Swarajya (magazine)

"We need to worry not just about manipulated news, but also manipulated platforms and fact-checkers whose biases may go under the radar. Fact-checking can also be manipulated."

"As the leader, but also simply as C.R., he crisply expressed his views in a weekly column in Swarjya or Freedom, a plain English language magazine - he was an avid champion of English as the only link language for India - published in Madras."

"We believe in what Rajaji has written, long years ago when the magazine was launched. These are our articles of faith. These are Swarajya’s articles of faith."

"We do not want to assist the government, but like all media — first it will be almost entirely built largely as a commentary, opinion and essay magazine and will naturally be a magazine of ideas. If somebody in the government sees it as a good idea, they are free to do so. But our primary purpose is not that; it is to engage with young, intelligent Indians. How would you term a magazine like the Economist? I would say it is like that. It is absolutely essential we have a digital platform and a monthly print magazine. The amount of work involved in digital is far higher as it is a 24/7 business. You have to put up at least four to five pieces every day. But the revenue will obviously be from print."

"While this trend is still marginal, it is already very visible on the media front, where internet papers have become the arteries of new communities shedding the Sangh baggage and trying to serve the Hindu cause through new analyses: VijayVaani, India Facts, Hindu Human Rights, Swarajya, Bharat-Bharati, the India Inspires Foundation. These people have no power yet, but they do have ideas. More up-to-date and more aware of international trends in political thinking than the gerontocratic Sangh, their thought is far more interesting. It also is more rooted, more Hindu than the Hindutva current, which is stuck in the 1920s’ borrowed nationalist paradigm. If “debate” with the Hindu side is what you want, it is they who are the ones to talk to."

"If I disapproved of the ban on The Satanic Verses, if I disapproved of Dinanath Batra (whom I called “Ban Man” in my article in The Washington Post), if I disapproved of how Taslima Nasreen was hounded and attacked in Hyderabad by Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM, then I can’t suddenly do a volte face and chest-thump today. When you ban a book, it acquires a kind of cult status because the market fuels curiosity. That is what happened with other banned books. In fact, there are books chronicling banned books by different regimes in history...All I am saying is that forcing Bloomsbury India to withdraw the book is counter-productive – both politically and in the pure sense of how market forces work... Where do you draw the line? Today, many are relieved that this book will not find a publisher in Bloomsbury. But what will you do if Swarajya or OpIndia launches a publishing house of its own in the future?"