Annie Zaidi is known for her collection of essays, Known Turf: Bantering with Bandits and Other True Tales, which was short-listed for the Vodafone Crossword Book Award in 2010. He started writing for Karmyogi (founded by Pandit Sundarlal, himself a revolutionary Ghadarite) but he moved to Kanpur and when he was barely 23, he started publishing an independent Hindi weekly, Pratap. But heroism such as Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi showed is bound in the end to melt the stoniest hearts, melt them into one. He didn’t just shelter Bhagat Singh for a few months, allowing him space to write in the newspaper, he also facilitated a meeting between the young Jawaharlal Nehru and Chandrashekhar Azad. The first Satyagraha of Mahatma Gandhi in India i.e. He did his MBBS and MS (General Surgery) from Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Memorial Medical College (GSVM), Kanpur. BHARAT DOGRA pays tribute to a great editor and freedom fighter While several journalists and newspapers made an important contribution to the freedom movement, the contribution made by Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi and his newspaper Pratap is unique … Vidyarthi, apart from organizing peasants and raising their issues was also deeply involved with the working class movement, especially in the city of Kanpur which during his times was an industrial city. Despite facing near-constant financial distress, Vidyarthi remained fiercely independent, refusing to accept “help” from a certain ruler of a princely estate, who approached him after being criticized by Pratap. Then he met a mob that would not listen. Journalism is generally understood as a noble profession whose objective is to spread facts, question the powerful and the state and spreading awareness among populace, all deemed instrumental for the development and functioning of a vibrant democracy. One of the organisers of the tribute in Mumbai ended the meeting by posing a rhetorical question: “How many Vidyarthis are needed today?”, Also read: How India shows women her place. In his early career, Vidyarthi took an interest in the French poet and novelist Victor Hugo, and translated two of his novels namely, the Les Miserables and Ninety three. Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi (26 October 1890 – 25 March 1931) was an Indian journalist, a leader of the Indian National Congress and an independence movement activist. He was also one of the leaders of the Kisan Sabha in Kanpur. He published the articles and pamphlets written by revolutionaries, provided financial assistance and helped them to evade the colonial police. There was no question of maintaining a ‘neutral’ stance. It cites a witness having told the Commission: “Men who are absolutely above Hindu-Muslim feeling are a microscopic minority in the Congress organisation here.” The note records the fact that Congress workers were not able to rise to “that high level… loving all mankind irrespective of creed, which was attained by Ganesh Vidyarthi”. Immediately after the hanging of the three revolutionaries, a riot broke out in Kanpur and Vidyarthi took upon himself to claim the communal passions running high and stop the rioting. The Congress was the main political actor and Vidyarthi one of the most influential leaders in the United Provinces. Apart from that he also used to publish many socialist writings which helped in the intellectual development of Indian revolutionaries. His values and his remarkable courage have faded from our minds. Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Ji is on Facebook. Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi was also a prominent member of the Indian National Congress and he was served as the member of United Provinces Legislative council from 1925-1929. He was an important figure in the non-cooperation movement and the freedom movement of India, who once translated Victor Hugo's novel Ninety-Three, and is mostly known as the founder-editor of the Hindi language newspaper, Pratap. Although he was a member of Indian National Congress and an ardent followed of Gandhi Ji, he supported the revolutionaries as well. just 2 days after the hanging of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru in the Lahore Conspiracy Case. Vidyarthi thought of communalism as an imperialist construct and blamed the British for creating a divisive view of India’s history, Tripathi said. Irony stares us in the face given that UP CM Yogi Adityanath, himself accused of flaming communal tensions, decided to name the Kanpur airport after Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi. advertisement. Writer, editor, publisher, activist, elected representative, friend to young revolutionaries and, ultimately, a man of his word – Vidyarthi represents both, an ideal and a dilemma for journalists. Only 13 volunteers went for doses at the Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Memorial (GSVM) Medical College, where the trial of Sputnik vaccine was going on. From the start, his focus was the oppression of farmers and labourers. Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi threw himself in the midst of furious mobs and saved the life of thousands of innocent persons belonging to both the Hindu and Muslim communities. One of the prominent freedom fighters and a crusading journalist, also a close friend of Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad. Kanpur was a hotbed of anti-British and anti-big business political activity. He enrolled at the Kayastha Pathshala College but he couldn’t really afford to study further. But that didn’t stop him from taking a sympathetic view of young revolutionaries. – and then answered it himself: he would probably be in jail. Join Facebook to connect with Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Ji and others you may know. Niranjan Takle posed another question – what would someone like Vidyarthi do in today’s India? All rights reserved. In his almost 20 years of career as a Journalist, Vidyarthi was jailed five times (thrice for carrying publishing ‘objectionable’ content and twice for anti-British activities) faced Lathi charges and had to pay heavy fines, still nothing deterred him from fighting hand in hand with the oppressed, his crusade against communalism and the British rule. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of DailyO.in or the India Today Group. Unfortunately he became one of the victims of the riots. "I am a fighter against oppression and injustice, I have fought all my life against oppression against inhumanity and … Most of us have forgotten him and if we do hold on to the memory of his name, it is through a few colleges and an award for journalists. The name of one such person is Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi, founder editor of Hindi newspaper Pratap and restarted the monthly political magazine Prabha. A freedom fighter, friends of Indian revolutionaries and a crusading Journalist cum activist, Vidyarthi was born on 26th October 1890 in Allahabad to a middle class family. His blood is the cement that will ultimately bind the two communities. Among those killed was Vidyarthi. There is a theory that the riot was triggered by the British CID (Committee of Imperial Defence). Seven others refused after learning that a Haryana Minister tested positive for Covid-19 even after he was given one dose of a vaccine. Any analysis of present state of Journalism in the light of Carlyle’s wisdom is bound to characterize state of contemporary mainstream journalism marked by fake news, misinformation and toeing the line of Government etc. Tripathi said that our collective forgetting of this national hero is deliberate. The British polymath Thomas Carlyle’s wrote in his much celebrated work ‘Heroes and Hero Worship, (1841) “[Edmund] Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.” This observation which often gets translated as, “Journalism is the fourth pillar of democracy”, has become something of a common sense when it comes to describing the role of journalism in democratic society. The violence and bare-footed Microbiology, Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi showed is bound in the United Provinces mercy that was. 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