Kannada daily Hosa Digantha’s April 16th edition has a banner advertisement of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The lead story is that Congress has released its list of 218 candidates fighting in the Karnataka Assembly elections. It states that children of Congress leaders, including chief minister Siddaramaiah’s son Yateendra and Ramalinga Reddy’s daughter Soumya, have been given tickets.

The paper also packs an anchor story carrying Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader Indresh Kumar’s remarks that building a mosque in the disputed site in Ayodhya was impossible. An editorial two days later speaks of the tactics deployed by CM Siddaramaiah to hold on to power and how he has sidelined deserving leaders while giving tickets.

Hosa Digantha caters to and informs a pro-Sangh population, and they have used the privilege with pleasure. Founded by senior RSS member Kajampady Subrahmanya Bhat, the first edition of the paper ran in 1979 in Mangaluru. The publication grew out of coastal Karnataka and began editions in Bengaluru and Shimoga about two decades later. Thir Hubballi edition was launched in March 2011 by BS Yeddyurappa, then chief minister and BJP’s chief ministerial aspirant for the upcoming elections. At the launch event, BSY had said that the reason for the paper’s success was its policy of “nation first”.

A senior journalist with an experience of three decades says the paper was started to uphold the ideology of a particular party, and they had money and will to do it. “They do not call themselves a mouthpiece of RSS-BJP, but it has their political backing.”

The close and protective relationship with the saffron party is generously reflected in the editorials leading up to the Karnataka polls too. An April 28 piece titled: “Hands stained with blood” says, Congress always blames BJP when there are communal riots, but “history is proof to the fact that the highest numbers of communal riots took place under Congress rule”. It opines Congress is just hiding behind the facade of being pro-Muslim.

Blooming under the Yeddyurappa regime

The paper has been at the receiving end of some favourable decisions by the previous BJP government in the state. On April 13, 2011, a circular passed by the Yeddyurappa-led government gave Hosa Digantha the status of a state newspaper.

The P Ramaiah Committee recommends that a state-level newspaper is required to have a minimum circulation of 75,000 in Karnataka, with a minimum of 1,000 copies circulated in each of the 30 districts. While Hosa Digantha had earlier claimed in a presentation to the CM that it had a circulation of over one lakh in 19 districts, the department of information said stats showed it’s circulation was 57,628 in the same number of districts.

Opposing Hosa Digantha’s upgradation and alleging that Yeddyurappa had misused his authority as a CM to benefit the newspaper, V Seetaram, director and editor-in-chief of the Mangalore-based newspaper, Karavali Ale, filed a writ petition in the high court the same year. He also alleged that the newspaper had been receiving undue favours from the BJP-led government in the form of advertisements and that it ignored scams involving the government.

On the coverage of the paper, Seetaram says he won’t even call it a newspaper. “It’s a Sangh Parivar pamphlet. All they do is sing praises of RSS and BJP leaders. But they enjoy all benefits of a state-level newspaper.”

The 2011 writ petition has been disposed of by the high court. Seetaram says, “They asked us not to involve Yeddyurappa, which was beyond its brief. They directed us to remove his name.”

In 2016, the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity’s data said Hosa Digantha had a circulation of 70,000. The leading Kannada daily, Vijayavani, had a circulation of 8 lakh.

‘Can’t refuse meetings with RSS, BJP netas’

The opinion pieces in Hosa Digantha certainly provoke and pander to the pro-BJP reader in Karnataka. On the April 18 edition this year, group editor Vinayak Bhat Mooruru writes that Narendra Modi was only harassed for the killings of activists M Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh. “Since 1969 more than 180 Hindus were killed in Kerala for political reasons. The Muslim population has gone up from 26.56 per cent to 40 per cent. Back then democracy didn’t seem to be in danger. How can you say that voices of dissent are being silenced in our country or that our democracy is in danger only after the death of Kalburgi and Lankesh? The Centre was held responsible, the patriots wanted PM Narendra Modi to speak up on these incidents. Our PM was the most hated man after this. One murder made all the impact. Nobody had a problem when Indira, Rajiv, Nehru ruled the country for years and named all government schemes after themselves.”

The writer also asks why the prime minister was being blamed for the Punjab National Bank scam involving Nirav Modi, and wondered if actor Prakash Raj, who is proving to be a vocal opponent of BJP, bothered raising his voice when Manmohan Singh was at the helm of affairs. “Guess he was too busy doing movies.”

Pramod S (name changed), who has worked as a reporter for the publication, says during the previous state polls they were asked to compulsorily write stories on BJP, RSS, Vishva Hindu Parishad, student body Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, among other Parivar organisations, around the poll campaign. “We were advised to highlight BJP government’s success in the state, and highlight any negative comments about Congress.”

The reporter also admits to experiencing challenging moments outside the organisation due to the perceived biased coverage. “As a reporter, I was humiliated in many events. They would say it doesn’t matter what the news is, you will only write about BJP and RSS. Even our headlines used to be in saffron colour. After getting too many complaints, they later changed it. Our office was not like other media houses. Most of the party meetings used to happen in the office. If any member from BJP or RSS visited, our district reporters were asked to meet them and we could never refuse.”

Another journalist who has worked in Hosa Digantha at a senior position for 3 years says their leanings are well-known. “We know for a fact that any cultural activity by RSS would be highlighted and any successful story by BJP would be on the front page. During the election if Siddaramaiah has made any negative comment about BJP, we don’t write about it. If he has commented about JD(S), we write.”

He says all the founders of the organisation are members of RSS, even at the management level. “Almost everyone is an RSS worker. The situation was much better until last year. They used to publish other stories too, but now they have become more open about their ideologies.”

Vinayak Bhat, group editor and writer of the opinion piece mentioned above, has been working in Hosa Digantha for the last four months. He calls all the “assumptions” wrong. “Many people are of the notion that this Kannada daily is the mouthpiece of RSS, but it is not true. This news daily is not in favour of the BJP. I have been working here for the last four months, but have never undergone any pressure from the management on selecting news.”

Surprisingly, Bhat says, it was one of the board members who made a comment a few weeks ago on the excess coverage given to the BJP.

Prajwala Hegde is a Bangalore-based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.