Renowned jour­nal­ist and ed­i­tor, fa­mous colum­nist of Be­tween the Lines in the In­dian Ex­press for many years, mem­ber of the in­fa­mous Pun­jabi group in Delhi, Kuldip Na­yar passed away at the ripe age of 95 af­ter a brief ill­ness. The au­thor pre­sents a peep into how he cov­ered the Sikhs and the Pun­jab prob­lem.

A votary of Pun­jab, Pun­jabi and Pun­jabiat, Kuldip Na­yar who was an Urdu jour­nal­ist be­fore switch­ing over to Eng­lish was al­ways keen to be play to play a role in the so­cio-po­lit­i­cal scene in the Pun­jab. He cam­paigned for unity of Pun­jabs and peace in the re­gion. How­ever, he used his close­ness with the pow­ers that be to drown Sikh dis­sent and to re­duce Sikh de­mands only into an eco­nomic con­text.

To his credit, he did work to di­min­ish the so-called Black List of Sikhs when he was ap­pointed High Com­mis­sioner to UK dur­ing the brief tenure of the In­der Ku­mar Gu­jral gov­ern­ment. He was also a staunch sup­porter of unity of the two Pun­jabs. As ed­i­tor of the In­dian Ex­press, he op­posed tooth and nail, the emer­gency im­posed by the gov­ern­ment of In­dira Gandhi.

For a se­nior jour­nal­ist and ed­i­tor of his stature, it was highly ironic that af­ter the pub­li­ca­tion of his bi­og­ra­phy Be­yond the Lines in which he mixed fact with fic­tion, he had to apol­o­gise to the Sikh com­mu­nity for er­ro­neous facts. He called Sant Bhin­dran­wale names in a rather foul lan­guage in the chap­ter Pun­jab in Flames in his book.

“When it came to Sikhs, Kuldip Na­yar’s jour­nal­ism was all but whataboutery and re­word­ing feed from gov­ern­ment sources.”

Though he tried many a times to bro­ker peace be­tween the gov­ern­ment of In­dia and the Sikh lead­er­ship in the con­text of the Pun­jab prob­lem, he never suc­ceeded as he failed to in­spire con­fi­dence amongst the Sikhs.

His touched the nadir of his re­la­tion­ship with the Sikh com­mu­nity and his im­age and rep­u­ta­tion was badly hit when he com­pared Sant Jar­nail Singh Bhin­dran­wale with Dera Sauda pseudo-saint Gurmeet Ram Rahim, forc­ing the apex Sikh body SGPC to bow to pres­sure from the Sikh com­mu­nity and with­draw the Shi­ro­mani Patarkar award be­stowed on him for his work as a jour­nal­ist in 2006.

“His touched the nadir of his re­la­tion­ship with the Sikh com­mu­nity and his im­age and rep­u­ta­tion was badly hit when he com­pared Sant Jar­nail Singh Bhin­dran­wale with Dera Sauda pseudo-saint Gurmeet Ram Rahim.”

It is sig­nif­i­cant to re­call how he op­posed the set­ting up a memo­r­ial to the mar­tyrs of the June 1984 In­dian on­slaught at Dar­bar Sahib. Con­tem­po­rary Sikh af­fairs chron­i­cler Ajmer Singh de­bunked his rea­son­ing and nar­rated how Kuldip Na­yar was an arm of the In­dian state to be­lit­tle the Sikhs.

When it came to Sikhs, his jour­nal­ism was all but whataboutery and re­word­ing feed from gov­ern­ment sources.

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