CHANDIGARH: The Tribune and Indian Express have refrained from taking editorial notice of last week’s raids by the Chandigarh police on their establishments to stop circulation of a Panthic Committee statement on the introduction of Punjabi in the Union territory.
The two newspapers more so The Tribune freely comments on Punjab almost twice a week. They show a great deal of sensitivity to threats to the Press freedom. The Tribune repeatedly sniped at the Panthic Committee for sending its press notes from nowhere to create hurdles in the efforts to resolve the Punjab problem.
With its predominantly Brahman staff The Tribune hosted a meeting with a Press Council of India team headed by B.G Verghese recently to narrate to it the woes of the newspaper vis-a-vis the Sikhs militants’ organization the Panthic Committee. The Tribune editor Pundit V.N. Narayanan told the team that he had to publish the Panthic Committee statements under compulsion He asked the PCI team to create conditions so that the committee’s statements do not have to be published.
Sometime ago Pundit Narayana reprimanded the Muslim Associate Editor M. Vaziruddin for publishing in full the letter written by Bhai Sukhdev Singh and Bhai Harjinder Singh from jail. I would not have allowed the statement to be published Pundit Narayanan told The Tribune Trust. But soon thereafter the south Indian Brahman himself Okayed the full texts of the Panthic statements to be published without apology to his Muslim colleague.
With mounting pressure from the Panthic Committee to publish more of is publicity material Pundit Narayanan dashed to Delhi to seek the Central government’s assistance in crushing the Sikh militancy. It was in the wake of these appeals that Delhi sent two divisions of its Army to Punjab along with thousands of more paramilitary forces. Pundit Narayanan’s own personal security was further reinforced with companies of CRPF men guarding the Tribune’s editor as well as. a few other Brahman reporters.
Assured of support from Delhi the Tribune carried a small story rebutting the Panthic charge of Sikh under-representation in Punjab University Chandigarh. It quoted a colleague to suggest that Sikhs in university’s academic disciplines numbered 20% and not 5% as claimed by the Panthic Committee. But the survey was selectively undertaken and the university’s vast administrative staff population was neatly omitted from computation.
The Tribune ended the rebuttal story with this hard-hitting though none-too-crude attack on the Sikhs:
Our colleague discovered that jobs at the university level do not seem to attract the Sikh community to the extent they do to others..
In reality however the university Story Was intended to sidetrack criticism that Sikhs are not adequately represented in the Tribune itself. In this connection a colleague of WSN service carried out a survey of The Tribune’s staffing pattern in terms of community representation. The Tribune has six senior editorial positions editor Associate Editor Deputy Editors (two) and Assistant Editors (two) none of which is a Sikh. It has six staff reporters of which only two are Sikhs All senior writing and controlling positions such as Editor News Editor Deputy Editors are held by Brahmans. Sikhs’ (Punjab population: 62%) representation is accounted for mostly by non-writing junior sub-editors who hardly have any say in the conduct of the newspaper.
Sikhs however do have a distinguished place in another sphere in The Tribune: Dismissals from service: Sikhs: 99%; others: 1%; punitive transfers: Sikhs: 80% ; others: 20%.
Whatever these surveys may indicate the fact The Tribune insiders say remains that The Tribune editor himself volunteered for the so called Press censorship on his paper so that he does not have to print the text of the Panthic Press notes viewed as a nightmare by the Brahaman-dominated editorial staff of The Tribune. Under cover of the censorship which incidentally nowhere is in force including Punjab the Panthic Press notes are either blacked out or are severely curtailed now.
Pundit Narayanan of course has his own strategy in beating back the charge of Sikh underrepresentation in The Tribune. According to the insiders he has struck a deal with Tamil Nadu Governor Sujit Singh Barnala whereby one of the latter’s Sikhs would soon be taken as Assistant Editor while the excommunicated head of the south Indian State would help the Tamil Brahaman get into the more prestigious The Hindu Madras. In that case others would have to handle the obviously developing confrontation between The Tribune management and the Sikh militants the latest cause of which is Pundit Narayanan’s voluntary censorship of his newspaper by the Chandigarh police. No wonder he did not write against the attack on the Press’ freedom nor organized a rally or two even as a symbolic gesture.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 25, 1991
