“After almost two years… again I got blessed with the mercy (from whom, you guess). This is the third time in the last 6 years that I am leaving my job.”

My morning began with this message from Mukesh Kumar, a friend and journalist. Kumar was a teacher and dean in the media and communication department of Lovely University in Jalandhar for about two years. Yesterday, he resigned from his job. Or was made to resign. His employer, the university, felt that his presence on the campus was harmful to its interests and he should go.

This is the third job he has had to leave in these last 6 years, said Kumar. Before Lovely University, he had been removed from Shri Guru Gobind Singh Tricentenary University (SGT University), Gurgaon and Makhanlal Chaturvedi Journalism University, Bhopal. It is not very difficult to understand why he had to leave these institutions. Kumar dislikes the Bharatiya Janata Party and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

Kumar is a face well recognised by Hindi-speaking viewers. Everyone remembers his literary discussion ‘Subah Savere’ with Namvar Singh on Doordarshan. The talk shows and discussions he conducts on contemporary political and social issues on the platform of ‘Satya Hindi’ are very popular.

Kumar talks calmly. But he has firm secular and democratic values. It becomes natural then for a person like him to be critical of the BJP and the RSS. He does not pretend to be impartial, which is what many journalists claim to be when they tolerate the majoritarian ideology of the BJP or the RSS. They claim that they do not take sides between secularism and communalism. They have a duty to only report the battle between these two ideologies. It is as if they are reporting a wrestling match where they are mere observers. Kumar does not belong to this league of journalists. One can understand that a journalist should not be biased in favour of any political party in his journalism but he must be partisan towards the values of civility and refinement. Otherwise,........

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