[Reader-list] Should Milli Gazette be allowed to die?

[Javed]

Should Milli Gazette be allowed to die?
Irena Akbar:
New Delhi

Its office is tucked away in a corner of one of the many narrow,
decrepit lanes of Abu Fazl Enclave, Jamia Nagar, Delhi. Anyone can
walk easily into the office, which has no signboard and is situated
inside an an old house with a low-rise iron gate. Inside, there are
cartons full of newspapers strewn carelessly, lots of books, and
people working on old computers.

The nondescript workspace, though, belies the voice of 'Milli
Gazette', an English-language fortnightly, which is often quoted by
various publications, including international ones such as 'The
Guardian', in news stories about India's Muslims. But very soon,
though, the newspaper's fate may match that of its workspace. In a
recent edition, the 'Milli Gazette' had its first page almost blank,
with a column on the side lamenting that not enough Muslims, whose
“side of the story” it tells, have supported it by way of
subscriptions, and appealing to the community to keep subscribing to
the paper, or else, “all pages of MG may look blank as this one”.

'Milli Gazette' was started by Zafar-ul-Islam Khan, a journalist from
Azamgarh (in a sarcastic tone, he tells us he's from “Atankgarh” when
we ask him about his origins) in January 2000, when the BJP was the
ruling party at the Centre, and “there was a lot of Islamophobia
around”

“We needed to tell our side of the story,” he said, though he admits
that, for Muslims, getting into the mainstream, non-Urdu media, has
“been a very, very old idea, not much realised even today”. Eleven
years on, MG too seems to be not able to realise that idea. “We've
been incurring losses since we began, and we've reached the limit
now,” says Khan. So, are they shutting down? “If things go on this
way, we might,” he says.

'Milli Gazette' is located in Jamia Nagar, a sprawling and
ever-growing Muslim-dominated locality, occupying a major part of
south-east Delhi. Its target readers, we'd think, stay in its
vicinity. But the many Muslims living in the area, specially the youth
who study in Jamia Millia Islamia University, also located in Jamia
Nagar, are ironically not the target readers of MG. “Did you know that
the top heads of the Indian state as well as the top cops of the Delhi
Police subscribe to us? They are our target readers. It is they whom
we want to tell about what the ordinary Muslim is going through, and
be able to affect their attitude towards the community,” says Khan.

The target readership explains Milli Gazette's news content, which
largely revolves around communal riots such as those that took place
in Rudrapur and Ujjain recently, the plight of Muslims arrested after
terror blasts, such as those in Malegaon, the policies of Narendra
Modi and the RSS and criticism of the US and Israel.

The 32-page newspaper, priced at Rs 10 since it began, is a heavy,
tiring head, and you'd wish the seriousness of the content was
tempered by some cultural, social news. Surely, news about Muslim
community doesn't have to be synonymous with riots, terror and
anti-Americanism.

“But these are the facts of our times. How many have our children lost
the prime of their youth by being arrested after every terror act,
tortured, forced to confess to a crime they didn't commit, and then
released 8-10 years later for want of evidence?” says Khan, with a
passion which has made him stay put, despite the losses. Such
reportage, which often questions the State, has put Khan and his team
of 14 reporters at risk. “Our reporter in Indore was threatened by the
police when he inquired about the arrest of a Muslim youth after the
riots there, and then, I, too, frequently get threats over phone and
e-mail,” says Khan.

Khan believes that Milli Gazzette's fierce reportage of riots and
harassment of Muslims after terror blasts has 'mellowed down' the
rhetoric that follows a terror act. “Now, the government explores the
possible involvement of terror groups belonging to another faith too,
without immediately concluding that it is the handiwork of Islamists,”
he says, adding that NGOs -- local and international, such as Human
Rights Watch -- have visited their office for information related to
riots.

Though 'Milli Gazette' has had an “impact” on its 'target readership',
it still fails in drawing mass readers, which can sustain the
newspaper. Circulation figures are 'too low' for Khan to reveal them
to us, but online readership more than makes up for the embarrassment.
“We have an estimated combined readership of 5 lakh per issue, online
and offline, with a very large percentage coming from online
visitors,” he says. Of course, reading stories on the website is
offered free of cost, unlike the case with the newspaper, which
Muslims 'hardly support'.

“Do you see how many mosques and madarsas are in Jamia Nagar? Is there
a need for so many of them? Muslims only want to contribute to
religious causes, such as building mosques and madarsas, sometimes
right in front of their homes. Of course, it's their right to do so,
but they overdo it and ignore social causes, such as spreading
community news,” Khan explains.

Even the businessmen aren't supportive, with just one company
subscribing to the fortnightly, and almost none advertising in it (the
ads on the website are only those by Google). “They fear being
associated with a paper that focuses on riots and terror cases,” says
Khan. That fear is also shared by vendors, who refuse to sell the
paper at their stalls. Khan says he's tried in vain -- even given
'several kilos of laddoos' -- to vendors in Connaught Place, and other
well-frequented parts of Delhi -- but no one wants to sell this paper,
he says.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/should-milli-gazette-be-allowed-to-die/888226/0