Dainik Jagran () is an Indian Hindi-language daily newspaper. In terms of circulation, it was ranked 5th in the world in 2016 and 1st in India in 2022. In 2019 Quarter 4, according to Indian Readership Survey, Dainik Jagran reported a total readership of 68.6 million and was the top publication.
It is owned by Jagran Prakashan Limited, a publishing house listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange of India.
Dainik Jagran has been accused of spreading fake news and propaganda on many occasions.
History
Origins
Dainik Jagran was first established in Jhansi, a district town in the United Provinces (later Uttar Pradesh), by Puran Chandra Gupta in 1942. Prior to this, Gupta had worked as the managing editor of a local magazine (1939–1942), during which he often travelled to Bombay to secure advertising, gaining contacts in the publishing industry. Shortly after its launch, publication was suspended during the Quit India Movement of 1942.
In 1946, Gupta decided that Dainik Jagran should be launched in the city of Lucknow, which was the capital of United Provinces. In preparation for the launch, he acquired a building on rent and sent machinery to be set up there but soon learned that the newspapers National Herald and Pioneer were in the midst of launching their first Hindi language editions Navjeevan and Swatantra Bharat in the same city. It prompted Gupta to quickly change his plans with the decision to launch the newspaper in Kanpur instead. The machinery was diverted to Kanpur, new premises rented out and the newspaper launched on 21 September 1947.
Dainik Jagran reflecting the beliefs of its founder, took a slightly right-wing line from its inception.
Early history The newspaper faced financial problems in the beginning and Gupta had to borrow from his family to keep it running. He cut down on editorial costs by relying on syndicates which offered articles at cheaper rates and by getting free article submissions from political players and activists who were hungry for publicity. He was constantly visiting metropolitan cities to sell advertisement space in the newspaper, and hired reporters on a part-time basis during his visits for newsgathering in those cities. P. D. Gupta who was the younger brother of Puran Chandra launched two editions of the newspaper in Madhya Pradesh in the 1950s; the Rewa edition in 1953 and the Bhopal edition in 1956.
By the mid-1950s, Gupta had started making pitches for advertisements and advertising the Dainik Jagran itself. In the 1956 edition of The Indian Press Year Book, the newspaper was advertised as The Daily Jagran and claimed to have a circulation of 21,000 copies covering Uttar Pradesh and Vindhya Pradesh. Gupta registered the newspaper at the Registrar of Newspapers for India, joined the industry body Audit Bureau of Circulation and joined the publisher's club Indian and Eastern Newspaper Society (IENS) where he became an executive member by 1960. He also inducted his six sons into the newspaper's management while they were still in school.
Conflict with Aj and Emergency In 1975, Dainik Jagran launched its Gorakhpur edition which brought it into direct conflict with the newspaper Aj. The Kanpur edition, run by Puran Chandra Gupta was covering four neighbouring districts from the city and had reached a limit where it could no longer increase its circulation in the regional market.
The newspaper had become financially secure and had liquid funds at hand, which led Gupta's sons to encourage him to look into expansion. They had thought of Gorakhpur as the first place to go as it did have a local newspaper or a newspaper edition that was based in the city at that time. Gorakhpur was instead being covered by the Varanasi-based Aj and the city lay within its circulation area. Aj itself had a monetary surplus and its editor Vinod Shukla was looking to expand the newspaper as he predicted that a single edition newspaper in Uttar Pradesh would become unviable in the long term. Shukla who had visited Kanpur in 1974 found Jagran to have carried very substandard content and expected an expansion attempt in the city to be easy. The paper had brought out printing machines for Kanpur in December and responded almost immediately after Jagran's Gorakhpur launch by launching its own Kanpur edition in April 1975.
The Kanpur edition of Aj had launched only two months before the imposition of Emergency rule and subsequent press censorship. Shivprasad Gupta, the owner of Aj was unsure about the expansion but Shukla supported by Gupta's son used the period as an opportunity to consolidate the newspaper. The Emergency created a demand for critical journalism which the newspaper provided and enabled it to make inroads in Jagran's market share. On the streets of Kanpur, fights broke out between men hired by the two newspapers who used weapons such as batons and improvised firearms against each other for control over offices, territory and distribution.
In midst of the conflict hawkers gained significant influence over the newspapers; initially Aj was charged a commission rate of 20% while Jagran was charged 30%, but the hawkers forced the former to increase its rate over the latter, marking the beginning of a period of fierce negotiations over commission rates and recurrent increases in the rates for both newspapers. Eventually the conflict ended when the two newspapers decided to join hands against the hawkers and pushed the commission rate back down to a fixed 30%.
During the Emergency, the circulation of Hindi newspapers rose significantly as a result of increased political consciousness and by 1977, the number of newspapers that were selling more 100,000 copies had risen to over 10 from a figure three before its imposition. Dainik Jagran and Aj were both among the new newspapers to join the 100,000+ club. The period had transformed the newspaper industry and regional language papers including that of Hindi became the face of the rapidly changing industry that would be transformed into mass media over the course of the following decades. Government policy was changed as well which facilitated the growth of the industry.
Expansion in Uttar Pradesh The launch of Jagran's Gorakhpur edition marked the beginning of the newspaper's own period of rapid expansion. In 1979, the newspaper launched two editions in Lucknow and Allahabad. Vinod Shukla was hired to oversee the Lucknow edition and help them force its way into the Lucknow market, where the newspaper faced intense competition and pressures from trade unions. The Allahabad edition was shifted to Varanasi in 1981. The newspaper then entered the circulation area of Amar Ujala, launching a Meerut edition in 1984, an Agra edition in 1986 and a Bareilly edition in 1989. In 1989–90, Navbharat Times which dominated the circulation in Lucknow discontinued all its editions except the Bombay and Delhi editions after being hit by an eight month long shut-down in the cities of Lucknow and Patna. The discontinuation allowed Jagran to rapidly increase its circulation in the Lucknow region with minimal hindrance.
Mayawati daughter story (1995) In December 1995, Dainik Jagran published a story with the claim that Mayawati, the leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party, had an illegitimate 12-year-old daughter. Published at the bottom of the first page in a short two column section, the story included claims that her daughter was hidden away in New Delhi and was borne out of a former "love marriage", based on an interview with a disgruntled member of the party. The newspaper went to the extent of calling Mayawati a "chamarin", a derogatory slur used for Dalit women.
Despite the story having been given less importance by the newspaper, it created a sensation as having an illegitimate child was a serious accusation for an unmarried woman and a question of virtue. In addition, Mayawati maintained a public image that she had denied herself family and children to fulfill the objectives of the Self-Respect Movement which sought equality for lower castes. The story caused resentment among Dalits and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) which mainly drew support from them described it as the latest example of a Brahmin dominated press and establishment's constant mudslinging against lower castes. In Lucknow, supporters of the party demonstrated around the office of the newspaper, blockading it for a day. There were reports of violence during the protest and the author who wrote the piece was threatened.
The story also faced criticism from journalists and commentators. It was condemned as sensationalist journalism that was engaging in gossip about the private life of a female politician and disparaging her. The criticism was accompanied by questions on Dainik Jagran's ambitions of becoming a serious national newspaper and charges of the newspaper lacking journalistic ethics, professionalism and credibility. Some of the prominent critics included the chairman of the Press Council, Judge P. B. Sawant and the editor-in-chief of Jansatta, Prabash Joshi. K. Vikram Rao, the national chairman of a major journalist's union suggested that a more rigorous system was required, that a specialised training in journalism should be needed before a person could be employed by a newspaper and that the Press Council should have stronger tools for penalising journalists.
Staff at the newspaper strongly rejected the charges against the newspaper though they were apologetic about the story. Vinod Shukla, who was the resident editor in Lucknow was infuriated by the criticism, particularly that from Joshi and dismissed it as jealously during his editorial meetings. Narendra Mohan who was the owner and editor-in-chief of the newspapers at the time, responded to the criticism with an editorial. In the newspaper's defense, he stated that the newspaper itself was against this kind of journalism and he regretted that the story had been published but alleged that the fault lay on western norms influencing Indian journalism and on Mayawati herself who according to him used "ugly language" and was part of a trend where Indian politics had become unethical which had led to the situation.
In response to the protest by BSP supporters, journalists who were supportive of newspaper held their own protest against the party describing it to be in defense of press freedom. It was reported that several newspapers were going to boycott the party's campaign during the upcoming assembly election though the boycott was only upheld by Dainik Jagran. Some commentators noted that while journalists had frequently faced violence, generally from Hindutva groups, such an instance leading to a boycott was unique and had resulted from the only instance in which a newspaper had faced attacks from a Dalit group.
Later expansions The Delhi edition of the Daink Jagran was launched in 1990. According to the then Chairman of Jagran Prakashan, Yogendra Mohan Gupta, his executives had advised him that in order to make Jagran a national newspaper, they had to launch an edition in Delhi. From the 1990s onwards, established Hindi language newspapers such as the Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhaskar and Amar Ujala went on a multi edition expansion beyond their home states. The newspapers had a new generation of foreign educated heirs, generally sons or nephews of the older owners who unlike their predecessors took active interest in expansions, capital acquisition and partnerships. For Jagran, it was the second and third generation of the proprietors who charted the expansion and localisation strategy of the newspaper.