The divide – religious and linguistic – that travelled to Independent India with the partition, were more pronounced in late 60’s and early 70s.

I would continue from where I left in my previous blog. It was all about how I got initiated into journalism. It was very interesting story and at that time when I was school going kid and I started taking interest in newspapers so my first observation was that why there were so few newspapers in Punjabi and Hindi because those days Urdu newspapers used to dominate Punjab market.

Hind Samachar was very influential newspaper followed by Pratap and Milap, also in Urdu. Hind Samachar had a Hindi newspaper called Punjab Kesari, Veer Pratap was the Hindi publication of Pratap and Hindi Milap was the publication of Milap newspaper.

In Punjabi it was Jathedar, Ajit, Akali Patrika, Qaumi Dard, and Nawan Zamana and Lok Lehar came little later but none of the Punjabi papers had any Urdu paper that provided the contrasting comparison. In 70s, came newspapers like Jagbani, Punjabi Tribune, Dainik Tribune.

The Tribune was the only English newspaper in this region and people who used to read Urdu newspapers the number was very large compared to those who would read Punjabi newspapers.

Urdu and Hindi combine those days dominated newspaper industry as Punjabi readership was not that large and English was limited only to those who are educated or those who were living in big towns like Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Patiala, Amritsar, and business towns like Khanna and Rajpura. The Tribune had limited presentation in the deep Majha and Malwa belts.

It was strange because after partition language was one of the main conflicts continued to dominate in Punjab. The Akalis at that time tried to settle down. They worked in partnership with Congress in running the state government.

At the same time they kept on reviving their demand for Punjabi Suba and Punjabi speaking state. They invariably argued that why when other states are based on linguistics why not Punjab. Why not Punjab should get a Punjabi Suba. When in 1965 master Tara Singh gave a call for Akali MLAs who were part of at that time the Congress government only very few came out of the government. The rest, more than 20, stayed back in Congress but after 1966 reorganisation, Congress and Alkalis parted ways politically.

Afterwards, they started opposing each other in elections and enjoyed taking turns in running the government in the state. That is the history everybody knows.

The post-partition period also saw Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi papers us playing an aggressive role in aggravating the linguistic divide in the State. Some Hindu leaders openly opposed declaring Punjabi as their mother tongue.

Whenever any survey or Census were conducted, they would invariably call upon their followers to declare Hindi as their mother tongue. There were Hindus who refused to follow them and would declare that they love Punjabi so much and declared Punjabi as their mother tongue. But their number was not very large,

Those days the linguistic divide was very clear. At five when I went to a Government school for admission, I was asked to write one page each in Punjabi and English. It was the only English medium school in our area as at that time there were no convent schools.

It had two linguistic groups – English and Punjabi and Hindi and English. In my Section at that time were 25 to 30 students and all came from Sikh families. The Hindi section had almost same number of students but it had four students – two boys and two girls – from Sikh families. Rest all were from Hindu families.

Though political masters were obviously trying to put behind those Gauri incidents of the 1947 partition as both – Hindu and Sikh – the commodities were trying to settle down in their new environs in Indian Punjab.

The editors of most of vernacular newspapers used to serialise editorials, at times running into 100+ parts. They invariably talked about religious, communal and linguistic divides. When the demand for Punjabi Suba grew, the communal tension also started building up.

Since The Tribune was the only English newspaper that enjoyed tremendous credibility those days and it was basically a unifying force it didn’t take sides and always stayed apolitical and opposed every linguistic, religious, or criminal divide. That is why The Tribune was the household word in Punjab those days and this is how Journalism played a role.

These divides started diminishing shortly afterwards. Better sense prevailed and people realised there was no good in getting divided and fighting each other. They agreed that the solution lay in living in peace, criminal harmony, and universal brotherhood.

By the time we entered high school in 1968 after getting admission in the Government Senior Model High School, Civil Lines, Cemetery Road, religion and language were no more criteria for admission in this prestigious school.

Only those students who had got more than 65% marks in the Middle Standard examination, got admission in A Section and rest of the students got admitted in Section B. The school management preferred students who had secured above 55% marks as the minimum criteria for admission.

In 1970 when the Punjab School Education Board held the Matriculation examination for the first time, my class fellow Rajinder Bhatia, topped the merit list in Punjab. Though he was from Hindi wing, he came from my Section.

The list of total students on the State merit list from my Section was 27 out of 150 from all over Punjab.

Vernacular press versus English press and Punjab had some very tough times but it survived and progressed to become number one state in the country.

(Prabhjot Singh is a veteran journalist with over three decades of experience of 14 years with Reuters News and 30 years with The Tribune Group, covering a wide spectrum of subjects and stories. He has covered Punjab and Sikh affairs for more than three decades besides covering seven Olympics and several major sporting events and hosting TV shows.)