From the window of history
Punjab Kesari enters its 60th year: An evaluation
THE ASIAN INDEPENDENT UK
– Dr. Ramjilal, Social Scientist and Former Principal, Dyal Singh College, Karnal, Haryana, India
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Lala Jagat Narayan (31 May 1899 – 9 September 1981) participated in the non-cooperation movement (1920-1922) on the call of Mahatma Gandhi. He was 21 years old at that time. He was sentenced to about two and a half years’ imprisonment and had to stay in Lahore jail. He got the opportunity to work as Lala Lajpat Rai’s personal secretary in Lahore jail. A close relationship developed between Lala Lajpat Rai and Lala Jagat Narayan in the jail. Due to participating in various phases of the national movement, Jagat Narayan remained in jail for 9 years.
Lala Lajpat Rai (born 28 January 1865 – 17 November 1928) was a great visionary and charismatic leader. He is popularly known as ‘Punjab Kesari’ among the people. For Lala Jagat Narayan, ‘Punjab Kesari’ Lala Lajpat Rai was an ideal man and an exemplary leader who sacrificed everything for the nation.
Publication of the Urdu daily Hind Samachar (1948) was started. In the memory of Punjab Kesari Lala Lajpat Rai, the first issue of the Hindi daily Punjab Kesari was published on 13 June 1965. 15 years later, in 1978, the Punjabi daily Jag Bani was published.
Publications of Kesari Group (PKG): States and Cities
Currently, newspapers of the Punjab Kesari Group (PKG) are published in various other cities of Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, and Jammu & Kashmir –Jalandhar (1965), Delhi (1983), Ambala (1991), Palampur (2004), Ludhiana (2004), Panipat (2006), Hisar (2006), Jaipur (2006), Jammu (2007), Mohali (2008), Chandigarh (2009) and Shimla (2009). The Punjab Kesari Group’s popular Punjabi-language newspaper, Jagbani, is published in Ludhiana and Jalandhar. Besides Hind Samachar (Urdu), Punjab Kesari (Hindi), and Jagbani (Punjabi), the fourth newspaper of the PKG, Navodaya Times (Hindi), started publishing from Delhi in 2013. It is one of the four newspapers launched by the Punjab Kesari Group (PKG). The other three are Punjab Kesari in Hindi, The Hind Samachar in Urdu and Jagbani in the Punjabi language. Along with the printed newspapers of the Punjab Kesari Group (PKG), they can also be read in digital versions on PunjabKesari.com (Delhi) and Punjab Kesari.in (Jalandhar).
Murder of Lala Jagat Narain and his son Ramesh Chandra: The pinnacle of sacrifice
Lala Jagat Narain was not only a newspaper owner and editor but also a politician. He was an MLA (1952-1962), minister, and general secretary of Punjab congress as well as a member of the Rajya Sabha (1964-1970).Narain was a strong critic of the Khalistani movement. He used to write fearlessly and boldly against the Khalistani movement, considering it terrorist, violent, anti-Hindu-Sikh unity, and anti-national. As a result, he was on the hit list of Bhindranwale’s terrorist squads and was assassinated by the terrorists on 9 September 1981. The entire country mourned his assassination. Government offices and markets in Punjab, including Jalandhar, remained closed.
A sizable crowd of about one lakh people, including national and Punjabi politicians, joined the funeral procession to get their last look at their cherished politician and legendary journalist who fought for the people’s cause. This is an incomparable memory in the history of journalism. The Prime Minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh, honoured Lal Jagat Narayan by issuing a postage stamp in 2013.
After the death of Lala Jagat Narayan, his son Ramesh Chandra took over the reins of the Punjab Kesari Group. Like his father, he also continued to criticise terrorism. Because of the terrorists’ persistent threats of death, Ramesh Chandra became a martyr like his father on May 12, 1984, when his body was shot 64 times. Perhaps there isn’t a single instance in the history of journalism where a father and son had to sacrifice their lives in order to elevate the voice of the people. Indeed, the sacrifice of father and son is a glorious chapter in history of journalism as well as the modern History of India The martyrdom of Lala Jagat Narayan and his son Ramesh Chandra should serve as a lesson to today’s journalists and newspaper managers: speak up honestly, independently, and fearlessly. However, there aren’t many examples like that right now. For most newspaper groups, journalism is becoming a business of earning money, which is not a good sign for Indian democracy.
Vijay Kumar Chopra is the managing director and chief editor of the Punjab Kesari Group following the passing of Ramesh Chandra.
I enjoyed the pieces on the editorial page authored by Poonam I. Kaushik, Neerja Chaudhary, Kuldeep Nayyar, Chandra Trikha, Virendra Kapoor, Balbir Punj, Manmohan Sharma, and other columnists from the Punjab Kesari Group. Frequently, Vijay Kumar Chopra’s editorials have been written with dates and figures to support their claims. For political science researchers, these editorial pages have proven to be very helpful.
Emergency and Punjab Kesari
Soon after the declaration of emergency, newspapers were censored by the Government of India. Lala Jagat Narayan protested against the censorship and was arrested. The government cut off electricity to stop the publication of newspapers of the Punjab Kesari group. But by running the printing press and printing newspapers from a tractor, he surprised the public and put the government in doubt. During the emergency, provocatively coloured pictures were also published on the front page of Punjab Kesari, as a result of which the number of readers and circulation of the newspaper increased unprecedentedly. At that time, it became a common sarcasm that when the first page of Punjab Kesari with coloured pictures was printed, Indralok would shake.
Newspapers of the Punjab Kesari group are published in only six states. This is the reason that, compared to other Hindi newspapers, its copies are published less and the number of readers is also less. According to the Registrar of Newspapers of India, the number of readers of the Punjab Kesari Hindi edition in Punjab, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh was 1.138 million in December 2022. Therefore, it is our opinion that editions of Punjab Kesari should also be published from other deprived states, and localisation should be increased. It will prove to be an important step to competing with rival newspapers. To increase the credibility of newspapers, investigative, honest, and hard-working journalists should be given preference so that factual and unbiased reading material can be made available to the readers. Most of the population of India lives in rural areas. To increase the number of readers of the newspaper, there is a need to give space to the problems related to rural areas in newspapers. Seminars should be organised from the block level to the national level on the foundation day of Punjab Kesari and the birth and death anniversaries of Lala Jagat Narayan and Ramesh Chandra so that the coming generations can get acquainted with their lives, thinking, and martyrdom and can get inspiration for patriotism and social service.
