Gauri Lankesh (29 January 1962 – 5 September 2017) was an Indian journalist and activist from Karnataka. She edited the Kannada weekly founded by her father, the writer P. Lankesh, and later her own paper, Gauri Lankesh Patrike, and was an outspoken critic of religious extremism and caste discrimination. She was shot dead outside her home in Bengaluru, a killing that led to protests across India.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Gauri Lankesh |
| Born | 29 January 1962, Karnataka, India |
| Died | 5 September 2017 (aged 55), Bengaluru, Karnataka |
| Occupation | Journalist, editor, activist |
| Known for | Gauri Lankesh Patrike |
| Parents | P. Lankesh and Indira Lankesh |
| Relatives | Kavitha Lankesh (sister), Indrajit Lankesh (brother) |
| Awards | Anna Politkovskaya Award (2017, posthumous) |
Early Life
Lankesh was the eldest child of P. Lankesh, a poet, playwright and film-maker who in 1980 started Lankesh Patrike, a Kannada tabloid that took no advertising and was known for its irreverent, anti-establishment voice. Her sister, Kavitha, and brother, Indrajit, both became film directors. She studied in Bengaluru and trained in journalism in Delhi.
Career
She began at The Times of India in Bengaluru and later worked in Delhi, for the magazine Sunday as its Karnataka correspondent and for a Telugu television channel. She spent about sixteen years in the English-language press.
When her father died in 2000 she returned to Bengaluru to edit his paper, though she had never written professionally in Kannada. In 2005 she and her brother, who was the publisher, fell out over a report about Naxalites, and she started her own weekly, Gauri Lankesh Patrike, on the same no-advertising model.
She did not separate journalism from activism. She campaigned against attempts to turn the shared shrine at Baba Budangiri into a point of communal conflict, helped found a forum for communal harmony, supported the demand of Lingayats to be recognised as a separate religion, and wrote sharply about the caste system. She was part of a citizens’ effort to bring Maoists in Karnataka back to the mainstream and persuaded several to surrender. Young activists were welcomed in her home, and she called some of them her children. In 2016 she was convicted of defamation over a 2008 report on leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party and was on bail pending appeal.
Assassination
On the evening of 5 September 2017, as she unlocked the door of her house in Rajarajeshwari Nagar, a man who had come on a motorcycle shot her several times. She died at the scene. A Special Investigation Team of the Karnataka police arrested eighteen people and said they belonged to a network linked to radical Hindu groups, which it also connected to the murders of the scholar M. M. Kalburgi and the rationalists Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare. The trial began in 2022 and has moved slowly; several of the accused have been released on bail.
Legacy
Demonstrations under the slogan “I am Gauri” were held in many cities after her death. She was posthumously given the Anna Politkovskaya Award, and her writings have been published in English as The Way I See It: A Gauri Lankesh Reader.
Personal Life
She was married to the journalist Chidanand Rajghatta; they divorced after a few years and remained friends. She lived alone in Bengaluru.
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where was Gauri Lankesh born?
Gauri Lankesh was born on 29 January 1962 in Karnataka, India.
When did Gauri Lankesh die?
Died: 5 September 2017 (aged 55), Bengaluru, Karnataka.
What is Gauri Lankesh known for?
Known for: Gauri Lankesh Patrike.
What honours has Gauri Lankesh received?
Anna Politkovskaya Award (2017, posthumous).
Featured image: Gauri Lankesh in Bengaluru, January 2012. Photo by Hari Prasad Nadig, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
