Chander and Jyotsna Mohan's ‘Pratap: A Defiant Newspaper' emboldens patriotic legacy

The Hindu

4 days ago

In 1983, Punjab was teetering on the precipice of a communal conflict between Sikhs and Hindus. Amidst this tension, an innocuous parcel was sent to Pratap Bhavan in Jalandhar, headquarters of the revolutionary Urdu Pratap and Hindi Vir Pratap newspapers. Soon after delivery, an explosion shook the office — the parcel contained a bomb that had injured one and killed two. This haunting incident was neither the first nor the last Pratap faced until its closure in 2017. Now, four decades after the parcel bomb, journalist and author Jyotsna Mohan and her father Chander Mohan revisit their family's fiery past in their latest book, Pratap: A Defiant Newspaper (published by Harper Collins).
Jyotsna paused her book tour at Odyssey bookstore in Adyar, Chennai, for a meaningful conversation about the story, behind this story.
At the center of Pratap: A Defiant Newspaper lies family history — persevering through remembrance — from the recollection of various events surrounding the newspaper, to the personal experiences of Chander's father Virendra, who was Bhagat Singh's jailmate before the latter's unjust hanging.
But the book is by no means simply a personal tale — it is an account of a newspaper held together by a belief that truth is, simply put, non-negotiable. Interspersed with personal accounts and news reporting, the book is a look into a generation of principled journalists dedicated to truth and not to playing sides. Jyotsna's great-grandfather Mahashay Krishan, the founder of Pratap, reportedly said: 'News editors and journalists are not vendors. We are not here to sell the news. We have one duty and that is to be upright and to speak truth to power.' The father-and-daughter duo certainly remains uncompromising in this belief throughout their book.
Jyotsna has seen the evolution of journalism through her 30-year stint in both newsrooms and newspapers. When asked about the importance of legacy and defiance in the arena of journalism, she says, 'Defiance to me is the act of speaking up. Not necessarily being anti-establishment, but about flagging the uncomfortable and speaking about what is wrong.'
She says defiance is a rare quality in journalism today, since it almost always comes with a personal cost. Her own family's experiences and Pratap's unfortunate closure are a living, burning example of this. This story was one kept buried for years within her family, and Chander questioned whether anyone would even want to read it. But Jyotsna believes otherwise, that the book plugs a gap in the collective memory of Punjab's troubled past, reaching further back than most mainstream accounts. 'It's not just a North Indian story,' she says. 'It's a story anyone, anywhere, can connect with.'
In its defiant telling, Pratap: A Defiant Newspaper becomes more than just a chronicle of one family's legacy — it becomes a meditation on what journalism once stood for, and what it can still be. As the media navigates increasingly difficult terrain, this book reminds us that the act of bearing witness is not always loud, but it is always vital.