Palagummi Sainath (born 1957), known as P. Sainath, is an Indian journalist and author who has devoted his career to reporting on rural India, poverty and farmers. His book Everybody Loves a Good Drought (1996) is a classic of Indian journalism. As rural affairs editor of The Hindu he brought the agrarian crisis and farmer suicides to national attention. In 2014 he founded the People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI), an online record of the lives of rural Indians. He won the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2007.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Palagummi Sainath |
| Born | 1957, Madras (now Chennai), India |
| Occupation | Journalist, author |
| Education | Loyola College, Chennai; Jawaharlal Nehru University (M.A. History) |
| Known for | Rural reporting; founder-editor of PARI |
| Grandfather | V. V. Giri, former President of India |
| Honours | Ramon Magsaysay Award (2007) |
Early Life
Sainath was born in Madras into a Telugu family. His grandfather, V. V. Giri, was a freedom fighter and trade unionist who became President of India. He studied at Loyola College and took a master’s degree in history at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.
Career
Sainath began at the United News of India in 1980 and then joined Blitz, a Mumbai weekly, where he became deputy editor and wrote a widely read column. He also began teaching journalism, which he has continued to do for decades.
In 1993 he won a fellowship from The Times of India and set out to report from the ten poorest districts of India. He travelled about 100,000 kilometres, much of it on foot, and filed 84 reports over 18 months. The reports became the book Everybody Loves a Good Drought: Stories from India’s Poorest Districts (1996), which showed how development schemes often failed or enriched contractors and officials while the poor stayed poor. It has remained in print ever since.
As rural affairs editor of The Hindu, Sainath spent most of each year in villages. His reports on farmer suicides in Vidarbha, Andhra Pradesh and elsewhere pushed the issue into Parliament; Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Vidarbha in 2006. He was a sharp critic of the mainstream media for ignoring the poor, pointing out that few national newspapers had a full-time correspondent covering agriculture or labour.
In December 2014 he launched PARI, a free online archive of stories, photographs and films about rural occupations, crafts, languages and struggles, produced by a network of reporters and volunteers and published in many Indian languages.
Books
Awards and Honours
Frequently Asked Questions
When was P. Sainath born?
P. Sainath was born in 1957, Madras (now Chennai), India.
What is P. Sainath known for?
Known for: Rural reporting; founder-editor of PARI.
What honours has P. Sainath received?
Ramon Magsaysay Award (2007).
Featured image: P. Sainath, journalist and founder of the People’s Archive of Rural India, 2016. Photo by Mullookkaaran, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
