By Syed Khalique Ahmed
AHMEDABAD: Gujarat Today, a Gujarati language multi-edition daily being published from Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat and Rajkot has completed 33 years of its existence. The paper has become a household name among Muslims of Gujarat, with a large circulation among Muslim educationists, academicians, and social and political activists throughout the state.
A trust-run newspaper, Gujarat Today is comparable with any mainstream periodical based on the news content – state, national and international news, and views, particularly about Muslims it publishes. If any Gujarat-knowing individual wants to keep himself updated about national and global issues, it would be advisable for him to be a regular reader of this newspaper.
Gujarat Today is highly respected among Gujarati mainstream media circles because of its focus on coverage of news and events based on facts and avoiding any exaggeration in favour of any particular community or group of people. The overall narrative the paper has been building is to present the truth and disseminate it among its readers despite the criticism it faces from several quarters. However, it focuses more on Muslim issues because Muslim issues are not given as much coverage by other Gujarati language newspapers as they deserve. When other Gujarati language newspapers gave up objectivity in coverage of communal incidents, Gujarat Today maintained fairness and impartiality. It is here the role of Gujarat Today becomes very important to dig out the truth concerning developments about Muslims and present them before the people as also the decision-makers in the state government.
The state government also takes Gujarat Today’s coverage seriously. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when he was chief minister of Gujarat, never ignored this newspaper and invited its correspondents covering the state assembly and secretariat to all his programmes that were meant for media persons. Its office in the Muslim-dominated Shah Alam area was occasionally visited by the state’s late chief minister Keshubhai Patel. Former Gujarat minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasma used to call over phone the paper’s editor and trustee whenever he did not get copies of this newspaper. The public relations department at all district headquarters subscribes to this paper regularly. If senior state government officials are to be believed, news and articles in Gujarat Today are closely monitored to keep abreast of the developments among the state’s Muslims and prepare the government’s response accordingly. While concentrating its coverage on Muslim issues, the paper has simultaneously been very positive by giving constructive and useful suggestions to the government on various policy issues.
However, the paper is currently facing a serious financial crunch. It does not have enough income to hire journalists who are the backbone of any newspaper or news portal. The only source of revenue for a newspaper or a magazine is the income from the advertisements it gets from the government and private business and corporate houses. The current political atmosphere in Gujarat and the rest of the country not being favourable to Muslims affects Muslim-run media houses as well. And hence, it receives very few government ads, one of the main reasons for its reduced income.
Suhail Tirmizi, chairman of the Lokhit Prakashan Sarvajanik Trust that publishes the newspaper, complains that even Muslim industrialists and business houses don’t support the paper by issuing advertisements even though the newspaper has been providing yeoman service to the community and the state. A senior lawyer practicing in the Gujarat High Court, Tirmizi grumbles that even politicians who get huge coverage in this newspaper promoting their political careers don’t come forward to help the newspaper financially. According to Tirmizi, there are huge number of big Muslim businessmen and industrialists in Gujarat whose support can help the newspaper come out of the financial crisis. However, there has been a rare positive response from any of them. Muslim businessmen don’t seem to be aware of the importance of media in the life of a community and that may be the reason behind their current attitude of neglecting a media house that has worked as the voice of the Muslim community for more than three decades. Perhaps they don’t know what cannot be achieved through weapons or financial might, can be quickly achieved through media. Lack of proper understanding of media may be the reason for the low priority being given to media by Muslim business houses.
Newspaper’s Joint Editor Alamdar Bukhari says that about three dozen journalists – Muslims and non-Muslims – who got trained at Gujarat Today left the paper because the organization could not pay them salaries at par with other media houses. All of them were highly self-motivated journalists and are currently working with other Gujarati dailies and a few of them have risen to the post of news editors and special correspondents, the highest position in the journalistic hierarchy after the position of Editor and Chief Editor. He says journalists too require adequate money to run their families and meet their daily requirements. No one can give his services for a long time at low pay or nominal pay. According to him, Gujarat Today management has been doing everything possible to raise income and boost its revenue but the result has not been encouraging.
Activist Wasif Husain who is very close to Gujarat Today’s editorial team says that the community’s businessmen and industrialists should come forward to increase the organization’s revenue to ensure the paper survives. According to Wasif Husain, if we want to produce good news stuff, we must pay the journalistic staff wages at par in the media industry. Former state secretary of the Gujarat unit of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Umar Vohra says that more than half a dozen Muslim journalists from Gujarat Today have joined Nav Gujarat Samay, the Gujarati language daily launched by The Times of India group, and edited by Ajay Umat, a very seasoned and a leading journalist of Gujarat. Nav Gujarat Samay is the biggest employer of Muslim journalists in Gujarat and currently, it has more than a dozen Muslim journalists working in its print and digital editions as well as its YouTube channel.
