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Tuesday, May 31, 2005

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Indian journalism project inaugurated

Staff Correspondent

Vice-President urges people to ensure `rashtrabhasha' becomes the `rajbhasha' of the country

BHOPAL: The Vice-President, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, on Monday inaugurated a special research project on "post-Independence Indian Journalism" by advocating the cause of Hindi and asserting that methods should be explored to ensure that the `rashtrabhasha (national language) becomes the Rajbhasha (official language) of this country'.

The research project on `post-Independence Indian Journalism' has been launched by the Makhanlal Chaturvedi Rashtriya Patrakarita

Vishwavidyalaya (Makhanlal Chaturvedi National University of Journalism). This university was set up through an Act passed by the Madhya Pradesh Assembly when Sunderlal Patwa headed the Bharatiya Janata Party led State Government between 1990 and 1992.

Addressing a special function to inaugurate the research project, Mr. Shekhawat said that in a country of 102 crore people, there were at least 26 crore living below the poverty line (BPL) and another 10 crore were those who could at any moment slide into the BPL category. The condition of the remaining population is also more or less the same, he said adding the tragedy is that the poor were being neglected by the democratic institutions, barring to some extent the judiciary, which has passed directives for ensuring that the people's right to life with dignity should be protected. The country would be confronted with a severe crisis if the basic right to food, shelter, health and employment were continuously neglected, he emphasised.

Mr. Shekhawat said that a major role was played by Hindi and the other regional languages during the Freedom struggle but question arises why we have lagged behind in promoting Hindi, the language that helped us attain freedom, during the post-Independence period. He went on to emphasise that a country cannot progress without its own language. He said it is unfortunate that the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha proceedings in Hindi are rarely reported by the media

The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mulayam Singh Yadav, said on this occasion that Hindi can become the Rajbhasha (official language) only if we talk of promoting all Indian languages. He said that English was never an international language but on the pretext of the global market, it has got established as an international language. Under the circumstances, Hindi is being threatened, he said adding "we do not intend to wipe out but only want to replace English with our own Rajbhasha".

Mr Singh said that it is encouraging to find that more and more people from South India have started learning Hindi but what is a matter of concern is that boys from Lucknow no longer want to learn Hindi.

The Madhya Pradesh Governor, Balram Jakhar, described the Makhanlal Chaturvedi University's new research project as a good initiative. He said that media has an important role to play in a democracy.

At the same time, he stressed the need for a complete evaluation of all facets of journalism. Mr. Jakhar also cautioned against the menace of rapidly growing population and the problem of religious fundamentalism and communalism.

The Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Babulal Gaur, said in his speech that Hindi journalism closely reflects Indian culture and any threat to Hindi journalism should be viewed as a threat to the whole country. He said, "our mindset was restricted to Quit India and not Quit English".

Mr. Gaur said that more and more politicians, members of the bureaucracy, especially those belonging to the IAS and IPS, now have the tendency to speak in English. They should try to inculcate the habit of using Hindi as much as they can in their day to day life, he added.

The Chhattisgarh Chief Minister, Raman Singh, said on this occasion that journalism was a mission in the pre-Independence period but now it has turned into a profession. He also stressed the need for a definite code of ethics for journalists.

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