The Press: The Letter

In India, the father of yellow journalism is Russy K. Karanjia, 39, founder of Bombay’s wildly sensational English-language weekly Blitz. Publisher Karanjia made enough from Blitz to start the weekly Atom, which he recently sold to raise capital for a daily newspaper he is planning. He has a simple explanation for his quick success. “A newspaper,” says he, “should print what its readers want to read. Some newspaper editors claim they have certain principles. I call them inhibitions. I do not have any.” Untrammeled by principles, Publisher Karanjia has boosted Blitz’s circulation to 50,000, made it the biggest weekly in English in India. Blitz is openly proCommunist, in every issue has wild stories of murder, rape and crime, and lying tales about Americans. One article quoted a nonexistent American wire service called “USI” as saying that President Truman was insane and locked in the White House; “dispatches” from Korea picture American generals staging wild orgies featuring parades of nude women prisoners.

Blitz’s bitter rival Current (circ. 9,000) is like Blitz in every way except that it is antiCommunist. Last week Karanjia’s brand of journalism landed him and his rival, Current Publisher D. (for Dosoo) F. Karaka in jail. The charge: forging and publishing a letter that was supposed to have been sent by U.S. Ambassador to India Chester Bowles.

The letter was addressed to Blitz Editor Karanjia and carried Bowles’s signature. Said the letter: “[I] would be most eager to meet you and your Communist friends [at a] quiet evening party . . . Only please do not make much noise about this sort of thing.” Police charged that Karanjia forged the letter on U.S. Embassy stationery and pasted on a Bowles signature clipped from another letter. The purpose of the forgery apparently was to take the steam out of Ambassador Bowles’s effective speeches against Communism. Newsmen guessed that Karanjia saw to it that the letter fell into Current Editor Karaka’s hands —at a price of $210. Karanjia knew that Current would grab it, since Karaka was still smarting over an exclusive interview Bowles had injudiciously given the pro-Communist Blitz in July.

Karaka published the letter in Current even though, said police, he knew it was a forgery. Alongside he ran a savage attack on Ambassador Bowles for his “friendliness” toward Communists and Red sympathizers like Karanjia. When Bowles pointed out the letter was a fake, Blitz Editor Karanjia also blandly denounced it in his paper as “obviously a forgery.” At week’s end, both Karanjia and Karaka were out on bail, awaiting trial. Maximum penalty: three years in prison.