Before independence,
journalists used to get very low salaries in India. Neither the working hours
were fixed nor there was any proper arrangement for holidays. The policy of “No
work No pay” was adopted by the newspaper owners in case of illness. The
journalists had to face many such problems and miseries. For the prevention of
these problems, the journalists of the country and the states have been
demanding from time to time to investigate the newspaper industry, in which
they have been successful to a large extent.
In 1944, a committee was
appointed by the All India Hindi Journalist Association to investigate the
newspaper industry. Fifteen questions were asked by the committee, such as
name, address, title, other qualifications, salary, whether there is any rule regarding
increment etc. The answers to these
questions were quite interesting. A journalist replied – “What is the destination
of flying birds, where there is fodder, there is home. He got a job for fifty
rupees. Salary hike is not expected. There is no provision for leave even in
case of illness.”
The answer of the second
gentleman was- “My salary was sixty rupees per month. Presently he is being
paid 86 rupees. There is no provision of pension, gratuity, insurance etc”. Shri Bhola Paswan Shastri, who later became
the Chief Minister of Bihar (three times), used to work in the daily
“Rashtravani”, published from Pataliputra. His answer was – “I get fifty rupees
here. Earlier, I used to work in Rashtra Sandesh for twenty rupees”. Shri Ramkrishna Raghunath Khadilkar (Hindi Dainik
Aaj) replied – “I have been getting eighty rupees to one hundred and thirty
five rupees for working in different newspapers.”
In the year 1944, the All
India Newspaper Editors' Conference constituted an inquiry committee, which at
its Karachi session recommended a monthly salary of one hundred rupees for
English journalists and seventy-five rupees per month for vernacular
journalists. Delhi Hindi Journalist Association and Bihar Journalist
Association opposed this proposal and demanded monthly payment ranging from one
hundred to one hundred and twenty five rupees.
In 1944, Syed Abdullah
Barelvi, while presiding over the All India Newspaper Editor's Conference in
Chennai (Madras), said that journalists should be organized on the basis of
trade union. In the meantime in Punjab, the Punjab Journalists Association was
formed under the leadership of Rana Jang Bahadur Singh and A.C. Bali. This
union threatened the newspaper-owners, as a result of which the journalists
were paid good salaries in the form of dearness allowance. There was an
increase in the salary of newspaper’s journalist from Rs.60 to Rs.80. This increased
the trust of journalists towards the trade union. In 1947, a committee was
appointed by the Government of Uttar
Pradesh to investigate the difficulties faced by journalists in the state.
Similarly, the Government of Madhya Pradesh also appointed an inquiry committee
under the chairmanship of Justice Madolkar. Both the committees submitted their
reports to the respective governments, but no action was taken on them.
Meanwhile, in September
1947, an unpleasant incident took place in the daily Aaj published from Kashi.
Shrikant Thakur Vidyalankar, the then editor-in-chief of the newspaper, was
forced to quit his job. Thirteen members of the editorial division went on a one-hour
pen strike against the rude behaviour meted out to him by the newspaper owners.
However, they assured that the publication will be delivered on time and there
would be no other loss. But the owners immediately fired those thirteen
journalists. This untoward incident irked the journalists across the country
and they were forced to form a federation of journalists at the national level.
On 28 October 1950, Journalists from all over India organized a conference in
Delhi, in which the “ Indian Federation of Working Journalists” was founded.
Mr. M. Chellapati Rao was elected as the president of the federation and
Jagdish Prasad Chaturvedi as the secretary.
In March 1951, the
constitution of the Federation was presented for approval in its convention
held in Mumbai. According to this, it was decided that the federation will
remain a proletarian federation in true sense i.e. organisers of the newspaper will not be its members. At the same time
only those unions or associations will be recognized as members, who have been
registered as trade unions. The constitution of the federation was passed
unanimously. The representatives of the South Indian Journalists Association
did not participate in it.
In April 1952, in the
Calcutta session of the federation, a strong demand was made to the Government
of India to investigate the newspaper industry and appointed a commission. Along with this, some policy
related decisions were taken which continued to conduct the activities of the
conference for a long time. In the session, a demand was made to provide the
benefits of Labour Law, Industrial Disputes Act, Wages Act and other similar
laws to working journalists. After the formation of the federation, two journalists
of the English daily “Leader” published from Prayag were suddenly removed from
their jobs. In this one Mr. Mahipati Ram Nagar had served the newspaper for 21
years and the other Mr. Ramnathan for twenty eight years. They were neither
given retrenchment salary nor notice amount. Mr. Ramnathan had to get his
daughter married. He was so worried that he died on 13 July 1952.
The Newspaper Commission
was appointed on 23 September 1952, which submitted its report to the
Government of India in 1954. Several journalists of the country testified
before the commission under the leadership of Vinaynath Narayan Singh,
assistant editor of “The Searchlight” published from Pataliputra. Under his
leadership, the Bihar Working Journalists Union presented a very impressive
report. Mr. Singh also submitted accountable documents, as a result of which he
was fired by the Searchlight's management. Till then the journalists of the
country did not come under the purview of the definition of labourer. The result
was that even after knocking the doors of the Supreme Court, Mr. Singh could
not get any legal help. After this, Mr. Singh stayed in Delhi for some time,
but where he went is not known till date. He was the first recognized person to
be martyred on the sacrificial altar of journalistic movement.
The Indian Federation of Working
Journalists believes in the labour welfare, so it had to organize movements to
protect the rights and interests of journalists. The Indian Working Journalist
movement basically started with economic questions, but has been active in defending of newspaper’s
freedom, raising the standard of journalism, and restructuring the newspaper industry.
The other universal body
of journalists in the country is the National Union of Journalists (India),
which claims to believe in the same policy and objective as the federation.
Indian Working Journalist Federation, Press Trust of India Union, United News
Agency Union and Newspaper Employees Federation of India jointly formed a
larger federation to protect journalists and newspaper employees from
exploitation by newspaper owners. Even after this, the journalists associations
formed in the states are trying to find solutions to the problems faced by the
journalists of the country in different states and newspapers.
(Author
is a technocrat and educationist. He studied Journalism and Mass Communication
at Patna University, Patna, Bihar)
