive in her writing. She minced no words while criticising right wing and caste-based politics. When social media became the in-thing, she was all over it. Her Facebook wall and Twitter handles reflect her fearless and frank view on various political issues. She wasn’t embarrassed about becoming emotional about people or ideas that she cherished. Last year, after hearing Kanhaiya Kumar’s speech, she invited him to Bangalore. She wrote on social media, calling him her son.
Gauri Lankesh has been trolled and called names. There are those who belittled her, saying she was just basking in her father’s glory. She has been called a naxal sympathiser, anti-national, anti-Hindu and a host of other names. But none of this could faze her.
Last week, I jokingly told her that she doesn’t understand social media and technology. She replied “Those who understand technology are silent. I will do what I can and I will say what I should. These intolerant voices find strength in our silence. Let them learn to argue using words instead of threats.”
Chaitanya K.M.
Chaitanya K.M. is a film maker and theatre person.
* THE WIRE. 06/09/2017:
https://thewire.in/174439/gauri-lankesh-journalist-killed-obituary/
Journalist Gauri Lankesh shot dead in Bengaluru
Gauri Lankesh. File | Photo Credit: The Hindu
Police sources said Ms. Lankesh collapsed after she was shot at by three assailants as she was entering her house in Rajarajeshwari Nagar.
Senior journalist and activist Gauri Lankesh was shot dead at her house in Rajarajeshwari Nagar in Bengaluru late on September 5. Bengaluru Police Commissioner T. Suneel Kumar confirmed to The Hindu that she was shot dead.
Police sources said Ms. Lankesh collapsed after she was shot at by three assailants as she was entering her house at around 8 p.m.
Multiple gunshots
According to M.N. Anucheth, DCP (West) her body was found on the verandah of her house in R.R. Nagar police station limits. Police have cordoned the area.
A neighbour who heard the gunshots said that there were multiple firings. Another resident of the area, who did not wish to be named, said that she was shot at as she got down from her car and opened the gate, adding that he immediately called the ambulance.
Karnataka Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy, quoting eyewitnesses, told The Hindu that there were four gunshots and that there were three shooters who came in a vehicle. Ms. Lankesh was “shot at close range” and she “died on the spot”, he said, adding that all shots were to the front.
Mr. Reddy also added that Ms. Lankesh had called him last Saturday - before he was appointed the State’s Home Minister, saying she wanted to meet him. He had asked her to meet him on Monday but she had not come.
Three police teams JT Com (Crime), ACP (Kengeri gate), ACP (Chikpete) are on the case. “Four empty cartridges were found. Residents say they heard the sound of a scooter. But no eye witnesses to the incident itself,” Suneel Kumar, Commissioner said adding that there were no conclusive leads as of now. “We are looking at all angles,” he said.
There are two CCTV cameras in the house, including at the porch itself but Police are yet to see CCTV footage.
Mr. Anucheth said the police had spoken to five neighbours who were present during the event but were not eyewitnesses.
“Great loss to the community of independent journalism”
Her death comes two years after leading progressive thinker and researcher M.M. Kalburgi was shot dead in his Dharwad home in 2015.
Ms. Lankesh has been known for her strident stands against communalism in Karnataka. In 2016, she was convicted in a defamation case filed by MP Prahlad Joshi, who had objected to a report against BJP leaders.
Reacting to the news Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee chief G. Parameshwara said Ms. Lankesh’s death was a great loss to the community of independent journalism. “Lost a dear friend, an accomplished journalist and a wonderful human being. Miscreants will be brought to book very soon,” he said.
Condemning the killing of Ms. Lankesh, Narendra Nayak, president of the Federation of Indian rationalist Associations, said, “The elimination of voices of reason by silencing them through murder was the hallmark of those cowardly dunces who have no arguments to counter those put forward by us.” She was one of those who was not afraid to speak her mind on any issue which she felt was important, he said.
“As a fellow member on the hit list of these organisations, I feel sad that I have lost a good friend and a supporter... I knew her since three decades right from the days she was a reporter for Sunday. More than a journalist she was a social activist raising her voice for the oppressed and exploited of the society, he said. “It is a shame tor all the citizens of our country that we have tolerated such a sorry state of affairs here that even voices cannot be raised against the forces of irrationalism and communalism. Let those forces clearly understand that such acts by them are not going to silence us. They are only going to become stronger.”
The Indian Women Press Corps condemned the killing and said, “The silencing of a journalist in this manner has dangerous portents for Indian democracy."
THE HINDU STAFF REPORTER BENGALURU
* THE HINDU, SEPTEMBER 05, 2017 21:12 IST. UPDATED: SEPTEMBER 05, 2017 23:58 IST:
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/journalist-gauri-lankesh-shot-dead-in-bengaluru/article19625724.ece