INDIA’S PRESS

Hokitika Guardian, 7 July 1930, Page 7

INDIA’S PRESS

IRRESPONSIBLE JOURNALISM

LONDON, May 23. Those who conceive of the Press of

India as something akin to the journalism of England may think that the Government of India, in promulgating the Press Ordinance, is endeavouring to suppress reasonable criticsm. On the contrary, no Government in* the world has shown such toleration. v ilui laws against'the Press in India, as ii cy stand on the Statute Book, are harsh and oppressive, but in actual prajifico the newspapers have enjoyed a license in denunciation and misrepresentation

unthinkable in the West. The vernacular Press in India has long been a byword for all that is irresoonsible and blackguardly in journalism. There are, however, some good newspapers published in the many vernaculars of India, newspapers conducted with restraint and judgment and freouently showing real scholarship. To revile the whole vernacular Press for the sins of a particular section is to be ignorant of what journalism is in India. Where the vernacular newspapers are bad, they are vile almost bevoml belief in their treatment of public affairs and in their deliberate stimulation of the worst passions of the people. They certainly have, however, no claim to pre-eminence in this respect over some of the newer Indianowned newspapers published in English and issued in the principal centres like r> >vrihnv, Calcutta, Lahore, and Delhi. This is a new development of Indian journalism, and its most dangerous growth, for these newspapers are designed to appeal to the lawyers, students, and educated classes generally -that is to say, to the active and sometimes violent political element in the country. FANTASTIC RUMOURS.

One of the chief causes for the serious riots in Delhi was the dissemination of the most fantastic rumours in the Chamlni Oliowk, where the following “news” item among others was .written on blackboards, and displayed ink shop windows :—“ The Viceroy has escaped from Simla disguised' as a wor, in and is on his way to England, wheredie has been recalled by the indignant' Labour Government.” Another notice announced that the Indian troops at • Meerut had mutiried and .that'the history of 1857 was repeating itself. ' The excitement around Alipore Gaol —so dangerous that hundreds of police had to be held in readiness—was fomented by concocted news and delibeate exaggeration of petty incidents, by representing as grave assaults the

removal of' prisoners to their cells, and by suggesting tljpt a man who had l tripped over a step in his own panic had been beaten senseless by the officials, who were, in fact, giving him all necessary care. The well of news is poisoned at its source in whatever business Government is concerned, and in India Government is concerned with almost everything that happens. The story of Alipore Gaol is typical of the kind of journalism that has compelled the Government of India to assume again powers that it had willingly abandoned. Those powers repugnant to every journalist, but the orUnarv law in India is too slow and seldom hits the right people. Editors may be arrested and sent to gaol, but the newspapers continue, for seldom is the man whose name appears as editor the real directing forte behind the .newspaper. The one way to mend that situation is—as the Press Ordinance does—to place the newspaper under a bond for good behaviour, and in the end, if offences are repeated, to the printing press. India can p’-oduce a ceaseVss stream of titular editors ; the simply of printing presses is more limited.