2 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
and analyse some of these issues related to the culture-communalism nexus. Sukumar Muralidharan's concern is with the print media, Krishna Kumar deals with the connection between Hindu revivalism and education and Rajeev Bhargava discusses the right to culture.
Underlining the unity of purpose in the Mandal and Masjid agitations, 'since they are consistent with the rediscovery of Hindu solidarity', Muralidharan's essay, 'Mandal, Mandir aur Masjid: Hindu Commuhalism and the Crisis of the State', attempts a detailed study of the reporting of the anti-Mandal agitation and communal riots by three national papers—the Indian Express, the Times of India and the Hindu. The relative importance in terms of space given by these newspapers to events connected with Mandal and Masjid is in itself is a significant pointer. The Indian Express devoted 12.81 times as much space to the anti-reservation agitation as it did to tbe communal riots in October-November 1989. The Times of India and the Hindu earmarked 9.81 and 5.75 times the space respectively. That the lives lost in these communal riots were far more, at least six times, than in the anti-reservation agitation makes this a glancing disparity. Most of the newspapers opened its columns to those defending the rights of the privileged in the name of merit, national brain power and national unity; in these tracts, most of them inflammatory, the interests of the upper castes were equated with that of the nation.
The space devoted to events is only one indicator; a more blatant expression of communal bias is in the content of the reports. The communal slant in the coverage and articles is only too evident in many newspapers. It appears that communal forces have managed to penetrate into influential places in newspaper offices. Consequently, some newspapers are forced to maintain a balance between secular and communal writings. Some others are not troubled by even the semblance of impartiality; they take an unabashedly partisan and communal posture, often sacrificing all journalistic ethics. It is becoming increasingly difficult to hear secular voices through the print media.
Muralidharan's essay reflects on the implication of the Mandal-Masjid agitation vis-a-vis national unity and locates them in the context of the current crisis engulfing the Indian state. His conclusion is instructive: 'The Mandal Commission is reflective of the efforts of an assertive and productive section of the nation to capture the power that is their due. "Mandir" seeks to deflect this quest for power by offering an illusion of power.*
Krishna Kumar's article traces the relationship between Hindu revivalism and education in north-central India. He demonstrates the manner in which the Hindu revivalist forces undertook the development of Hindi and appropriated a mass language and 'turned it into a class dialect'. During the second half of the nineteenth century Hindi became a Hindu cultural symbol which could be used as a 'potent