Hindutva workers paint Anandabazar Patrika office saffron amid row

Kolkata: The office of Bengali newspaper Anandabazar Patrika in Kolkata was painted saffron on Tuesday, September 1, by a group of Hindutva workers amid a controversy over one of the newspaper’s headlines describing violence at a university campus as “saffron hooliganism”.

Videos from outside the newspaper’s office showed two men dressed in saffron clothes painting two white pillars at the entrance while police personnel stood nearby without intervening.

Several other men wearing saffron turbans raised slogans including “Bhagwa ka apmaan, nahi sahega Hindustan” (Hindustan will not tolerate the insult of saffron) and “Anandabazar Patrika haye haye”.

The demonstration reportedly continued for nearly an hour. Those taking part also told the gathering, “This land belongs to Shyama Prasad Mukherjee. This land belongs to Swami Vivekananda. This land is Saffron.”

The protest followed an FIR registered against senior journalists of Anandabazar Patrika and demands from West Bengal BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari for the newspaper to apologise over its use of the phrase “saffron hooliganism”.

On August 21, the newspaper carried the Bengali headline “gerua gundami”, meaning “saffron hooliganism”, on its front page alongside a report on a logo being broken during a raid on the Jadavpur University campus. The report concerned clashes between members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and Left-affiliated student groups at the university.

An FIR was registered on August 28 at Bowbazar police station following a complaint against senior journalists of the newspaper, including editor Ishani Dutta Roy and chief reporter Soma Mukherjee.

The complaint was filed by spiritual leader Sanjay Shastri Maharaj, who argued that saffron is a religious symbol for Hindus rather than a political one. He told The Wire that associating the colour with hooliganism went beyond criticism of a particular political organisation or ideology.

Maharaj alleged that the headline had “hurt Hindu sentiments and disturbed public peace” and described it as “highly objectionable, derogatory, misleading and offensive”.

Adhikari had on August 25 demanded that the newspaper apologise within 24 hours and publish a clarification on its front page saying that the phrasing was wrong.

“Otherwise, there will be a protest by those wearing saffron,” he had said.

Without naming the newspaper, Adhikari said news organisations could engage in political campaigns and criticism but should not “attack saffron”.

“I will ask a news outlet in West Bengal to do political campaigns and political criticism. But don’t attack saffron. The result will be terrible. You will not be able to handle the terrible consequences,” he said.

At a rally on August 28, Adhikari again said an apology “will have to be made”, claiming that thousands of sadhus wearing saffron robes were preparing to protest and were waiting only for his consent.

The registration of the FIR drew criticism from press organisations. The Indian Women’s Press Corps and the Press Association, in a joint statement, said the case “criminalises the journalist and shows disrespect for the role of a free press”.

“Journalists work to uncover the truth that can be unpalatable or even offensive to some, but it constitutes the core of our democracy. The increasing incidence of registration of FIRs against journalists is disturbing,” the statement said.

The press bodies also criticised the complainant’s demand for a detailed investigation into who proposed the expression, who approved it, who edited the report and decided the headline, and whether anyone involved knew that the wording could cause serious injury to religious sentiment.

“To ask for names and positions of people involved in the use of specific terms smacks of targeting journalists and their bona-fide work,” the statement said.

The organisations further said it was “disconcerting” that the allegations made by the complainant and the language used by the state’s highest office were similar, adding that this “does not bode well for pursuit of free and fair journalism”.

Anandabazar Patrika has not issued an apology or removed its earlier reports containing the “saffron hooliganism” phrasing.

After Tuesday’s protest, editor Ishani Datta Roy shared an image of the repainted office wall with the caption “ucch jetha shir”, meaning “Where the head is held high”, a line from Rabindranath Tagore’s poem Where the Mind Is Without Fear.

Anandabazar Patrika, one of the widely circulated Bengali newspapers, was first published in 1922 as a four-page evening paper and became known for its writings against British colonial rule.