The National Herald was an Indian newspaper established in 1938 by Jawaharlal Nehru. The
paper finally ceased operations in 2008. Begun by Nehru at a time when he seemed unable to
make an impact on the reactionary tendencies of the Congress Party it served as his mouthpiece
allowing him to address and endorse unpopular stances that he would not have been able to
defend as a politician through his editorial pieces for the paper. While the paper suffered
from financial troubles from the outset and was shut down briefly in the 1940s and 1970s,
it finally ceased operations in 2008.
History The National Herald was established in Lucknow
on September 9, 1938 by Jawaharlal Nehru. The paper carried on its masthead the words
‘Freedom is in Peril, Defend it with All Your Might' taken from a cartoon by Gabriel
from Brentford, Middlesex that Indira Gandhi had forwarded to Nehru. Jawaharlal Nehru was
an early editor of the newspaper and until his appointment as Prime Minister was the
Chairman of the Herald's Board of Directors. In 1938, K. Rama Rao was appointed the paper's
first editor. Following the Quit India Resolution of August 1942, the British Raj clamped down
on the Indian press and the paper was shut between 1942 and 1945. The Herald reopened
in 1945 and from 1946 to 1950, Feroze Gandhi served as the paper's Managing Director, helping
restore its financial health. From 1946 to 1978, Manikonda Chalapathi Rau served as its
editor. Nehru gave Rau a free hand in running the paper and ensured its editorial independence
even saying that though people thought the National Herald to be his paper, it really
belonged to Chalapathi Rau who had made it what it had become. Nehru had served as the
paper's international correspondent for a while and after becoming Prime Minister was
able to use the paper to espouse unpopular views and to sidestep the press corps in conveying
his thoughts on various issues to the reading public as in 1954 when he wrote a scathing
piece on the Bikini Atoll nuclear tests titled 'The Death-dealer'. The paper had editions
from Lucknow and New Delhi, the latter begun in 1968. In Delhi, the paper was based out
of Herald House on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, known as Delhi's Fleet Street while in Lucknow
it was based out of the Nehru Bhawan and Nehru Manzil buildings. The National Herald also
had Hindi and Urdu editions named Navjeevan and Quami Awaz.
The paper's fortunes were closely tied with those of the Indian National Congress. Post
Independence, it shut down for two years from 1977 following Indira Gandhi's defeat in the
1977 General Elections that followed the Emergency. By 1986, the paper again faced the prospect
of closure but was revived a year later following Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's intervention.
The Lucknow operations of the paper were shut down in 1998 and much of its property auctioned
off under court orders to settle outstanding debts.
In January 2008 discussions about closure began. On 1 April 2008 the paper's editorial
announced that it was temporarily suspending operations. The paper had failed to modernise
its print technology and had not computerised at the time of suspending operations and had
been making losses for several years owing to lack of advertising revenues and overstaffing.
At the time of its closure T V Venkitachalam was its editor-in-chief.
Plans for Revival The National Herald, before its closure was
being run by Associated Journals. There were reports that the paper was being revived under
journalist Suman Dubey, technocrat Sam Pitroda and the newly incorporated Young India Company
headquartered at Herald House. The paper was to have come out by Children's Day in 2011
but Rahul Gandhi, a member of the board of the Young Indian Company has denied any plans
on the part of the company to revive the paper. Assets
In 2014, the court in Delhi, took up the issue of where the assets of Associated Journals
who published The National Herald were distributed after the closure of the paper. Earlier in
2012, Rahul Gandhi had said that he would sue over allegations that his company, 'Young
Indian', acquired Associated Journals improperly. References