T oday (April 8) is the 120th birth anniversary of the late Lala Mulkh Raj Saraf, Father of Journalism in Jammu and Kashmir, who passed away in February 1989. As a tribute to him we reproduce an excerpt from his autobiography “Fifty years as a journalist” published in May 1967.
Sheikh Abdullah had not an easy start. In the very nature of the circumstances in which the power was transferred to him, the fissures were bound to occur sooner than later, on the one hand, between him and those in authority who had never seen eye to eye with him and, on the other hand, within his own camp between him and those like him who had neither the experience nor the patience to deal with an admittedly nerve-breaking situation that had arisen as a result of the wanton Pakistani aggression.
The Sheikh was appointed by the Maharaja as the Head of the Administration. This brought into being, as the Ranbir put it, two rival administrations in the State — Sheikh Abdullah enjoying popular support with best wishes of the Nehru Government in Delhi while Mr. Mehr Chand Mahajan continued to be the Prime Minister with their respective spheres of powers and positions “totally vague, undefined and unclarified.” The Sheikh was sometimes called the Head of the Emergency Administration and sometimes the Chief Minister. Similarly, Mr. Mahajan was described as the Prime Minister as well as the Dewan.
Once I told Mr. Mahajan that with the appointment of the Sheikh, his own fate as Prime Minister had been sealed. He brushed aside my idea little realising that I knew the Sheikh better than he did. The Sheikh began to do whatever he wanted in the name of emergency not unoften without even informing the Maharaja, much less the Prime Minister. The confusion continued till the Sheikh whose star was in ascendancy was formally installed as the Prime Minister on March 5, 1948, when the Maharaja in deference to the wishes of the Government of India announced the establishment of a popular interim Government in the State presumably with the immediate view to strengthening the hands of India in the Security Council. Mr Mahajan left the State after terminating the agreement of service which allowed him handsome compensation for the unexpired period of his five years’ term but which he did not claim. A little later, the Maharaja himself had to leave the State after Yuvraj (now Maharaja) Karan Singh in his teens was made the regent.
So far so good. Sheikh Abdullah as the most popular leader of the State especially at that critical juncture of the history while stoutly defending the cherished ideals of secular democracy and radical social change, indeed deserved and amply received the whole-hearted support of all well-wishers of the country. For the Ranbir, it was truly the realisation of a long dreamt dream in the shape of a popular government in the State. It threw open its columns to publicity aiming at the stabilization of the regime which was being constantly attacked not only by the standard-bearers of theocracy across the border but also by reactionary elements within the State itself. The Ranbir did much more. Its Assistant Editor, Om Prakash Saraf, offered his wholetime services and worked in an honorary capacity as the Emergency Publicity Officer. And how hard he worked would be evident from what the Deputy Head of the Emergency Administration, Bakshi Ghulam Mohamad, noted on January 2, 1948 :
“I am glad to bring on record my deep appreciation of the voluntary and honorary services of Mr. O.P. Saraf as Emergency Publicity Officer in absence of any official machinery pertaining to propaganda and publicity work in Jammu. His ability in immediately organising the office and efficiently carrying out the multifarious responsibilities entrusted to him in very abnormal times has greatly impressed me.”
The Ranbir later assailed the agitation launched by the Praja Parishad (now Jana Sangh) for merger of the State with the Union as ill-conceived and strongly opposed it. It is interesting to recall that the Praja Parishad’s first charter of demands inter alia urged the imposition of a ban on the publication of the Ranbir. In fact, the Praja Parishad leadership consisted of the same old people who had earlier never approved of the policy of the Ranbir favouring the State’s immediate accession with India. Since, however, it had now become a fait accompli and with their privileges fast disappearing, they raised the demand for a complete merger with the Indian Union motivated basically by a desire to wash off their old sin as also to embarrass the Kashmir leaders without sharing their responsibility in any way to strengthen the willing association of the Muslims in the Valley with the rest of the country.
The Pakistan press in those days when all means of communication were completely cut off between the two parts of the State that had come to be divided by a cease-fire line under United Nations observance would occasionally exploit the good name of the Ranbir presumably to hoodwink its innumer- able admirers there. For instance, the Dawn of Karachi published in its issue of May 11, 1949, a news item circulated by the Associated Press of Pakistan from Abbotabad attributing to the Ranbir an article from the pen of ‘a writer, a professor in a local college’ saying “Kashmiris whether Hindus or Muslims are deadly against the Abdullah cabinet and are solidly behind the Muslim Conference’s demand for accession of the State to Pakistan.” I was in New Delhi where this canard came to my notice on May 12, 1949. I immediately issued a press statement from Delhi saying:
“This is a complete fabrication and a white lie characteristic of the Dawn-like Pakistani Press. It is most shocking, particularly because the news-item is stated to have emanated from a premier news agency of Pakistan. The Ranbir can never give place in its columns to such a baseless, false and irresponsible statement. The Ranbir has consistently championed the cause of nationalism from its very inception and as such has always given its full and willing cooperation to the Administration headed by Sheikh Abdullah’ ‘.
When the Ranbir celebrated its Silver Jubilee on June 24, 1949, Sheikh Abdullah was good enough to acknowledge its services in a long message. But this was actually a feeble cover for the strains and stresses that had begun to raise their ugly head in the relationship between the head of the Government and the Editor of the premier newspaper of the State after almost 20 years of mutual good-will. I am still appreciative of his many qualities of head and heart. But as a dispassionate newspaperman I had to judge the Sheikh in his new role as an administrator. His weakness lay in the fact that he would take rational view of things only when it fitted in with his egoistic inclinations. Though he did introduce quite a few reforms of far-reaching significance, their working left much to be desired with the result that the Ranbir had to be critical at times. This extremely annoyed him.
At one time I told Sheikh Abdullah in his office in Srinagar “Sheikh Sahib, you are always rightly claiming that you have rid the people of Maharaja Hari Singh. But would you believe you have imposed on them more than one Maharaja”. Enraged over this he burst out:
“I am already receiving reports about your changed attitude towards us. I would not any longer listen to you much less act upon your advice. If you persist in your present behaviour, I am afraid, I shall have to send you to the Central Jail (pointing his finger towards the Hari Parbat fort)”.
When I wrote to Om in Jammu as to what had transpired between the Prime Minister and myself, pat came the reply from him: “You might have also told the Sheikh that you have not been enjoying such a life as if put in jail, you would have to suffer much”.
The Sheikh had permitted himself to be surrounded by a set of sychophants who were always busy in poisoning his ears to grind their own axe. They were afraid of the Ranbir and would, therefore, leave no stone unturned to wean the Sheikh away from the Ranbir. Once I had an occasion to talk over things in Jammu and Kashmir with a high officer of the Indian Foreign Service in Delhi. He soon reported this conversation to one of the advisors of the Sheikh who on my return to Jammu told me : “You take advantage of your being the premier journalist in the State and malign the men-in-power here”.
I said in reply: “I am not habituated like you to say one thing to one man and another thing to another man or say something by mouth and write something else on paper. If I have told my Delhi friend something against our Prime Minister, I must have previously said the same thing in the face of the Prime Minister himself or published the same in my paper. Have you not observed similar criticism in my paper? My views are not hidden from anybody. As for my being a premier journalist in the State, you cannot undo history howsoever you may desire to do it”.
To stifle the voice of the Ranbir, Sheikh Abdullah’s advisers began to adopt tactics which were more reprehensible than even those adopted by an autocratic regime in the past. They misused secret funds and financed publication of newspapers whose copies would be distributed among the people free of charge. The Government advertisements were withheld. Even some private advertisers were persuaded to terminate connections with the Ranbir. It would not be even subscribed by any school or other official or semi-official agency. Those who privately subscribed to the Ranbir were regarded as political untouchables. Om who had by then become active in the political field, was ousted from the National Conference. And, attempts were made to purchase the die-hard reactionaries including the communalists who had every reason to be angry with the progressive policies pursued by the Ranbir. The Ranbir, thus, found itself by an intriguing combination of circumstances, between the devil and the deep sea. Of course, the past of the Ranbir could not be obliterated nor the spirit of the Ranbir, which manifested itself for such a long time in bringing about much needed reforms in various spheres of public life, could bend. The Ranbir, I strongly felt, had done its duty by the people. Better to stop it now and here, and keep its glorious past alive rather than compromise. I had to spend many a sleepless night to ponder over the closure of the Ranbir just as I had to work day and night to bring it into being.
On May 18, 1950, the Ranbir chose to disappear. On that day the announcement of closure reproduced below took its readers by surprise: “With heavy heart it is announced that due to various reasons which need not be mentioned at present, further publication of the Ranbir cannot be continued. I am, therefore, compelled to close the paper indefinitely.”
It was indeed an irony of fate that the Ranbir-the physical part of it-fell victim to a popular regime for whose establishment it had worked so hard and long and that too during the time of a leader who, though only a college student when the Ranbir came into being, had grown in the years to come, with a good deal of mutual understanding with the Ranbir. It was no consolation a few years later to find the ‘victor’ himself falling victim to his thoughtlessness.
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