‘I Am on the Hitlist’: Book delving into murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh released

PTI, Jan 13, 2025, 4:06 PM IST

New Delhi : A new book by journalist-author Rollo Romig delves into the tragic assassination of journalist Gauri Lankesh and its implications for democracy, free speech, and journalism in India.

“I Am on the Hitlist”, released under Westland Books ‘Context’ imprint, reconstructs the events leading up to the shocking murder of Lankesh, a prominent journalist and editor of Kannada tabloid ‘Gauri Lankesh Patrike’.

Lankesh was shot dead outside her home in Bengaluru on September 5, 2017.

“This book is a tribute to the India I love, and to those Indians who are defending it from the forces that want to narrow it into something rigid and homogenous and cruel. It’s also a celebration of one extraordinary and delightfully complicated Indian, Gauri Lankesh.

“To me the book’s central mystery is not who murdered Gauri but the question of how she managed to live so fully and touch so many different kinds of people. It’s a book about how to live a life, and writing it forever changed the way I live mine,” said the US-based author in a statement.

According to the publisher, the book is about the life and death of Lankesh but “equally about her murderers and the system that created and enabled them” “Rollo achieves so much with this extraordinary book: it’s a murder investigation that’s also an enquiry into the state of India; in its enquiry of two other unconnected murders — surprisingly relevant detours…

“… It is also a meditation on death and culpability; and in all this it doesn’t lose sight of Gauri and of other human rights defenders that are on the frontlines in the fight to save India’s democracy. It’s such an important book and an absolute page-turner,” said Ajitha GS, publisher at Context.

The book, priced at Rs 799, is available across online and offline stores.