New Delhi: Democracies flourish when media informs, asks meaningful questions, and encourages informed public debate while respecting facts, maintaining credibility and adhering to the highest professional standards, asserted Vice-President C.P. Radhakrishnan while addressing the 80th Foundation Day celebrations of the Organiser Weekly at the national capital’s India Habitat Centre on Friday.
Freedom of the press is meaningful only when exercised with courage and responsibility, he said.
“Born in one of the most turbulent moments in our national history. Few publications can claim to have witnessed documented and participated in India’s journey from the very dawn of India’s Independence,” he added.
The Vice-President described the publication’s journey as one of “continuity, resilience and sustained commitment to public discourse across generations”.
Referring to the legal challenge it faced against censorship in 1949, Vice-President Radhakrishnan said it marked the first such step in Independent India.
“The history of Organiser can not be separated from the history of free expression in Independent India. In 1949, it faced censorship for raising issues concerning Hindus in Pakistan and fought it out in the Supreme Court,” he reminded.
“The legal battle became a landmark in the evolution of media freedom,” Vice-President Radhakrishnan said.
He referred to the newspaper’s engagement with issues relating to Jammu and Kashmir, the Praja Parishad movement, national security during the wars with China and Pakistan, Swadeshi, the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and several other significant developments in India’s public life.
Paying tribute to the publication’s role during the Emergency, the Vice-President noted that Organiser and its sister publication ‘The Motherland’ became rallying points for those committed to safeguarding constitutional democracy.
He said that such moments remind us that press freedom derives its true value when exercised with courage.
He stressed that the Organiser’s eight decades of documentation constitute an important archival record of India’s political, social and intellectual evolution and provide a valuable window into the evolution of Hindutva discourse in Independent India.
Congratulating Bharat Prakashan Limited, the editorial team and readers on this significant milestone, Vice-President Radhakrishnan said that true to its tagline, “Voice of the Nation”, Organiser has consistently brought to the forefront issues that many preferred to overlook.
He also released ‘Hindutva Discourse After Independence – Reading With Organiser Pages’ written by Prafulla Ketkar and Gautam Choubey, and the book ‘Temples Beyond Bharat’ by Ujwala Chakradeo.
Referring to an earlier observation by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh General Secretary Dattatreya Hosabale at the event, the Vice-President noted that the Organiser has rather served as the “voice of the soul of the nation”, guided not by any narrow or self-serving motive but by an abiding commitment to the larger national interest.
“There’s only one thought that Mother Bharat one day should be the most powerful nation in the world,” he iterated.
Among those present at the venue were Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Sarkaryavah Dattatreya Hosabale; Bharat Prakashan Limited Managing Director Arun Kumar Goyal; the Organiser editor Prafulla Ketkar; and RSS Delhi Prant Chief Anil Aggarwal.
(IANS)
