Vijay Phanshikar 

 

WHY is ‘The Hitavada’ all the time after the civic authorities, pointing to their failings? Why are ‘The Hitavada’ journos all the time finding fault with the administration? These and similar questions are the questions often hurled at us at ‘The Hitavada’. In this edition of ‘Footloose In Nagpur’, the loosefooter seeks to offer reasonable response to these questions. ‘The Hitavada’ is raising issues about failures of civic management and urban design all along only because it considers this as its primary duty -- to be a true people’s voice, to be a genuine people’s paper. But even as it plays its role as a newspaper, it does not enjoy the process. Much to the contrary, it gets saddened that it has to keep raising these issues in the first place. The reason is simple: Nobody would choose to hurt others just for the heck of it. The hope, thus, is that some day, the city’s political and administrative leadership would wake up and do its duty more religiously with a deeper sense of commitment.

 

Hence the relentless campaigns in which ‘The Hitavada’ engages itself highlighting several issues in larger public interest. Thus come the campaigns in recent years such as the one about the messed up design of the MetroRail stations, or the one exposing the criminal business of drugs procurement and merchandising, or the latest one about why the city faced such a massive damage with the recent flash floods following a rain-spell of just three hours, or the one about how several old bridges in the city are waiting for some dirty disaster to happen ...! ‘The Hitavada’ has raised several such campaigns tirelessly and rather single-handedly, in tune with its motto: They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three (having been picked up from a James Lowell poem decades ago). Still,’The Hitavada’ is not happy harping on the civic issues all the time. And factually, it does not do only that. It comes out with news and views from all corners and sections of the Nagpur society. That is the reason why countless thousands of readers, well-wishers and patrons find ‘The Hitavada’ a positive and dynamic newspaper founded by the late Gopal Krishna Gokhale 112 years ago in 1911.

 

Having said this, we now insist that on many issues, the city leadership has registered a terrible failure -- in management and efficiency. We recognise the good things, as well, that have been done in the city. But we refuse to mislead ourselves by talking only about the positive things by ignoring messy failures in other places. So, as a responsible newspaper, ‘The Hitavada’ raises both, high hopes about good things, and high concerns about the failed issues. Hence the questions about bad design of roads and bridges and water pipelines and sewer lines and footpaths and intersections and MetroRail stations and unkempt statues and places of public honour ...! And the loosefooter must insist here that the campaign about the bridges whose structures need an immediate upkeep has come only out the concern for larger public interest. What is the administration going to do about such bridges? What is it going to do about the blocked bridge-spans and caved-in lining of the Naag River or the choked storm-water drains or the thoughtless planning of public places or the failure of the civic authorities to acquire appropriate piece of land for the landing of the Kamptee Road fly-over ...? ‘The Hitavada’ does not do anything beyond seeking answers to these questions. That, in the process the failure of the city leadership gets highlighted, is a secondary outcome -- but in larger public interest.