Newspapers and Naxalite Movement : An Analysis

Contents: Foreword. 1. Naxalite movement: an overview. 2. Research methodology. 3. Units of analyses: a profile. 4. Naxalite movement: news coverage in the font and inside pages. 5. Naxalite movement: news coverage of specific themes. 6. Summary and conclusion. Appendices. Bibliography. Index.
"The first news about Naxalbari in the West Bengal appeared in the national press in late May, 1967. Consequently, the period 1968 and 1969 saw the outbreak of struggles of landless and poor peasants that stormed the rich people. The upsurge in Naxalbari had its impact in Andhra Pradesh. Srikakulam is one of the 23 districts in the state of Andhra Pradesh which was influenced by the movement although the district did not have a strong communist base in the past. The movement took a new turn in October, 1968 after an incident in Garudabhadra (Srikakulam), in which a demonstration of Girijans was attacked by men of landlords. They never even spared women and did not hesitate to molest them. This angered the people of several neighbouring villages who assembled and forcibly cultivate the landlords\' land which was followed by severe police repression.
Although Naxalite movement has completed more than 40 years, most of the studies only focused on the genesis of the Naxalite movement and its impact on socio-economic aspects. Only one study in specific done in Andhra Pradesh by Dr. Stevenson of Osmania University, Hyderabad analyzed the role of newspapers in insurgency with particular reference to Andhra Pradesh. However, this study too did not analyze the newspapers quantitatively in relation to the coverage given Naxalite issues. Thus, the present study undertaken by J. Madhu Babu is significant in this context as the study makes an attempt to content-analyze the English and Telugu newspapers by systematically and methodically by categorizing news contents, editorials, cartoons and edit page articles by drawing an appropriate sample during the eight-year study period (1999-2006). Despite the work is tedious, the researcher has painstakingly gone through the newspapers to capture the trend in media coverage of the Naxalite movement." (jacket)