Thread by @PSainath_org

1/15. This week marks the 200th anniversary of the great tradition of Indian journalism – the opposite of the petty one that has ruled our media for 30-40 years. Raja Ram Mohan Roy founded the newspaper Mirat-ul-Akhbar on April 12, 1822.
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2/15. He had of course launched the Bengali paper Sambad Kaumudi in November 1821, but it was not his name that appeared as publisher for a while. With Mirat ul Akhbar he explained his political and social views quite explicitly to an educated elite.
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3/15. Very early in Mirat ul Akhbar (Mirror of News) Ram Mohan Roy wrote a brilliant editorial protesting the death of Pratap Narayan Das who died from a whipping ordered by the Judge of what is now Comilla in Bangladesh, John Hayes.
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4/15. The editorial was translated and carried in English papers as well – and John Hayes was tried by the Supreme Court not very long after. The Governor-General of the time hit back with draconian ordinances smashing freedom of expression in the press.
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5/15. Publications were proscribed, Indian writers, editors and journalists were subjected to severe harassment. Anything and anyone seen as anti-ruling regime was targeted. Now why does that sound so familiar in our own times?
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6/15. Ram Mohan responded to the ordinance and its accompanying developments by shutting down Mirat ul Akhbar. He said he would not function in such degrading conditions. But he never let up on his campaign against choking freedom of expression in the press.
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7/15. Compare that with the spineless display of servility from corporate owners of media each time the government cracks the whip in our era. Consider how reporting of Covid mismanagement in UP vanished when government ads were pulled from the papers.
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8/15. Media were declared an essential service at the start of the pandemic. Yet, corporate media owners sacked over 2,000 journalists and maybe over 10,000 non-journalist media workers. The government did nothing – the owners were all their pals.
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9/15. Ram Mohan, whether in Sangbad Kaumudi or the short-lived Mirat-ul-Akhbar, focused on the great issues of his time. The campaign against sati, for women’s rights and widow remarriage saw him attacked and vilified by the Hindu fundamentalists of his time.
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10/15. And oh, Mirat ul Akbhar came out in Persian, the first Indian journal to be published in that language. Ram Mohan Roy knew 8-10 languages and wrote and published in English, Bengali, Persian and Hindi at the very least.
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11/15. For those wanting a succinct summary of Roy’s contributions to literature and journalism, a brief article in the International Journal of Advanced Research (Dec 2016) by Prof. Thangamuthu of PTMTM College in Ramnad, Tamil Nadu is surely worth a read.
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12/15. The next 130 years saw Indian journalism soar. Gandhi, Ambedkar, Bhagat Singh were journalists writing in multiple languages – and right there in the top ranks of great journalism. They all focused on the great processes of their time.
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13/15. Let alone educate us on how they are covering them, it would be Interesting to know if present-day (corporate media) editors can sum up what the great processes of our time are – (Hint: the list does not include the IPL).
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14/15. There now remain only two schools in journalism: Journalism – and Stenography. The latter rules the media, reducing so many journalists to being just stenographers to power. Good journalism struggles to survive.
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15/15. Even corporate media now freely use the term ‘crony capitalism’ frequently, with no hint of irony. We all know what capitalism is – do we know who the cronies are? (Hint: start building your list of media owners and captive editors and stenographers).
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