With her work and activism, Gauri forged her own identity
BENGALURU: Till the night of her murder, Gauri Lankesh, feisty journalist and editor of weekly Kannada tabloid Ga uri Lanke sh Patrike, remained involved in public interest journalism.
Her work in K ar nat aka began when she took over as editor of Lank es hP a trike in January 2000, after her father P Lankesh’s sudden death. The black and white weekly tabloid, named after its founding editor in 1980, was synonymous in Karnataka with truth and integrity.
The team of reporters were reputed to be uncompromising in their values over any enticements. Apart from salaries, P Lankesh also paid what he called an‘ alcohol allowance’ (extra money) to his reporters, and provisioned for them to drink at work so that they wouldn’ t get swayed by promises of alcohol from a politician.At its peak from 1982 to 1995, Lankesh Pa trike touched 4.5 lakh in circulation and was seen as having the capacity to make or break social movementsandgovernments.In 1984, the tabloid stuck its neck out predicting a big victory for incumbent chief minister Rama krishna Hegde’s Janata Party – but soon after, Lankesh Patrike became a scathing critic of the same leader it supported. Lank es hP a trike broke the story of phone-tapping allegations against He gd ea nd, as a result, the government suffered a hugelossofface. LankeshPatrike also broke the story of the same government’s alleged irregularities in awarding arrack-bottling contracts. The matter was taken to the Karnataka high court, which ordered an inquiry and found Hegde guilty, and this resulted in his resignation as well as strictures passed against the government. P Lankesh hailed from a small village called K on a ga valli in Shimoga district and when he started the weekly with his savings, nobody had quite imagined how long it would last.
PL ankeshwa sin his40s when he quit his job and started his publication, modelling it after H ari jan, the weekly tabloid paper founded by Mahatma Gandhi. However, with his insightful writing and sharp political analysis, Lank es hP a trike soon became a household name.