It was disturbing to see a once distinguished Urdu newspaper journalist of Lahore working as a small shopkeeper in Liverpool in England. Seeing me in a state of shock he said: “No worries, here I earn more than any Lahore newspaper journalist, I have my own house, have free medical treatment, and best of all, the police do not beat me up”.

Having myself been through the ropes of dicey newspaper owners, cruel rulers and ruthless police, it made ample sense. Most readers would have no idea of the large number of Pakistani journalists who fled home or were exiled and now live peacefully in lands foreign, especially Britain. Quite a few returned but then they now pursue non-journalistic pastimes. But as with exiled journalists, the story of Lahore’s once leading newspapers also needs to be told, even though it provides a ‘direction’ of sorts.

In 1963 the military under Ayub Khan pressurised a historic newspaper ‘The Civil & Military Gazette’ of Lahore to close. In 1996, the military under Ziaul Haq forced Jinnah-founded newspaper The Pakistan Times of Lahore to close. Lahore has certainly been the poorer since, if much poorer is not a better description.

Guns invariably overcome reason, at least in the short run. But the damage of military rule to every country that has experienced it is the creation of a corrupt society. The worst thing to happen is that the military itself becomes commercialised, a gross illegality in itself and an act that increasingly damages the institution. But that is a different subject as we are to discuss the end role of these two great Lahore newspapers.

My connection with both these ‘lost’ publications was, firstly, because my father was the last editor of the C&MG Lahore. Secondly, as I was a staff reporter in the ‘PT’ (Pakistan Times) of Lahore which under the Gen Ziaul Haq appointed Editor Z.A. Suleri who managed to close the newspaper for being a ‘den of communists’. Imagine!

There is absolutely no doubt that military dictatorships, even invisible ones, ultimately are undemocratic and anti-people in nature. Experience over time and countries tell us that they lead to corruption as a way of life. A difference of opinion, the very hallmark of the thinking people, is interpreted as an ‘unpatriotic’ act. But the loss of two such magnificent newspapers is something we should all know more about.

First, let us briefly recall the history of The Civil & Military Gazette of Lahore that was located on The Mall where today stands the ‘ugly looking’ Panorama Centre. This amazing historic newspaper started publication in 1872 set up by E.A. Smedley, a Cambridge scholar. Known the world over as Rudyard Kipling’s newspaper, it is now consigned to archives, mostly digital, the world over. It closed on August 30, 1963, a victim of constant military pressure exerted through the last owner, a textile magnate.

But researchers today know this newspaper for its amazing newspaper archives. I am not sure just who he sold those to but rumour among the journalists has it that he sold it to an American buyer for over $1.0 million those days. In 1963 the PKR to USD ratio was Rs4.76. That today would mean USD 57m. The digital copies of the C&MG archives exist in most good universities the world over.

My memory of the C&MG Lahore was as school boy visiting my father’s office where he made me sit in Kipling’s huge leather chair. That is the sole memory of that newspaper, except that my father had a heart attack and two months later the paper closed. The owner visited the hospital the very next day and left an envelope. After he left, my mother opened the envelope and it was my father’s dismissal letter.

The C&MG was founded in Lahore and Simla in 1872. It was a merger of three newspapers, The Mofussilite of Calcutta, the Lahore Chronicle of Lahore and the Punjab Times of Lahore. The Lahore and Simla editions of the newspaper continued to be published till 1949 when the Simla edition closed. The C&MG began publishing in Karachi a week before its branch in Simla closed. However, the C&MG in Karachi was very short lived lasting a mere four years. It is known among the researchers as Rudyard Kipling’s newspaper, for he himself referred to it as his ‘mistress and most true love’. His father who was the curator of the Lahore Museum secured him a job in 1882 as an assistant editor and he entered journalism after failing to get a scholarship to Oxford. His editor, Stephen Wheeler, made sure he followed the English language as prescribed by the Oxford Dictionary.

In 1886, the new editor, Kay Robinson, noticed that the young man had a ‘flowery flair’ and suggested that he should contribute short stories. The first collection of those C&MG stories was reproduced in book form, titled Plain Tales from the Hills, a collection of 28 short stories. Rudyard Kipling left the C&MG in 1887 to join The Pioneer of Allahabad. He grew up to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. The C&MG grew to become one of British India’s finest newspapers and this continued to be the case after 1947.

After Lahore lost the C&MG due to military pressure, much later the Jinnah-founded The Pakistan Times followed suit. This newspaper had the finest collection of progressive journalists under the ownership of Mian Iftikharuddin, initially a Lahore-based Congress politician who joined the Muslim League of Jinnah in 1946, with the poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz as the editor. The organisation was called Progressive Papers.

After the arrest of Faiz in the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case in 1951, the new editor was Mazhar Ali Khan. In April 1959, the military ruler created the National Press Trust and nationalised the newspaper. Mazhar Ali Khan and other progressive journalists’ immediately resigned. It followed a long reign of terror with Gen Ziaul Haq going out of his way to persecute the journalists of The Pakistan Times.

My personal experience as reporter in the PT was that whenever Gen Zia met me at the airport, he gave me an extra warm handshake, which meant trouble. After a series of police beatings, including a five-flog experience, the ZA Suleri era saw the newspaper close. The legacy of Jinnah from that point onwards has never mattered to all our rulers, tall claims aside.

As I recalled all the journalists who had to flee from English-language newspapers, the Urdu Press was no less. The PPP-oriented Urdu-newspaper Musawat suffered the same fate. Its journalists were arrested and flogged. Quite a few of them are still in England. There they live in peace though their minds and hearts, let alone tears, always live in Lahore. Sadly, even worse times have unfolded, with journalists being shot dead in lands foreign and local. The truth hurts, always.

Published in Dawn, December 15th, 2024