Overview
Dwivedi has established a library in his hometown to serve as a community space, with special offerings for the most vulnerable
Indian journalist Saurab Dwivedi, the founder of the Hindi language Lallantop, was the featured speaker at an event hosted by EnActe Arts and Agora at the India Community Center on April 16. Anuradha Luther Maitra moderated the session.
This was Dwivedi’s first visit to the Bay Area, following public events at UT Austin and a visit to Seattle.
The Lallantop is a prominent Indian digital-first Hindi news platform launched in 2015 under the India Today Group, known for its colloquial (“bhades”) and in-depth reporting style.
Founded by Dwivedi, who previously served as its editor, It aims to democratize information by simplifying news jargon for young audiences in the Hindi heartland. With a massive YouTube presence (>34M subscribers), it covers news, politics, cinema, and history via popular shows like The Lallantop Show and Tarikh. The platform offers daily video shows, interviews, podcasts, and digital articles, including popular segments like Duniyadari, Social List, and The Cinema Show.
During the conversation, Dwivedi referred to the colonized mindset in India, where all opportunities are seen to be only available by learning English. He recalled his hometown, where, like in many towns and villages across the country, it was still common to hear “Yesh kitna smart hai, kitni acchi Angrezi bolta hai”” How smart is this person, so fluent in English.”
Today, technology and advances allow publishing gatekeepers to become more inclusive and expand the voices and languages in the public sphere. Dwivedi said he is fortunate and proud to be able to contribute to that change and advocated for learning languages in a multilingual nation like India. Why should someone from Chennai cope in Delhi, he asked, but a Delhi-raised person struggles with Kannada in Bangaluru or Tamil in Chennai without a rudimentary ability to speak to a local auto-rickshaw driver?
Dwivedi shared how India (Bharat) was the inspiration for his philosophy of life and purpose – to give back to the society that gave him such opportunities. He reminded the audience that Bharat is the land of the Indus Valley civilization, Nalanda, and Takshila, where cultural centers served as the focus for gatherings and the sharing of ideas.
Together with his wife, Dwivedi has established a library in his hometown to serve as a community space, with special offerings for the most vulnerable – children and women; the couple has committed to convening 1000 libraries across the country. Inspired by the example of students who offered to share part of their scholarship towards the initiative, Dwivedi said he overcame his reluctance to ask strangers for help and reached out to the community to support his vision. “Has gaanv main Nalanda sa pustakalya ho/ हर गाँव में नालंदा सा पुस्तकालय हो,” (may every village have a library like Nalanda), he said.
Jyoti Bachani, who attended the event, remarked, “I know my childhood would not have been the same without easy access to the Ramakrishna Mission library in my neighborhood, where new worlds opened up to me from the pages of the books and magazines, decades before the Internet was available to us. May there be many helping hands and generous contributions to the cause of bringing more libraries to India.”
In response to a question about young people’s lack of interest in books, he gently remarked that children cannot be blamed for choosing screens over books, because they tend to reflect the behavior of the adults around them.
At one point in the evening, Anuradha Luther Maitra asked him about his north star and what anchors him, to which Dwivedi responded: “What is that in Hindi – dhruv tara?”
He encouraged people to ask questions if they do not understand something, rather than to pretend they do for fear of appearing ignorant; asking the question enables learning and becoming better informed, said Dwivedi.
Reflecting on giving back to the community, Dwivedi suggested there is no greater pilgrimage, regardless of religion or community, than nurturing one’s roots and reinvesting in the institutions that shaped us, whether with books and libraries, or as teachers. “In a world racing forward, perhaps the most radical act is to remember—and to rebuild,” remarked Jyoti Bachani, who noted that Dwivedi drew spontaneous applause from the audience for several of his responses.
At her request, he agreed to have a photo of himself taken holding a copy of Being Becoming Belonging, a multilingual anthology of poetry by Poetry of Diaspora in Silicon Valley poets, of which Bachani is a founder.
Her fellow poets from Silicon Valley’s creative community and audience members were grateful to EnActe Arts and its founder, Vinita Sud Belani, and MD, Kalpana Handu Guha, for bringing meaningful conversations to the Bay Area.
“My impression of him was that he is an extremely intelligent man with a curiosity as a dominant force, well read and disciplined, deeply rooted and confident, imaginative with a vision for whatever he pursues with dedication,” added Bachani.
