''Swarajya'' is an Indian

right-wing Right-wing politics is the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position based on natural law, economics, authority, property ...

monthly print

magazine A magazine is a periodical literature, periodical publication, print or digital, produced on a regular schedule, that contains any of a variety of subject-oriented textual and visual content (media), content forms. Magazines are generally fin ...

and

news portal A web portal is a specially designed website that brings information from diverse sources, like emails, online forums and search engines, together in a uniform way. Usually, each information source gets its dedicated area on the page for displayin ...

. The publication reports favourably on the

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; , ) is a political party in India and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. BJP emerged out from Syama Prasad Mukherjee's ...

and has published misinformation on many occasions. R. Jagannathan is the current editorial director. Originally established in 1956 as a weekly under the patronage of

C. Rajagopalachari Chakravarti Rajagopalachari (10 December 1878 – 25 December 1972), popularly known as Rajaji or C.R., also known as Mootharignar Rajaji (Rajaji'', the Scholar Emeritus''), was an Indian statesman, writer, lawyer, and Indian independence ...

, it shut down in 1980 but was relaunched in September 2014, as a daily news website; a monthly print magazine was launched in January 2015.

History

''Swarajya'' was launched as a weekly magazine in 1956 by journalist Khasa Subba Rao, under the patronage of

, a prominent independence activist and one of the founders of the

Swatantra Party The Swatantra Party was an Indian classical liberal political party that existed from 1959 to 1974. It was founded by C. Rajagopalachari in reaction to what he felt was the Jawaharlal Nehru-dominated Indian National Congress's increasingly so ...

. The magazine strongly advocated individual freedom and freedom of enterprise as against Nehru's socialist policies.

Minoo Masani Minocher Rustom "Minoo" Masani (20 November 1905 – 27 May 1998) was an Indian politician, a leading figure of the erstwhile Swatantra Party. He was a three-time Member of Parliament, representing Gujarat's Rajkot (Lok Sabha constituency), Raj ...

Ramaswamy Venkataraman Ramaswamy Venkataraman (, 4 December 191027 January 2009), also known as R. Venkataraman, was an Indian lawyer, independence activist and politician who served as a union minister and as the president of India. Venkataraman was born in Rajam ...

, and

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 ...

have contributed to the magazine. After Rajagopalachari's death in 1972, the magazine slowly began to decline and eventually closed in 1980.

Relaunch in 2014

The magazine was relaunched as an online daily in September 2014, with Sandipan Deb as the Editorial Director; the first edition of the print magazine was launched in January 2015.

Coimbatore Coimbatore (Tamil: kōyamputtūr, ), also known as Kovai (), is one of the major Metropolitan cities of India, metropolitan cities in the States and union territories of India, Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located on the banks of the Noyy ...

-based Kovai Media Private Limited purchased the rights to the magazine from

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

-based Bharathan Publishers, along with 40,000 pages from the earlier editions of the magazine. The magazine describes itself as "a

big tent A big tent party, or catch-all party, is a political party having members covering a broad spectrum of beliefs. This is in contrast to other kinds of parties, which defend a determined ideology, seek voters who adhere to that ideology, and att ...

for liberal right of centre discourse". In October 2016, it acquired OpIndia; in 2018, it became an independent entity. In 2018, ''Swarajya'' launched its Hindi edition.

Reception

The website has misreported news on multiple occasions, according to fact-checkers including

Alt News Alt News is an Indian non-profit fact checking website founded and run by former software engineer Pratik Sinha and Mohammed Zubair. It was launched on 9 February 2017 to combat fake news. Alt News was a signatory partner of the Internation ...

and Boom. Columnists working for ''Swarajya'' have allegedly engaged in a variety of

trolling In slang, a troll is a person who posts deliberately offensive or provocative messages online (such as in social media, a newsgroup, a internet forum, forum, a chat room, an Multiplayer video game, online video game) or who performs similar be ...

over Twitter. Journalists working for ''Swarajya'' have propagated communally charged

fake news Fake news or information disorder is false or misleading information (misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, and hoaxes) claiming the aesthetics and legitimacy of news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person ...

via their personal accounts. ''Swarajya'' was

blacklisted Blacklisting is the action of a group or authority compiling a blacklist of people, countries or other entities to be avoided or distrusted as being deemed unacceptable to those making the list; if people are on a blacklist, then they are considere ...

from

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...

in 2020 alongside '' OpIndia'' and

Hindu nationalist Hindu nationalism has been collectively referred to as the expression of political thought, based on the native social and cultural traditions of the Indian subcontinent. "Hindu nationalism" is a simplistic translation of . It is better descri ...

website ''TFIpost''.

References

External links

* {{commons category 1956 establishments in Madras State Right-wing politics in India English-language magazines published in India Monthly magazines published in India News magazines published in India Magazines established in 1956 Fake news websites Fake news in India Mass media in Bengaluru Mass media in Chennai Mass media in Coimbatore Indian news websites