How National Herald sank without a trace

Anser Kidwai, then editor of National Herald, can't forget his November 19, 1985 meeting with Rajiv Gandhi at 7 Race Course Road. "He told Yashpal Kapoor (managing director), Aaj tumhare akhbaar mein date galat nikli hai." Rajiv was referring to the caption for his mother's photograph. It said 69th birth anniversary instead of 68th.

Five decades after Jawaharlal Nehru launched the newspaper, popularly called voice of India during the freedom struggle, the NehruGandhi family's passion with Herald had somewhat subsided. Gone were the days when Nehru came to Herald's Lucknow office late in the evening to file a report or write an editorial. But the family was still involved. After all, it had earned a new sobriquet: Voice of Congress.

The slide in Herald's fortunes began during the later years of its longest-serving editor M Chalapathi Rau, known for criticising Congress CMs of UP, Govind Ballabh Pant and Dr Sampurnanand, in scathing editorials, before and after Independence. "Rau was an institution, constantly at war with UP's Congress governments. Nehru never intervened," recalls Kidwai, 87, who started his career with Herald in 1955 at a monthly stipend of Rs 80.

Everything changed with the 1969 Congress split. The Syndicate ganging up against Indira in 1969 became the turning point. This was when Rau apparently told a bureau meeting: "We have to support her (Indira). She's under attack from all sides (Congressmen and media)". Kidwai, then a special correspondent covering Congress, got specific instructions. "Rau told me — Now, we have to become a campaign paper," he says. Even then, the Gandhis never interfered, although the MDs treated them as their bosses. Another MD, Rameshwar Thakur, who became Union minister and governor, referred to Rajiv as 'netaji' at meetings. Once the Rau era got over in the late 1970s, the MDs requested editors to receive leaders close to the Gandhis when they visited Herald House. When Rau held office, he didn't stir out of his room when Indira came visiting. The GM showed her around.

Old-timers say one reason for Herald's decline was its over-emphasis on the editorial page and not reportage. "Rau never pulled up a reporter if he missed a story, but would say: But I already talked about that in my editorial," Kidwai recalls, adding that in the 1960s, the readership of Rau's editorials was over 10,000, a remarkable feat.

M Rama Rao, who joined Herald as bureau chief in 1998 recalls former CAG and BJP MP T N Chaturvedi hailing Herald's edit page at a Delhi event saying reading Herald was recommended to those taking civil services exams. Herald isn't remembered for exclusives, and often missed deadlines. Veterans recall how by the time Herald's special supplement on the 1992 AICC Tirupati plenary was published, the event was folding up.

When Rama Rao quit in 2006, editorial strength in Delhi had dropped to 20, the poorly paid staff worked on typewriters, and management never addressed distribution issues. From 25,000 in the 1970s, the Delhi edition's circulation dropped to 1,000 in 2006, two years before it folded up, says Rama Rao.