Press Freedom Day and Punjabi dailies
By STM
“More journalists were killed in 2003 than in any year since 1995… A black year if ever there was one,” Reporters Sans Frontiers said in its annual report released to coincide with the World Press Freedom Day (which fell on May 3 last).
Forty-two journalists were killed “while doing their job or for their opinions, mainly in Asia and the Middle East (the Iraq War) …. As many as 766 were arrested, at least 1,460 physically attacked or threatened and 501 media censored, the Paris-based organization said. “Nearly a third of the world’s people live in countries without press freedom.”
No such details have been collected or documented by the organizations of newspaper owners or journalists’ bodies in Pakistan about those who suffered for the freedom of press which faces many obstacles, including the denial of official advertisements.
A Lahore-based group of newspapers was all of a sudden denied this right because it was more vocal in the Qadeer Khan affair. The denial of advertisement to the press has especially been note-worthy in respect of Punjabi newspapers.
It certainly is not a new story. It happened in 1988 when the first Punjabi daily Sajjan appeared from Lahore when Nawaz Sharif was the Punjab chief minister while Benazir Bhutto ruled the centre. It was the time when so-called Pakistani-nationalists from the Punjab were crudely using the Punjab card against the Sindhi prime minister. Their popular slogan was Jaag Punjabi Jaag, Teri Pagg Noon Lag gia Dagh.
They demanded separate bank, television, radio authorities for the Punjab. All that was done in the name of the Punjab but no official advertisements for the maiden Punjabi daily were released by the Punjab government because, in its opinion, Sajjan was siding with the anti-fundamentalists PPP policies.
The PPP government in the centre also extended no helping hand to the first-ever daily in Punjabi after independence which was welcomed even by the Sindhi press… the only well-established regional press. Till that time no daily was published in the other two regional languages, Balochi and Pushto.
Meanwhile, a daily in Seraiki was also published from Rahim Yar Khan which was cold-shouldered by the Punjab government, and ultimately it disappeared from the scene. That was also the fait accompli of Sajjan which was a very good exercise in Punjabi daily journalism.
Another such attempt was made by Mudassir Iqbal Butt who launched daily Bhulekha, which was in much better shape than Sajjan. But it had no policy which could attract the Punjabi reader, who was essentially anti-establishment. This was clearly manifested in the general historical elections of 1970. But it is quite strange that the Punjab government did not give the due share to Bhulekha which it deserved per tradition. The paper still appears regularly, but the Punjabi administration is still allergic to the mother tongue of the province.
Source: Dawn
Date:5/9/2004
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