Javed Anand
| Javed Anand | |
|---|---|
| Born | ca. 1950 Mumbai |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Known for | Sabrang Communications |
Javed Anand (born ca. 1950) is an Indian journalist and civil rights activist who founded the Mumbai-based Sabrang Communications in 1983. He is married to Teesta Setalvad and they co-edit the monthly Communalism Combat.
Javed Anand was born into a conservative Muslim family. He attended the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, graduating with a degree in metallurgical engineering in 1971. He worked for the Front for Rapid Economic Development of India, a social action group, then in 1971 became a writer for The Daily, a Mumbai-based tabloid newspaper. In 1983 he met Teesta Setalvad, who had just joined The Daily. They married four years later.
Shortly after the Bombay Riots of 1992–93 that followed the demolition of Babri Mosque in December 1992, the couple left their jobs with mainstream newspapers and launched Communalism Combat, a magazine dedicated to fighting the divisive forces that had led to the riots. They started Sabrang Communications and Publishing Pvt Ltd in the hope of undertaking professional assignments that would generate revenue to sustain Communalism Combat, which they foresaw as not being viable on its own strength. They started working for the magazine in mid-1993 and the first issue came out in August 1993. Anand said of this decision in a 2003 interview "we felt that at Business India and Sunday Observer, we could only be doing full-time journalism, and not be fully involved with what was burning us up".
The magazine struggled at first, with friends pitching in. The couple did occasional assignments. A show of Tumhari Amrita and some regular ads pulled them through. In the run-up to 1999 Lok Sabha elections, Communalism Combat came with an ad campaign featuring 18 fact sheets/backgrounders pitched against the Sangh Parivar. This campaign was funded by the Congress, CPI, CPM and about 10 prominent individuals. BJP and RSS unsuccessfully petitioned to the Election Commission against this ad campaign. As of 2003 the magazine was printing up to 10,000 copies monthly depending on the main topic. The magazine sees communalism by majority and minority groups as inseparable aspects of the same problem, is against intolerance of dissent by such groups and holds that the state cannot avoid responsibility for communalist violence.
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