This book, a biography of the Urdu newspaper Pratap, is a ringing reminder for journalists of our times, many of whom seem to have lost their spines. It also hits hard at those who demean Urdu, dubbing it as the language of the invaders. Pratap was founded in difficult times when just the acts of writing and publishing were considered formidable challenges, and only the brave could dare to venture into such a career.
The early decades of the 20th century were momentous for the Indian freedom movement. They saw the emergence of Mahatma Gandhi in India after his daring struggle against the racist and oppressive South African regime. This was also when the First World War impacted India’s freedom struggle, and the colonial government extracted much-needed Indian support for the war after assuring Indians of many concessions. All that India got, though, was the repressive Rowlatt Act in 1919, which led to widespread protests all over the country. These protests culminated in one of the most tragic and transformative episodes in Indian history at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar on April 13, 1919, where hundreds of Indians who had gathered peacefully to protest the Rowlatt Act were brutally killed by British troops.
Pratap
A Defiant Newspaper
Chander Mohan and Jyotsna Mohan
HarperCollins India
Pages: 368
Price: Rs. 499
It was in this period of extreme political turmoil that Mahashay Krishan decided to launch an evening newspaper in Urdu from Lahore. The firstissue of Pratap was printed on March 30, 1919, just a fortnight before the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. This was a phase of history when “Urdu was a distinctly inclusive language, uniting Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs under its umbrella…Inquilab Zindabad, ‘long live revolution’, coined by Hasrat Mohani became the battle cry for freedom.”
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The book reiterates: “Our passage to freedom is also the journey of Urdu literature, where poets, journalists and revolutionaries mobilized their angst into powerful words”. It is a powerful reminder for all those hate-mongers today who dub Urdu as the language of a community, and establishes yet again that languages belong to a region, not to any religion.
The first chapter, aptly titled “Terroristan”, traces the 1980s when the fear and distance between the Hindu and Muslim communities was at its peak. There were targeted killings of prominent Hindu journalists who spoke against the ongoing politics of hate and separatism. The office of Pratap was targeted, and two of its employees killed, while the editor was fortunate to escape. This chapter succinctly deals with the ongoing politics of the 1980s that saw Punjab gradually drifting towards large-scale violence, leading to Operation Blue Star and the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984.
This section in the beginning of the book also goes on to track the bankruptcy and connivance of the Sikh leadership of those times that enabled the extremists to take over the faith as well as the holy shrine of Amritsar. As the authors put it: “Anyone who lived through this period in Punjab knows that the support for Bhindranwale was pervasive. Some thought Khalistan was around the corner, little realizing that terrorists have no loyalty to anyone.”
Pratap’s relentless defiance of the British government made both the newspaper and its editors a constant target of sedition against the colonial regime. Mahashay Krishan and his son Virendra were imprisoned several times. Its security deposit was forfeited time and again, an old trick of the British government. Maulana Azad, too, had faced similar harassment as a journalist when the security deposit of his newspaper Al-Hilal was forfeited in 1915. He could not continue the newspaper but launched another one called Al-Balagh, which, too, suffered a similar fate. Maulana was then sent into exile for three years near Ranchi.
Pratap’s relentless defiance of the British government made both the newspaper and its editors a constant target of sedition against the colonial regime.
Pratap and its editors were also deeply involved in the revolutionary politics of Punjab. Mahashay Krishan’s son Virendra was closely associated with the comrades of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA). The book discusses several significant revolutionary episodes of the mid-1920s in graphic detail. Virendra and Kiron Das (Jatin Das’ brother) were close friends. The book offers interesting insights into the memorable hunger strike of Bhagat Singh and his comrades against the mistreatment of prisoners by jail authorities; Jatin Das died after fasting for 63 days. When Virendra tried to explain to his friend Kiron that Jatin Das should not waste his life and agree to give up his hunger strike, Kiron’s response about his brother and other revolutionaries is revealing: “Virendra bhai, Kiron Das told him, you do not know the mitti [earth] Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad, my brother and their comrades are made of. Life has no value for them if it cannot be used for the service of the motherland.” We know that Mahatma Gandhi used hunger strike as an effective political tool for almost 15 times; the revolutionaries, known for their violent struggle used it once and it left an indelible mark on India’s freedom struggle.
Another interesting episode mentioned in the book is the attempt on the life of Punjab Governor Geoffrey Montmorency on December 23, 1930. Montmorency was invited as a chief guest at the Punjab University Convocation in Lahore where Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, then a professor of philosophy at Oxford University and who later became India’s President, was a prominent speaker. In his book Veh Inquilabi Din (Those Revolutionary Days) Virendra mentions that Radhakrishnan jocularly recalled “that providence had saved him that day…otherwise who knows who would have been hit by the bullets fired by you fellows.” The whole plan was hatched by Virendra, Durga Das and Ranbir of the Urdu newspaper Milap. Hari Kishan shot at the Governor, who escaped with some injuries; Hari Kishan was hanged at the age of 23.
The authors also make an essential clarification about the iconic Urdu poem “Sarfaroshi ki tamanna”(“The Desire for Sacrifice”)—thatit was penned by Bismil Azimabadi, not Ram Prasad Bismil of the Kakori train robbery fame and a renowned poet himself. We also see the common human frailties of our iconic revolutionaries and how different they were in temperament. For example, Chandrashekhar Azad was known to live like an ascetic and expected other comrades to follow his schedule. Most of them did go along but there were those like Bhagat Singh, who, “despite his respect for Azad, was temperamentally miles away from living the ascetic life of his senior comrade”. Bhagat Singh “enjoyed listening to music, but cinema was his big love”. When he saw the billboards announcing the release of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, he decided to watch it although he had only four annas for food in his pocket. This film was one of his favourites as well.
Also Read | For the love of Urdu
The book traces the politics of Punjab in the 1930s and 1940s, two crucial decades in India’s freedom struggle. Besides the complexities of the times when communal polarisation was at its peak and the Muslim League was intent on giving the final push, Virendra of Pratap narrates the fast-moving events as a young Congressman. In these days of Nehru-bashing, it feels odd to read about the popularity of Jawaharlal Nehru in those volatile times. Virendra is ecstatic while writing about the raving reception that Nehru received in the various cities of Punjab during his election campaign in 1936-1937.
Another important episode that is relevant in today’s context is the censoring of Pratap after its criticism of the Second World War. It was not just the press and journalists who fought back, but political leaders like Nehru who stood firmly for Pratap, defending its right to freedom. As the authors note, in those days “journalists prided themselves on speaking truth to power and were ably supported by a political class on which the sun has long set.” Nehru was an emotional man, given to extreme mood swings. However, the authors assert, he was “one of India’s greatest sons. And, after the Mahatma, the most beloved leader of the time. He was to lead and hold together a battered and bloodied nation into the dawn of freedom.”
This is an important book that maps the glorious history of a newspaper that was both an example of journalism with spine and an indispensable tool to fight oppressive governance at all times. It also offers useful insights into the politics of Punjab post Independence as it continued to be published in Hindi as Vir Pratap until 2017.
Let me conclude with the words of Mahashay Krishan on the role of the newspaper editor: “He must speak for the oppressed. He must be prepared to incur the wrath of the authorities. A journalist must voice the grievance of the people, to speak clearly and loudly to the government, to advise it, and, if it does not pay heed, to wage a struggle against it.”
S. Irfan Habib is an Delhi-based historian of modern political history.
Source:https://frontline.thehindu.com/books/urdu-newspaper-pratap-history-journalism-freedom-movement/article69682773.ece