Dayal joins Editors Guild of India

By Matters India Reporter

New Delhi: John Dayal, a veteran journalist and leading human rights activist, has been invited in a special way to the executive committee of the Editors Guild of India.

The guild was created in 1978 in the post-emergency period, to protect the freedom of the press and raise the standards of editorial leadership of newspapers and magazines.

The first meeting of the committee was convened November 2, where the members addressed various issues ranging from media freedom, ethics to protection of journalists’ rights.

The guild’s president is The Citizen editor Seema Mustafa.

The new members of the guild’s executive committee are Sakal Media Group consulting editor (Delhi) Vijay Naik, Dainik Bhaskar group editor Prakash Dubey, NDTV editorial director Sonia Singh, The Quint editor-in-chief Raghav Bahl, Scroll editor Naresh Fernandes, Malayala Manorama executive editor Jayant Mammen Mathew, and India Today former managing editor Dilip Mandal.

The committee also includes Professor M D Nalapat; The Telegraph national affairs editor Sankarshan Thakur, Madras Courier editor-in-chief Shrenik Rao, Nai Duniya chief editor Shahid Siddiqui, The Hindu (Delhi) resident editor Amit Baruah, Satyahindi.com founding editor Ashutosh, Hindustan Times’ Kumkum Chadha, Nai Duniya (Delhi) former resident editor Suresh Bafna.

Besides Dayal, Indian Currents consulting editor, the list of special invitees includes The Tribune former editor in chief Harish Khare.

Dayal is a veteran journalist and human rights and Christian political activist. He is a member of the National Integration Council of India, secretary-general of the All India Christian Council and a past president of the All India Catholic Union. He is currently the spokesperson of the union. He has been outspoken in opposition to communal polarization, bigotry and the spread of hatred between religious communities.

Dayal was born in New Delhi to Christian parents from southern India. He studied Physics at Delhi’s prestigious St. Stephen’s College, before deciding to become a journalist. He served as war correspondent or foreign correspondent in the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and Europe.

He became editor and CEO of the Delhi Mid Day, an afternoon newspaper, and treasurer of the Editors’ Guild of India. Dayal has headed the governing boards of several colleges of Delhi University, and has taught as a visiting teacher at several universities in north India.

The Editors Guild was founded after eminent editors of 1970s realized that the lack of an organized forum of editors was a reason for the sustained suppression of press freedom during the 21-month Emergency the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed in 1975.

The Editors Guild took up the issues of abuse of press freedom with the Parliament and Executive, and campaigned hard for restoring the press freedom and other freedoms which had been taken away by amendments to the Constitution, executive orders and judicial pronouncements. The freedom to report of proceedings of Parliament (Feroze Gandhi Act) which was taken away in 1976 was restored.

The Guild continued to take up the threats to press freedom when the governments of Tamil Nadu and Bihar attempted to bring draconian defamation laws. Similarly, when the central government proposed an even harsher anti-defamation act in 1986, the Guild led the nationwide protests which forced the executive to shun its plans.

In 2001 when the then government brought the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, it had provisions like preventive detention on basis of mere suspicion of journalists. The guild protested and ensured that when the ordinance was converted into an act of parliament, these threats to press freedom were not there.

The threats to media freedom from non-governmental sources have been resisted strongly by the Guild, especially in militancy affected regions of North, East and North Eastern regions.

The Guild has also striven to improve standards of newspaper editors. It has brought a code of ethics of editors. Whenever editors complain of harassment from those in authority, the Guild investigates and recommends action to the governments and institutions.