ANDHRA PRADESH

Prajasakti Daily Celebrates Silver Jubilee

M Venugopala Rao

Eminent educationist Chukka Ramaiah addressing the Silver Jubilee meeting of Prajasakti 

ENTERING the 25th year of its progressive and fruitful existence as a powerful weapon and alternative voice of the people and their struggles, Prajasakti Telugu daily is celebrating its silver jubilee.  The inaugural meeting of its silver jubilee celebrations was held at Vijayawada – the place where Prajasakti emerged as a daily newspaper 25 years ago – on August 1. 

Speakers at the meeting, which was presided over by Koratala Satyanarayana, chairman of Prajasakti Sahithi Samstha, asked Prajasakti to continue its trend of echoing the alternative voice of the people and endeavouring to articulate their problems, giving priority to their lives. Chukka Ramaiah, eminent educationist, lauded the role being played by Prajasakti as a part and parcel of the people’s movements and in enlightening the people and encouraging them.  He recollected the immense service rendered by Prajasakti during the heroic Telangana armed struggle of the peasants and the difficulties faced in bringing it out secretly from Vijayawada and how he was attracted to revolutionary ideas through the newspaper.   Ramaiah termed Prajasakti a real newspaper fighting on behalf of the people. He regretted that newspapers, which emerged as a part of freedom struggle and with a spirit of patriotism in the past, had now undergone transformation as an industry, becoming a corporate voice subservient to the market forces. Maintaining that Prajasakti need not worry about the market forces, Ramaiah asserted that the people themselves would protect it.

V Bala Mohandas, vice chancellor of Acharya Nagarjuna university, said it was a matter of pride that Prajasakti had completed 24 years as a daily newspaper.  Though somewhat difficult, Prajasakti would have to mobilise financial resources to keep pace with the revolutionary changes taking place in the society, he said.  Hoping that in the coming period Prajasakti would start its editions in all the remaining districts, Mohandas said it was the responsibility of the people to help good newspapers.

Koratala Satyanarayana explained the long sojourn of Prajasakti since its inception as a weekly on June 13, 1942. Prajasakti was brought out as a daily under the leadership of Comrade P Sundarayya and editorship of Comrade Moturu Hanumantha Rao 25 years back when the first issue was released by Comrade E M S Namboodiripad, he recollected.  It was a memorable day when Prajasakti was celebrating its silver jubilee, having completed its 25-year sojourn as the voice of democratic movement and as a synonym for alternative journalism, said Koratala. Prajasakti was the first popular daily brought out  from Vijayawada on December 3, 1945, when all the newspapers were being published from Madras, he said.   Prajasakti Nagar established on the land of 0Katragadda people used to be a holy place to progressive people, humming with activity. Overcoming its destruction and repression let loose in 1948,  Prajasakti re-emerged as a weekly in 1951.  In 1952, Visalandhra was started in its place. After several developments, Janasakti from 1964 and Prajasakti weekly from 1968 were brought out from Vijayawada.  Prajasakti, as a daily, was re-started from August 1, 1981. 

Koratala explained that Prajasakti has been transforming itself as a comprehensive newspaper with a status to stand on par with the so-called mainstream media.  Without Prajasakti in the age of globalisation, there would not have been an outlet to expose the distorted and unrealistic propaganda of the imperialist and monopoly media and explain in detail the existing realities to the people.  It was an undeniable fact that  communists were responsible for cultural renaissance in the land of the Telugus and that the then Prajasakti was a foreword to that endeavour, explained Koratala.  Prajasakti had always followed the principle that social purpose was crucial rather than the allurement for profit, cheap sensationalism, gossip and stories centring around individuals, he said.  Prajasakti was always committed to democracy, secularism, socialism, protection of the interests of the common people, social justice and opposition to imperialism, explained Koratala. Narrating the progress and expansion of Prajasakti, he said that its eighth edition would be started in Karimnagar this month.   Assuring that Prajasakti would continue to bring out suppressed facts,  stand by the struggles of the people and  develop as a more powerful instrument in the future, dedicating itself to the people, Koratala sought help and cooperation of all to enable it to forge ahead in the year of its silver jubilee.

V Srinivasa Rao, former editor of Prajasakti, and member of the central secretariat of the CPI(M), said Prajasakti acted as a pointer to explain the developments in the world comprehensively to the people.  In the initial stages when Prajasakti had written about the kind of adverse impact the neo-liberal reforms were going to show in the lives of the people, nobody had taken it seriously, but having experienced the impact, all were accepting it, he said.  The strength of ideology, the support of wellwishers, efficiency and performance of its staff were the reasons for the progress of Prajasakti, he maintained.   The silver jubilee celebrations would be useful for self-introspection of the efforts that were made so far, said Srinivasa Rao.

Eedpuganti Nageswara Rao, editor of Visalandhra, said it was great that Prajasakti had achieved expansion and development in the background of capitalism dominating the world. He lauded the step-by-step growth of Prajasakti, particularly in the background of the ongoing campaign that there was no alternative to capitalism. Nageswara Rao complimented that it was Prajasakti which started alternative journalism against the ideas of market forces. 

V Krishnaiah, general manager of Prajasakti, made it clear that several victories and expansion achieved by the daily in its sojourn were possible with the support of the people only. Prajasakti had endeavoured its best to explain the policies of the World Bank to the people and make them ponder over against those policies, he said.  S Vinay Kumar, editor of Prajasakti, said that freedom in the media was a myth. He explained that Prajasakti was being embellished with new columns to gain acceptance of the people to discharge its responsibility and achieve its objective, while continuing to work in support of the people with its limited resources.  32 staff members of Prajasakti who rendered immense service during the last 25 years were felicitated on the occasion. Assistant editor of Prajasakti S Venkatrao welcomed the gathering and manager of Vijayawada edition M Srinivasa Rao proposed a vote of thanks.