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''Blitz'' was a popular investigative weekly
tabloid newspaper A tabloid is a newspaper format characterized by its compact size, smaller than a broadsheet. The term originates from the 19th century, when the London-based pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, Burroughs Wellcome & Co. used the term to de ...
or
newsmagazine A news magazine is a typed, printed, and published magazine, radio, or television program, usually published weekly, consisting of articles about current events. News magazines generally discuss stories in greater depth than newspapers or new ...
published and edited by
Russi Karanjia Rustom Khurshedji Karanjia (15 September 1912 – 1 February 2008) was an Indian journalist and editor. He typically signed his reports as "R. K. Karanjia". He founded the '' Blitz'', a weekly tabloid with focus on investigative journalism in 19 ...
from Bombay. Started in 1941, it was India's first weekly tabloid and focussed on investigative journalism and political news. It was published in English, and with editions in
Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...
,
Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...
and
Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India **Marathi people (Uttar Pradesh), the Marathi people in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Mar ...
languages.


History

First published on 1 February 1941, the magazine was a pioneer of
investigative journalism Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, racial injustice, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend m ...
in India. Sudheendra Kulkarni, an Indian politician and journalist who worked with Blitz, said that the decision to launch ''Blitz'' had been taken over a cup of tea. Three patriotic journalists — B. V. Nadkarni, Benjamin Horniman and Karanjia himself — sat at Wayside Inn, a restaurant located near the historical Kala Ghoda area in Mumbai to conceptualise the paper. The paper was launched from an old Apollo Street building in the Fort locality of Mumbai, then known as
Bombay Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial centre, financial capital and the list of cities i ...
. Its inaugural issue introduced the tabloid as ''Our BLITZ, India's BLITZ against Hitler.'' It claimed a circulation of 20,000 within four months of launch, and later said it had a readership of one million some 25 years later.


Prominent journalists and associates

Cartoonist
R. K. Laxman Rasipuram Krishnaswami Laxman ''Pg. 11 in the source says that Laxman & his brother Narayan were Tamil Iyer Brahmins.'' (24 October 1921 – 26 January 2015) was an Indian cartoonist, illustrator, and humorist. He was best known for his creat ...
's early cartoons would be published in Blitz, and so would Abu Abraham's. Cartoonist–cum–architect Cecil Lancelot Dawes contributed heavily to Blitz. His daughter Shirley Dawes also worked for Karanjia for many years before migrating to the West. Noted writer K. A. Abbas wrote the popular column "Last Page" for Blitz, which ran for over 40 years. Journalist
P. Sainath Palagummi Sainath (born 13 May 1957) is an Indian columnist and author of the acclaimed book ''Everybody Loves a Good Drought''. He has extensively written on rural India, his notable interests are Poverty in India, poverty, Economic inequality, ...
worked as deputy editor with ''Blitz'' for over a decade before he started writing about rural poverty and winning the
Magsaysay Award The Ramon Magsaysay Award ( Filipino: ''Gawad Ramon Magsaysay'') is an annual award established to perpetuate former Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay's example of integrity in governance, courageous service to the people, and pragmatic idea ...
. Blitz was founded Karanjia, who had entered journalism with the then British-owned ''The Times of India'', had then briefly edited ''The Sunday Standard'' and the short-lived ''Morning Standard''. On his four-man team besides himself were "Dinkar V. Nadkarni, who had earned a reputation in journalism by penning sensational crime stories in the ''Bombay Sentinel'', edited by the veteran B.G. Horniman; Zahir Babar Kureishi, who wrote a popular column under the pen-name of ''ZABAK''; and Nadir Boman-Behram, who was to look after the advertising and business side of things." Among the prominent leftwing columnists of ''Blitz'' were Ramesh Sanghvi, A. Raghavan, and K.A. Abbas.


Reputation

''Blitz'' has been described as featuring "sensational accounts of national and international skulduggery" and a "spunky tabloid’s loud and screaming captions and telling photographs". Part of its "self-representation as a radical, people's paper was its tabloid form" and this weekly newsmagazine "revelled in its self-proclaimed role as a racket-buster, exposing truths concealed by the powerful." Blitz called itself Asia’s foremost news magazine. It is seen as having had a "brash tone... set to orchestrate a relentlessly nationalist line strongly inflected by leftist themes." ''Blitz'' has also been described as " unapologetic supporter of Nehru, it vigorously championed secularism, supported socialism and planning, denounced capitalism, and poured scorn on right wing and communal politicians." It supported "leftist internationalism... lauded Afro-Asian solidarity against the capitalist West – the Egyptian President Nasser was its hero – and it loudly and regularly unveiled dark, CIA plots against India and Third World leaders." It was seen as indulging inm "muckraking, over-the top stories calculated to provoke and enrage. It thrived on controversy, and Karanjia was frequently embroiled in defamation suits". Gyan Prakash writes:
The embezzlement of public funds, prostitution rackets, sordid stories of seduction and sex in the name of spiritualism, dark political designs behind high-sounding rhetoric, and the fleecing of the poor by rich industrialists and property developers were staples in the weekly. Even the sports column, called ‘Knock Out’, took on the racket-busting posture. It was written by A.F.S. Talyarkhan, whose bearded, pipe-in-mouth, face on the page appeared to lend gravity to the charges of malfeasance he made against sports authorities. The poor performance of Indian athletes in international competitions, it turned out, could be explained by petty squabbles and power-grabbing by officials behind the scenes.
The ''Blitz'' is credited with doing more than all "to make a routine murder trial into a classic story of Bombay’s bourgeois life" in the Nanavati murder case of 1959.


Events organised

''Blitz'' was associated with organising India's longest cycle race on the occasion of Nehru's 100th birth anniversary—called the ''Blitz''-Nehru Integration Tour of India—which was meant to be done on the lines of the Tour de France or Giro or La Vuelta. It had a top prize of Rs 100,000—then a substantial amount. The 10-day nine-stage 1,442 km held in 1989 from Mumbai-New Delhi, it has been claimed, "still remains India's greatest, longest and toughest stage cycle."


Film magazine

Later in 1974, Blitz also started a film magazine, ''
Cine Blitz ''Cine Blitz'' is a Hindi and English film magazine published every month from Mumbai about Bollywood, Hindi cinema. Started in December 1974, as of 2006, it was one of the top three film magazines in India. Currently ''Cine Blitz'' belongs to ...
'', with, Karanjia's daughter Rita Mehta as its editor. In 1983, criminal-politicians Gopal Rajwani and
Pappu Kalani Suresh alias Pappu Budharmal Kalani, known popularly as Pappu Kalani (born 1951) is an Indian criminal-politician from Ulhasnagar, Maharashtra. After emerging as the leader of an organized crime syndicate in the 1980s, he was elected president ...
executed the brutal knife murder of A V Narayan, sub-editor of Blitz.


Morning tabloid

Karanjia founded a morning tabloid called ''The Daily'' for some years. After reaching its zenith in the 1980s sales declined in the 1990s. In 1996, Karl Mehta, then managing director and publisher, and Karanajia's son-in-law reached an agreement with the
Daily Mirror The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily Tabloid journalism, tabloid newspaper. Founded in 1903, it is part of Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), which is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the tit ...
to publish news from the
Daily Mirror The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily Tabloid journalism, tabloid newspaper. Founded in 1903, it is part of Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), which is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the tit ...
,
Sunday Mirror The ''Sunday Mirror'' is the Sunday sister paper of the ''Daily Mirror''. It began life in 1915 as the ''Sunday Pictorial'' and was renamed the ''Sunday Mirror'' in 1963. In 2016 it had an average weekly circulation of 620,861, dropping marked ...
,
The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
and ''People'' magazine. At the time, chairman of
United Spirits United Spirits Limited is an Indian alcoholic beverages company, and the world's second-largest spirits company by volume. It is a subsidiary of Diageo, and headquartered at UB Tower in Bangalore, Karnataka. USL exports its products to over 37 ...
Vijay Mallya Vijay Vittal Mallya (born 18 December 1955) is an Indian businessman and a former politician. He is the subject of an extradition effort by the Indian Government to return him from the UK to face charges of financial crimes in India. His last ...
owned 8% stake in Blitz.


Ceases publication

It ceased publication several years before Karanjia's death in mid-1990s, although there were some attempts to revive it. Karanjia died on 1 February 2008, on the same day he started his newspaper 67 years earlier. The Bangladesh-based tabloid with the same name is unrelated to this publication.


References

{{Reflist English-language newspapers published in India Newspapers established in 1941 Hindi-language newspapers Marathi-language newspapers Defunct Urdu-language newspapers published in India Newspapers published in Mumbai Investigative journalism Weekly newspapers published in India Defunct newspapers published in India 1990s disestablishments in India Defunct weekly newspapers