Editorial Policy at The Inquilab - 1

Inquilab was initially a pro-congress paper when it begun pre-independence in 1938. Run by a freedom struggler himself, it was not in praise of what the British did. But the Inquilab employees claim he wasn’t an extremist he was a moderate.

In his biography, “Abdul Hameed Ansari – Inquilab Founder and Freedom Struggler” by Javed Jamaluddin, published recently it talks about his imprisonment. Abdul Hameed Ansari was imprisoned for a year on charges of treason. He was imprisoned at the Yerawada Jail in Pune for a year.

When I asked Qutubuddin Shahid, Sub-editor at Inquilab, he said that Abdul Hameed Ansari was jailed with Mahatma Gandhi, they were apparently jail mates at Yerawada. Thus they must have been good friends so if Mahatma Gandhi was moderate, obviously he was moderate too, whatever reason he must have had for the imprisonment.

I decided to read the Biography and realized that while he was with the Hilal as the editor, he managed to let an article get printed due to which he was arrested and a case filed against him. The article described the process of manufacturing a bomb. It provided a step-by-step process.

For argument’s sake we may agree that he may not be an extremist, but an editor who lets a How-to-build-your-bomb instruction manual in his paper is beyond all logic not moderate.

Post Independence
Post independence, it became anti-establishment, continuously questioning policy decisions and judgments.

In the period post independence but preceding the Emergency, being anti-establishment meant being anti-Congress because they were the only ones who were in control for 30 years, but Inquilab played a diplomatic role wherein they criticized policies and decisions or lower level authorities but the lashes from their criticism was never to be anti-Nehruvian. The Inquilab never wrote anything against the Nehru or Gandhi family.

Inquilab was a lot like the Blitz then, it was anti-establishment to the core but never touched the ruling family.

The period between 1991 and 99 have been documented in another section and have not been mentioned here to avoid repetition.

(Continued in Part - 2)