Kuldip Nayar is the
grand old man of Indian journalism. His is the classical post-1947 Indian
Success Story. He arrived in India, having travelled from his home in Sialkot
across the blood-stained plains of Punjab, to build a new life from scratch in
a new country. Like countless other sharanarthis
(shelter-seekers as they were called in the early days), through dint of sheer
hard work and good ol’fashioned salt-of-the-earth ‘Punjabiyat’, call it what
you will, he has built a reputation whose cornerstone is honesty and commitment
to secularism and peace.
Nayar’s tryst with
destiny began at roughly the same time as his new country’s: at the stroke of
the midnight hour when the world slept but India awakened to her destiny. His recently
released autobiography, Beyond the Lines (Roli,
2012), reveals the highs and lows, the best and the worst, the price and
privilege of that historic tryst. Like Nehru, whom he admires, Nayar put his
faith in the idea of a secular, socialist republic and a functioning democracy.
Over the years, that faith has been shaken, stirred but never shattered. The
Emergency declared by Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi, tested his belief in the
democratic principles enshrined in the Constitution. Jailed for his ant-Indira
writings, he recalls with dismay both the excesses of the government and the
frailties of politicians and media alike:
‘It was shocking to observe the ease with
which Indira Gandhi and Sanjay were able to assume control over the entire
administrative machinery and the willingness with which officials and other
government employees accepted this….It was disappointing…the way the media and
more specifically the journalists reacted to the new situation. Nearly all of
them caved in, stricken by an epidemic of fear.’
Elsewhere, too, he
keeps his sternest words for the media, which is the greatest bugbear of
democracy, and also its greatest strength. Stressing the need for every major newspaper
to have an ombudsman, he speaks of the need to have internal checks and
balances and to constitute a regulatory body
such as a Press Commission. Good journalism, he writes, ‘is all about
exposing injustice and highlighting heroes regardless of the consequences.’ A
popular figure at public sit-ins, marches and demonstrations, Nayar has
repeatedly found common cause with those who have suffered victimisation and
marginalisation. ‘Injustice still hurts me,’ he notes, ‘just the same way as it
did over sixty years ago, and among my very few friends are those who similarly
care for the violation of basic values.’
However, the book has
courted enough controversy. The Sikhs are up in arms over allegations that Sikh
Students’ Union President Bhai Amrik Singh, who died during Operation Blue Star
in June 1984, was an 'IB agent (Falcon was his pseudonym)'. The chapter on
Punjab has raised a hornet’s nest due to Nayar’s depiction of the role of Dal
Khalsa while writing about the genesis of the Punjab problem as well as the
charge that Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was a creation of the then Congress and
a genie that escaped from the Congress’s bottle. Similarly, the late Prime
Minister Narasimha Rao’s son is issuing vehement denials; Nayar has accused Rao
of ‘conniving’ and locking himself up in his room and, apparently, praying when
the mosque was being pulled down at Ayodhya in a classic case of Nero playing
while Rome burnt.
Coming from the pen of
a man whose personal odyssey in the field of Indian journalism has coincided
with the nation-building project, this book is a valuable addition to national
historiography.
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