The legacy of Gauri Lankesh: A closer look through Rollo Romig's book

Using Gauri's murder as starting point, book discusses rising intolerance especially in terms of young men (and women) getting radicalised to hate without being open to understanding each other

I AM ON THE HIT LIST: Murder and Myth-making in South India  

Author: Rollo Romig

Publisher: Westland

Pages: 372

Price: ₹799

 

September 5, 2017, was just another day for Gauri Lankesh. It was Tuesday, which meant that week’s edition of the Gauri Lankesh Patrike had to go to press the next day. She spent a good portion of the afternoon catching up with some old friends who had dropped by the newspaper office. She didn’t set out for home until around 7:30 pm, which was early for her. Driving through Bengaluru traffic, she didn’t register a bike tailing her during the last stretch. She arrived home shortly after 8 pm. It was a small house that belonged to her mother who also lived with her. No sooner had she opened the gate than the bike’s pillion rushed at her and shot at her three times. She was hit twice; the third bullet missed. By the time Gauri died on her front step, the biker had long vanished. 

Her death sent shockwaves through the country. The crowd at rallies and protests in her honour — “writers, students, activists, Dalits, Adivasis, transgender women, autorickshaw drivers, landless farmers, sex workers, Muslims, Christians” — spoke to the diversity of lives Gauri had touched via her work. As a special investigation team concluded in November 2018 with a charge sheet almost 10,000 pages long, her murder was part of a series of politically motivated killings of prominent left-wing writer-activists by a nameless group with close links to Sanatan Sanstha, a Hindu nationalist organisation headquartered in Goa. The first one was Narendra Dabholkar in August 2013 followed by Govind Pansare in February 2015 and M M Kalburgi in August 2015. Rollo Romig’s landmark book, I Am on the Hit List, is a detailed, contextual examination of Gauri Lankesh’s murder.

Born in 1962, Gauri Lankesh was an Indian activist, journalist, translator, and writer from Bengaluru, Karnataka. She was the daughter of P Lankesh, a powerhouse versatile personality in his own right as writer, journalist and filmmaker. He started the Kannada language weekly newspaper called  Lankesh Patrike in 1980 and was its editor until his death in 2000 after which Gauri took over. She left it in 2005 due to increasing ideological differences with her younger brother who was the paper’s proprietor and publisher. Gauri then started her own Kannada paper, Gauri Lankesh Patrike. Both papers relied solely on subscribers and never published any advertisements. While Gauri’s paper never matched the circulation of her father’s paper, both were renowned for their irreverent, even salacious, coverage of socio-political events in Karnataka and India. 

To put it briefly: “[Gauri’s paper] was a tabloid in every sense, gleefully sensational and indifferent to decorum. Its mission was earnest, but its tone was typically puckish.” It was yellow journalism, but geared towards causes close to her heart. Gauri was not someone who prioritised nuance, hearing both sides, or objectivity: “To her there was nothing complex about fighting the oppression of women, religious minorities, and the so-called lower castes — a fight she came to see as her journalistic mission. She couldn’t see the point in pretending to be impartial, or, more dangerously, in stating with caution anything she felt sure was true, even if it was inflammatory or unproven.” Naturally, she gained enemies and vocal critics over the years, not to mention vicious trolls. 

It also did not help that Gauri publicly criticised both friends and foes, a quality she shared with her father. Yet, she never held grudges. Mr Romig talked to many of her friends and acquaintances who singled out her warmth, her love for family and friends, her openness to debates and discussions, and her propensity to not let disagreements mar her relationships with people. The ones close to her were used to these facets of her personality. In a poignant section, Mr Romig wonders: “Perhaps she expected her gibes to roll off her targets the same way their attacks rolled off her. She didn’t hold grudges, so she underestimated the grudges of others. And what was her murder but a bloody grudge?” 

While Gauri Lankesh is at the centre of this book with Mr Romig exploring “not just the investigation into her murder but also her life, the world she came out of, and her beloved city, Bangalore”, it also includes two stories as interludes. The first explores the legends surrounding Thomas the Apostle who is said to have preached the Gospel in India after landing in Kerala in mid-1st century and was killed two decades later. The second one focuses on P Rajagopal, who started the now global South Indian restaurant chain, Saravanaa Bhavan, in Chennai and who was also a convicted murderer later in life. 

Using Gauri’s murder as a starting point, the book discusses the rising intolerance and polarisation in India especially in terms of young men (and women) getting radicalised to hate without being open to understanding each other. It focuses on the rise of right-wing ideas and Muslim hate across the globe and criticises the Sangh Parivar for undermining the syncretic values that have defined India for so long. Most significantly, Mr Romig mourns the inertia of the Indian justice system and the capitulation of democratic institutions. I Am on the Hit List is a tribute to the writers, journalists, and activists who continue to speak truth to power and work towards a brighter tomorrow.

 

The reviewer is a Delhi-based writer, critic, and translator who loves to champion indie presses and experimental books