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'Frontier Magazine' Faces Threat: Defend 'Frontier'

By Farooque Chowdhury

14 March, 2015
Countercurrents.org

Frontier, probably, the thinnest and the most-plain appearing English weekly from Kolkata, a city with protest and politics, resistance and revolution, faces threat. Frontier itself stood as a rebel, and stood for rebels, the rebels of the flaming 70s.

It’s impossible to forget the reports Frontier carried from the flaming fields of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Punjab, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal in the ‘70s, the decade that warriors of class struggle dreamed and struggled to make the Decade of Liberation. Its headlines tell many parts of the struggle and valiant sacrifice: “The Srikakulam Story”, “Hunt for Naxalites”, “Naxalite Pisoners in Kerala”, “Berhampore Jail Killing”, “Dum Dum Jail Massacre”, “Lessons From Birbhum”. The weekly is still carrying on the torch of critical viewpoint and the spirit of human liberty.
Now, the weekly is facing a threat.

The threat to Frontier is an old threat. And, it’s a new threat. It’s a new threat of eviction from its office. And, it’s a threat from the old power of expansion by capital.

Press reports from Kolkata said: A quarter is threatening Frontier to evict its office. A newspaper reporter’s enquiry found two types of replies from the quarter. One was a straight denial while the other was a clear threat even to the reporter looking into the issue. There’s an ambiguity in the way Frontier is dealt with.

Abhijit Ghosh-Dastidar, media critic and retired Chief Post Master General writes in The Statesman, Kolkata: There is pressure on Frontier to surrender the premise without any lawful reason. Recently a number of persons entered the office without permission of the editor, and measured the floor with the ulterior motive of constructing a building there. He adds: “Without any due process of law, and violating natural justice, land sharks, real estate promoters and goons are trying to uproot Frontier from its lawful office premises”. Frontier is in the premise for the last 47 years. The editor has lodged FIR with the police. Abhijit writes: “The continuance and publication of Frontier is threatened. It will be a tragedy for free press and honest and independent journalism, if the publication is uprooted and shutdown. The … greed for new building construction [is] attempting to terminate a humanist voice of social ethics and rationality.”

Whatever the face the quarter likes to present the fact is: It’s a threat to Frontier. The issue turns significant as it’s difficult to perceive a Kolkata of rebellion and questioning all authorities without Frontier.

The weekly was initiated in 1968 by Samar Sen, a rare personality, a hero to many rebels. Samar Sen, a leading poet to many readers of modern Baanglaa literature, was uncompromising on issues of principles. With this approach to principles, a rare attribute in the period of auction of soul by self, Samar Sen left a top post of an English daily from Kolkata, left the post of editor of Now, a journal owned by a cabinet member in New Delhi in the mid-’60s. The Now-episode actually turned into an issue of left and right outlook. The episode was followed by the birth of Frontier. It was a collective support by Samar Sen’s friends and well wishers. They formed a trust. “The expected amount of initial capital [of the trust]”, Partha Chatterjee, a member of the close circle supporting Frontier, narrates, “could not be collected. But the circulation of the paper surpassed expectations and hence, the paper became self-financing and there was no difficulty in running it in the initial phase. In the midst of events like the Bangladesh war, dominance of Indira Congress, suppression of Naxalites, political feuds, etc., those whose voice had no place in large papers or those who were only abused as anti-nationals found a space in Frontier. (“Samar Sen, The Sense of Commitment-I”, Frontier, March 8-14, 2015) Samar Sen had to pay a high price for all the stands he took. Sometimes there was none standing by him. Samar Sen died in 1987. But Frontier’s fight continues. Timir Basu took over the task.

Now, Timir Basu as the undaunted Frontier editor, still facing difficulty while Frontier is standing against mainstream. It has become a symbol of resistance to capital’s onslaught. Now, friends of Frontier should join together to defend Frontier, the new generation should come forward to defend Frontier.

Farooque Chowdhury is freelancer from Dhaka.






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