On Authorial Views

Padma Devkota

On Authorial Views

    On February 24, 2006, The Rising Nepal published my article "Academia and TU" with a parenthetical footer that read: "The views expressed here are those of the author." (As if they could be somebody else's!) This vestige of Panchyat Regime humoured me, but it also set me thinking about the freedom of expression practiced in democratic Nepal. The need for such parenthetical footer as legal protection against possible lawsuits against Gorkhapatra Sansthan (as if my views were detrimental to an institution!) speaks loudly of the absence of exactly such freedom of expression in the media unless, of course, the footer intended to apologize to the authorities of Tribhuvan University mentioned in my article for having had to publish it. The only other reason could be that the editor is pre-appeasing the boss who might chide him for publishing such views.
    Nepal is a country where there are insufficient laws to govern it to the point of civilization. Furthermore, whatever law exists on paper is more often broken than upheld in practice. Despite this sorry reality, frequent instances of fear of being caught up in some legal issues emerge in practices that remain conventional and unquestioned. Surgeons, for example, will not operate even to save life if the patient's kin refuses to sign a legal document saying that, whatever the outcome of surgery may be, no lawsuit will be filed against them. Even if death results out of mere carelessness, they have already, literally been given a licence to kill before they perform the surgery. 
    Both in the case of authorial views and surgery, the need for legal precaution only proves the possibility of errors. However, the shifting of responsibility from the press to the author also suggests something more: it is as if the editor is telling the author, "I do not think what you say is acceptable to my boss or to the government I serve. Therefore, I am not responsible if …."
    As a writer, I have never denied, nor ever will, the responsibility of my words.
    And, this is why I was shocked to find The Kathmandu Post refuse to publish three of my articles in which I am fully responsible for the authorial views and opinions. After three failed attempts to publish it in TKP, "Can the English Teacher Speak?" was published in The Rising Nepal on February 3, 2006. The content is strictly non-political in the conventional sense. The language may be a bit too difficult for the ordinary layman, but powerfully expressive. Was it because I wrote it or because it was about the academic malpractice at Tribhuvan University that the editors refused to publish it?
    This question has haunted me against the backdrop of the larger issue of press freedom, which is a major political campaign these days. Even as mass media raises its voice against government censorship, like a toad in a serpent's mouth that instinctively flicks its tongue out at a fly, it has refused to publish non-party-political views on national higher education for some obscure reason. An "Opinion Page" of a daily newspaper should provide space for dissemination of the public's opinion, not that of the editors' or of the publishers' alone. Yet, like cab drivers who refuse to take passengers to certain destinations, editors refuse to publish certain views that do not tally with their own. Views, like destinations, are then not the public's choice. Yet, these very editors will publish letters that are stupidly defamatory and libelous of someone they do not support. Or, when they do support someone, even a mediocre is immortalized.
    By refusing to publish a critical article such as "Can the English Teacher Speak?" the press has censored an individual's right to self-expression in the same way that the government has curtailed the freedom of the press through severe censorship. Both instances are expressions of power that undermines civilization. If a free society cannot be envisioned in the absence of freedom of the press, a free intellectual cannot exist in the absence of freedom of self-expression. Freedom of the press cannot mean an opportunity for the publishers and editors to advocate their own ideologies at the expense of dissenters who hold other views on issues of national importance. It is common knowledge that TKP does not favour the present government and that TRN will not dare to oppose it. Both being thus positioned at extremities of political ideologies, none is inclined to accept the freedom that is theirs to have. Like a free intellectual, a free press should be able to stand on politically neutral ground to promote critical discussions, however lengthy, on matters of national importance.
    And, higher education is a matter of national importance. Failure of national education is failure of the state. Such a failure can only help maintain a slave's mentality. A slavish subjugation to the boss in any bureaucracy is a vestige of feudalistic fatalism. To pretend that no such thing exists or that, even if it does, it is not worth discussing would be hypocritical, or opportunistic at best. This is what the English (and other) teachers are guilty of at present. Instead of promoting academic standards, leadership in the educational field is uncritically submissive to non-academic and cantankerous encroachment in the oldest university of Nepal. Yet, when someone dares speak against this failure of academic ideals, TKP will not publish it! They deny a critical voice even as they accuse the government of stifling their press freedom.
   Wisdom lies in a disciplined critical stance that is fully aware of the dichotomy between what should convince others and what actually convinces them. The press, considered as the fourth important body part of the government, cannot afford to play a tyrant to free thought. Let it convince the public by its willingness to promote a society of disciplined dissenters rather than seek to promote favoured ideologies.