“Journalism demands multidimensional engagements with freedom,” according to veteran journalist B.R.P. Bhaskar. He was delivering the inaugural address of Vakkom Moulavi Memorial and Research Centre established in Vakkom in memory of Vakkom Abdul Khadir Moulavi, a pioneer of Kerala renaissance and founder of Swadeshabhimani. Bhaskar said that “freedom is not something given on a plate free of cost, but a condition of emancipation achieved through long struggles and negotiations.” “The idea of freedom enunciated in the Constitution has meaning only when we engage it in the context of issues of emancipation and social change. Both Vakkom Moulavi and Ramakrishna Pillai still remain the stalwarts of the Indian press because they belonged to a tradition of journalism that transcended the constraints of power and money.” In fact, Moulavi and Pillai “were ahead of their time and hence their sense of social engagements had a punch of unfettered freedom,” Bhaskar said.
Delivering the lecture on “Freedom and the Press,” social critic Sunil P. Elayidam said that “the concept of freedom is actually based on a fundamental notion of justice.” And journalism, if it is to be meaningful, “needs to engage questions of justice from multiple vantage points—from gender, marginality, ecology to wider social and economic realms.” Social change and social reconstruction could be possible if journalists go beyond mere news-information distribution task. “Interpretation entrenched in the idea of justice should necessarily be a part of journalism” and this paves the way for a society with critical consciousness, Elayidam added.
Writer Sabin Iqbal chaired the meeting. K.M. Seethi welcomed the session and Sameer Munir proposed a vote of thanks.
For full text of the speeches see YouTube Coverage
