Who is Gagging The Press In India?

The Sept. 3 unprecedented country-wide strike by journalists that closed all newspapers for the day is supposed to highlight the “curbs on the freedom of the press” in Bihar etc. Opposition parties have even accused Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of gagging the press. While we support this struggle for freedom of the press and every other struggle for justice we want to know from our fellow journalists if they are above board. Do they sincerely stand for freedom of the press? When the editors and other journalists shout from housetop that it is the govt. that is curbing the freedom of the press, does it not pre-suppose that earlier the Indian press was free and it is the govt. that is now gagging the press ? What we ask our comrades in the press is: Is the press in India really free ? Is there anything like “freedom of the press” in India? We say India never had a free press. We are saying this with full responsibility on the basis of our experience of working in India’s biggest English daily newspapers in different parts of the country for over 20 years. What we have in India is not “freedom of the press” but the freedom of its owners and the high caste journalists who write in it. We have many glaring cases to prove our point but here we cite the latest and the most important from our angle. And that too a case that happened right under the nose of the top brass of the Indian press right in Washington. “The capital of the world.” This very same “national press” of India which went out of the way to give the widest coverage to Indira Gandhi’s recent visit to US, with senior correspondents specially taken from Delhi describing every minor event with the minutest detail, was careful enough to completely blackout what the world press considered a major event the protest demonstration of the Indian Untouchables settled in America on July 29 as she was inside the White House. Dr. Laxmi Berwa, president of the VISION (Volunteers in Service to India’s Oppressed & Neglected), Clinton, Mary- land, US, with members of the Ambedkar Mission, Canada. Guru Ravidas Sabha. San Jose. California, staged the first-ever White House protest demonstration of Indian Untouchables. He asked us to bring this historic event to the notice of Indians as the entire press deliberately suppressed this news. Dalit comrades living in UK etc., & our foreign friends who after finding the reports in the world press but its total blackout in India, have also written to us expressing their serious concern over the behaviour of the Indian “national press”. A press that is so angry over censorship in Bihar etc has imposed self- censorship when it concerns Untouchables. Therefore, we are least surprised by the behaviour of the Indian press on this Washington protest demonstration. We have no reason to believe that the govt. has banned the publication of this news, If there has been any ban it should have applied equally to the earlier UNI news item about “PM Snubs Indian Dalits” (DV no. 22) carried by the Statesman. Banning this one newspaper, the entire “national press” did not publish even this report. Therefore, if any report of the protest had been sent to India at least the Statesman would have published it. Are we to suspect this news was suppressed at Washington itself by the Indian pressmen? However, we are happy that the American and the world press gave the widest coverage realising the importance of the event. The prestigious Washington Post (July 30) carried a three-column picture of Indian Untouchables demonstration, captioned: “Indians from Toronto join in the Untouchable caste protest outside White House where PM Indira Gandhi was meeting the President”. The three column report under the heading. “Indian Caste Aims Protest at Gandhi”, by Carlyle Murphy, its staff re- porter, said Laxmi Berwa, a famous physician-specialist, who is an Untouchable. wrote a letter to Mrs. Gandhi asking to meet her but she chided him and refusing to meet the delegation of Indian Untouchables. “Yesterday morning Berwa and about 20 other Indian immigrants gathered outside the White House while Gandhi met inside with President Regan. Like Berwa, the protestors were members of the Untouchable caste, the lowest rung in Indian society. That were there to register their disapproval of what they see as Gandhi govt’s indifference towards the caste”. The report then goes on to say that the Indian Apartheid, which is more serious than even the Black problem, is “endorsed by religious precepts of Hindu- ism”. The report quotes a spokesmen of the Indian Embassy in Washington trying to whitewash the whole thing by saying that even the Indian Ambassador in US. Kocheril Narayanan, is from the Untouchable caste. So what? we have so many ‘Company Negroes”. Virendra K. Chauthry, a New York engineer of the Ur touchable caste, dismissed this defence as an eyewash, says the report. The New York Post (July 28) also reported the event under the headline: Gandhi snubs plea by Indians in DC. The Washington Times (July 30) frontpaged a picture of Mrs. Gandhi with Reagan on one side and a three-year-old Untouchable boy demonstrating before the White House holding a placard. “Down with Indira govt.”, on the other side. Next day it also carried a letter of Dr. Berwa congratulating the editor for giving equal treatment to the two Heads of State and the demonstration of commoners. So much for the sense of fairplay of the American press. The Indian capitalist-controlled, high caste-dominated press which was fully represented at the time Mrs. Gandhi met Reagen at the White House and hence witnessed this historic demonstration on behalf of India’s 20% slave population- however chose to sup- press this news. So much for the “tolerance” of the Hindus and the “freedom of press” in India. And it is this very same press that is now making all the noise that Mrs. Gandhi is gagging the Indian press. The Washington blackout of the White House protest by Indian Blacks is a fit case for the Press Council to take up. Dr. Berwa in his letter published in the Washington Times said: “I was demonist rating because Indira Gandhi turned down our request to meet her and express our concern for the atrocities suffered by the Indian Untouchables.” Such an unpleasant news that the Indian Ruling Class is torturing its Untouchables, so carefully concealed from the world outside, unfortunately got international publicity-thanks to Dr. Berwa and other brave members of the VISION- & naturally the Ruling Class having been perturbed did everything to keep this news from not reaching at least India. How long can it boast of its non- violence ? We are thankful to the India Abroad, a journal run by Indians in US, for publishing this news (July 30) under the heading “Indira Rejects Harijan Plea.” We are also happy to note that Charles MCC Mathias Jr.. a US Sanator, has written a letter to Dr. Berwa promising to take up the issue of torture of Indian Untouchables with Mrs. Gandhi. This is the first time in the history of Indian Untouchables that their problem is getting the attention of the world press. This became possible because the VISION and other Untouchable organisations in America decided to stage a protest demonstration. We fully realise the difficulties of the govt. in its efforts to solve the problems of the Indian Untouchables. The Untouchables are not the victims of govt. system but that of Hindu social order blessed by the Hindu religion & its 33 crores of gods. As its “free press”, is not free when it concerns dalits and minorities, their representatives settled abroad can do a lot to take up their cause by emulating the example set by VISION and others. We have any number of civil liberty walas, human rights heroes. Why not a single Tarkunde or Arun Shourie has protested? Why not a single political party, not even CPM, CPI, took up this issue ? Why not a single journalist organisation like Indian Federation of Working Journalists. Editors Guild etc. is worried about this all-round conspiracy of silence when it concerns Untouchables? Who is gagging the Press?