Dear brethren of the press, if you need to publish your stories in the newspaper or web portal which you work for, you need to get them censored by the Ordinance for the Regulating of Printing before they could be published. Popularly known as Licensing Order of 1643, the pre-publication censorship in the 17th century England, the ordinance seems to have taken a new avatar secretly in Coimbatore during these infernal days of curfew with the outbreak of coronavirus. Hence it is the need of the hour that you must ‘sheath your swords’ and button your lips to any injustice that you come across on your respective beats.
Dear brethren of the press, if you need to publish your stories in the newspaper or web portal which you work for, you need to get them censored by the Ordinance for the Regulating of Printing before they could be published. Popularly known as Licensing Order of 1643, the pre-publication censorship in the 17th century England, the ordinance seems to have taken a new avatar secretly in Coimbatore during these infernal days of curfew with the outbreak of coronavirus. Hence it is the need of the hour that you must ‘sheath your swords’ and button your lips to any injustice that you come across on your respective beats.
Gone are those days of active journalism when S.P Narasimhalu Naidu, a yesteryear journalist, writer, thinker, and social reformer, brought the corrupt government officials to light through Koyamuthur Kalanidhi, a bilingual newspaper edited by him in Coimbatore in 1881. A journalist with a social cause, Narasimhalu exposed three government officials named Govindaraja Mudhaliar, Munilal Singh, and Ayyalu Naidu for getting a bribe of Rs 70 from the members of a poor family. The government, having gone through the news in Koyamuthur Kalanidhi, did not hesitate to award appropriate punishments to the trio. The media and state, which were known for their honesty, respected each other, and worked for the uplift of society those days.
A pioneering journalist, Narasimhalu had a flair for writing to newspapers even while he was in his teens. Later on, while writing on the need for launching his newspaper, Narasimhalu pointed out:
“Since my writings had constructive criticism on the government and were intended to expose the corrupt government officials, the editors of several newspapers refused to publish my stories in fear of getting arrested. Therefore I thought of starting a newspaper of my own to communicate information between the people and the government. By doing so, I could inform people on various welfare schemes of the government and, at the same time, take the social issues to the government.”
While many newspapers feared to publish such ‘objectionable’ articles even in the later years of the 19th century, it is no wonder to think about the freedom of the press in the present age. However, creating a landmark in the history of the press, renowned English poet John Milton emphasized the freedom of expression against the Licensing Order of 1643 in his pamphlet titled Areopagitica.
Milton argued in the pamphlet that God endowed every person with reason, free will, and conscience to judge ideas for themselves. Hence the ideas in a writer’s text should be rejected by the reader's own choice, and not by a licensing authority.
During these days of lock-down, temples are shut down and Gods have zipped their lips.
Just look at the Avinashi Lingeshwarar Temple, which is one of the seven celebrated Siva shrines of Kongunadu. With ‘Nasam’ meaning ‘evil’ and ‘Vinasam’ ‘greater evil’, the word takes its opposite as ‘Avinasam’ which means ‘No greater evil’. Therefore, God ‘Avinashi’ conveys the meaning of His name as ‘The killer of greater evils’.
But today, He too stands as a mute spectator to all injustices in fear of getting jailed in His home town ‘Avinashi’.
At a time, when the Almighty Himself stands indifferent to such injustices, you journalists, how dare you wield your pens against wrongs!