MANDAL, MANDIR AUR MASJID 29 with the rediscovery of Hindu solidarity. Those who argue the case for caste-based reservations are guilty of reopening the fissures that have been cemented in the course of the national awakening. And those Who urge the preservation of the Babri Masjid are unaware of the grand cultural traditions of the land, which are today seeking their rightful place in the hearts and minds of the people. These two groups—often overlapping—of 'misguided liberals' stand opposed to the national renaissance. THE PRESS AS MIRROR OF PUBLIC OPINION Events of the last few months have shown that these beliefs are integral to the upper-caste Hindu political consciousness. Since they are pregnant with potentially grave political consequences, these beliefs merit a study in themselves. The present exercise attempts such an analysis, on the assumption that the press is a reasonably accurate reflection of public opinion. The act of informing is a value-laden process. The emphasis given to specific developments, the tone and content of the coverage of an event (or a sequence of events) by the press—these reflect a certain implicit ordering of social priorities. The idiosyncratic and the eccentric undoubtedly have their place in this scheme of things, and there is the danger of being led astray by the quest for meaning in the purely contingent. A certain kind of coverage of events may reflect no more than a set of assumptions by media professionals, about the range of interests of their readership. These could be purely incidental, and need not reflect any widely shared social traits. However, media analysis could still provide a useful and relevant map to the wider domain of social attitudes. In the case of well-established newspapers with a stable clientele, the assumptions of media professionals about the interests of their readers are likely to have a strong force of custom and tradition backing them up. As a business venture, a newspaper embodies the ethic of information as a commodity, to be sold in the market. The content, and the particular slant of the information it purveys, would therefore reflect its understanding of marketability. Further, there are instances when the coverage of certain developments displays characteristics so persistent and so strong, that they cannot be taken to be merely idiosyncratic or incidental. Such, for instance, has been the case with the coverage of 'Mandal* and 'Mandir'. The scale of values of the national English-language press, as reflected in its allocation of print and visual space, and the tone and content of its coverage, amply shows that it has derived inspiration from the ideological fount of undifferentiated Hinduism. In its coverage of the anti-reservation agitation, the press chose to cast a destructive rampage in the role of a crusade for nothing less than the principles on which Indian nationhood is founded. The