The Delhi Press Patra Prakashan Group launched Karwaan the Hindi quarterly version of The Caravan at a subscribers-only function at New Delhi’s India International Centre on 3 April 2024. Anant Nath, director and executive publisher, Delhi Press Patra Prakashan and editor of The Caravan said that the magazine bears the imprint of all the people who have worked for it over the last 15 years. The Hindi quarterly version will resemble the English monthly through its unbiased and bold stand stand on political and religious issues. The Caravan magazine was founded and first published in 1940 by Vishva Nath.
Photo IPP
Not associated with any Indian political party or movement, Caravan is a straight-forward journal for the curious, literate and secular reader, Nath said at the launch, adding that the magazine was started with the publishing group’s own funding and without any institutional support.
Nath noted that the Hindi fortnightly Sarita launched by the Delhi Press Group in 1945 also embodied the anti-establishment thinking and editorial philosophy of the publishing house since inception. He cited several Sarita articles challenging the political and religious establishment. During its initial days in the 1950s, Sarita published commentaries on Hindu religious texts in an attempt to make readers aware of various social and cultural issues in the society.
Nath explained that the Delhi Press Group faced criticism from the general public and the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha, as a result of publishing these path breaking articles. During the 1975 emergency, censorship of the print media included Sarita, which was among the last three newspapers and magazines to be removed from the censorship list.
“What The Caravan has done in the last 15 years has been possible only because there was a legacy – a history of doing what journalism should be doing, which is taking an objective and critical view of any establishment irrespective of political power,” Nath added. “The launch of The Caravan in Hindi, is for us, a culmination of the last 85 years of this journey of journalism,” he concluded.
The launch was accompanied by a panel discussion on the State on Hindi Journalism with Paresh Nath, editor-in-chief at Delhi Press, Seema Chishti, editor of The Wire, Mrinal Pande, former chief editor of Hindustan, Sagar, staff writer of The Caravan, and Hartosh Singh Bal, executive editor of The Caravan.
