Dear friends, let me begin with a story.

Sometime in mid-2013, I published an article by a contributor listing major communal riots since 1967, in a digital portal I was editing. The idea was to put the 2002 Gujarat riots in perspective.

But all hell broke loose when another editor in the same group, who I thought of as a friend, complained to the owner of the publication, that I have become a sanghi.

Nothing much came of that complaint. But I realised at that moment that India's English language media had only one narrative to peddle. All rival versions were a deviation from truth.

I realised that India, that is Bharat, needs diverse media platforms to shift away from the monochromatic narrative of the English-speaking elite in order to have real conversations about a multi-coloured civilisation we truly are.

Scaling up a media platform like Swarajya that believes in building alternative narratives costs money. And that money does not come from advertising in this digital, post-Covid world.

We need subscribers and patrons. We believe that a sustainable business model can be built if longtime subscribers are willing pay regularly.

We want you to be something more than just a subscriber - someone who is invested in the idea of the alternative narratives India needs.

That's why I invite you to subscribe to Swarajya through Patreon.

I thank you in advance.

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