Being Holed Up For 32 Hours In Gorkhapatra Office

 Yuba Nath Lamsal

The journey of 28 years in the Gorkhapatra Corporation is mixed with excitement, turbulence, and challenges. There were days when Gorkhapatra used to be a synonym for a newspaper in Nepal. Many people used to call The Rising Nepal as the Gorkhapatra in English (Angreji ko Gorkhapatra). 

When I joined The Rising Nepal, it was perhaps the only broadsheet English daily in Nepal. So was Gorkhapatra in Nepali. Several tabloids, mostly weeklies, were definitely in abundance in the private sector. Gorkhpatra has a proud history as well as a university of Nepali journalism. Only a few newspapers in our region and around the world have such a long history as the Gorkhapatra is endowed with.

I joined Rising Nepal in the heydays of the panchayat system. Being the mouthpiece of the government, the Gorkhapatra Corporation’s publications definitely carried the government’s views on political matters, which they have been doing till now. But it widely covered social, economic, and other issues. The private media was heavily partisan.

During the Panchayat, political parties and party activities were banned. The Gorkhapatra publication definitely gave the least coverage to political parties and party leaders. But the private papers’ political leanings were visible.

They were mostly against the ruling Panchayat regime and had allegiance to certain political ideologies and parties. Gorkhapatra publications used to face the charge from the private press journalists that Gorkhapatra’s publications were the government’s mouthpiece and did not serve the people. Gorkhapatra publications face this charge even today. I remember one of my colleagues quipping to counter that charge and saying, "The Rising Nepal serves the people by serving the government".

Almost a year after I joined The Rising Nepal, a people’s movement for democracy broke out in the country, demanding democracy and greater freedom. No criticism or critical views were allowed against the Panchayat system, the monarchy, or the royal family. Criticising the king, royal family, and Panchayat system was treated as treason and accordingly punished. Such were the draconian rules. Panchayat used to be called the system rooted and suited in Nepal’s soil, whereas monarchy is the only custodian of Nepal’s sovereignty. Such was the narrative created by the Panchayat regime and its bootlickers.

In newspaper journalism, the print devil often occurs, although it should not always be taken for granted. But print devils used to be dangerous when it involved the news and names of royalties. Those were the days when a slight misspelling regarding the monarchy and royal family was punishable. Once in the advertisement, ‘smoking is injurious to health,' the word smoking was printed as ‘smo king’ separately. When it got printed, an inquiry was made about how it occurred. Journalists and proofreaders used to be alert and afraid.

 The royal palace circulars used to be printed on the upper-right corner of the fourth page of The Rising Nepal. The Royal Palace staff used to directly call the newsroom and dictate the royal palace circular. It was primarily the job of the journalist who was on the ‘Link’ shift, which is to coordinate between the day desk and night desk. The royal palace circular has to be correctly noted down and translated into English. If a slight mistake was made while doing so, it used to be a serious one.

There used to be four shifts at the news desk. Day shift, the Link (evening), the night shift, and the stone shift. Stone shift involves duty after the night shift. One who is on stone shift has to spend the whole night in the office and go home only after the first copy of the next day’s The Rising Nepal is printed. The duty of a journalist in the stone shift is to go through the first copy of The Rising Nepal and ensure that there is no mistake, especially in the news concerning the royal place and royalties.

It was the peak of the 1990 democratic movement. Rallies demanding freedom and democracy used to be a daily phenomenon on the streets of Kathmandu. I was on the stone shift. Generally, The Rising Nepal used to be printed earlier than the Gorkhapatra because, in the wee hours, TRN had less circulation than the Gorkhpatra daily. For some reason, just the reverse happened. The press section printed Gorkhapatra first. 

Thus, the Gorkhaptra colleague in the stone shift could slip away. By the time The Rising Nepal started its printing, the dusk-to-dawn curfew had already been declared. I was stuck inside the office, unable to go home. On the streets, armed soldiers and police had already started moving, and I had no option other than to remain within the office. 

I had to be in the office hungry the whole day and night. I remained holed up in the office for more than 32 hours. The next day, the government lifted curfew for an hour to let people buy essential commodities, and I rushed home. This is one of the most difficult and interesting moments I will ever forget in my long journey with The Rising Nepal.

(The author is former chief editor of this daily.)

 Published on May 7, 2023 in The Rising Nepal

https://risingnepaldaily.com/news/26430