Lassa Kaul– Martyred in 1990, Abandoned in 2020!

(By: Kanwal Krishan Lidhoo)*

February 13, 1990: Director Doordarshan Kendra Srinagar, Lassa Kaul is shot dead by terrorists who considered him a stumbling block in meeting their nefarious designs. Rumours were then agog that some of his colleagues/insiders were involved in facilitating his murder by passing on the information to terrorists about his whereabouts and movements. Thirty years after his martyrdom, another set of insiders ensured that his name is abandoned from the annals of Prasar Bharati!

Giving his life in the line of duty, Lassa Kaul had worked both in Radio Kashmir Srinagar and Doordarshan Srinagar at a time when situation in Kashmir seemed to have attained the point of “No Return”. The then Governor, Jagmohan  who on January 19, 1990  was  assigned to set things in order after the elected Chief Minister abandoned  his position and responsibility,  found  it extremely difficult to  set things in order and fix the administrative machinery with its engine totally jammed. With great ache in his heart he records the same in his “Frozen Turbulence”.

The native Pandit minority of Kashmir is threatened, harassed and abused after its distinguished members fall to the bullets of militants. Nearly all of them are labelled as “Indian Agents” to be struck off from the discourse in Kashmir.

Local dailies having sensed the changing and shifting moods were adding the false narratives and perception of the alleged insurgency, actually generated by the managers across the borders and they for the reasons best known to them forgot the journalistic ethics and participated actively in this manufactured mass uprising and gladly became agent provocateurs.

The only pro India media agency rather an institution of Government of India finds itself in a very difficult position to augment resources both human and material to run its daily broadcasts. This institution being headed by a brilliant Director who was incorruptible to the core and had the unwanted reputation to tolerate no nonsense, was all out to fix responsibility in Doordarshan Kendra Srinagar. He was definitely on a long mission to combat and confront a plethora of challenges facing him.

And then there were politicians who behaved more as hereditary fiefs rather than the servants of democracy to which they occasionally offer the customary lip service. These politicians were in the habit of finding faults in whatever the Government of India did.  If something did not serve their purpose, they wailed and put cogs in the wheel under the pious mission to serve Kashmiris.  Known for extracting their pound of flesh, they were also aware of the lack of will on part of the then Central Government leadership and thus took it for granted. These very ‘Leaders’ got irked by this Director of Doordarshan  Lassa Kaul when he mounted a series of scathing public grievance programmes and exposed their omissions and commissions before the very public they looted .

Fighting Battle on Many Fronts

Lassa Kaul was thus fighting a battle on many fronts. Added to his vows was the fact that the writ of the state was not running during those crucial times. He had sensed the danger of it as all his fears were based on facts. Finding no one to listen to his distressed calls he for a while avoided being seen on the familiar routes and mostly imprisoned himself within the walls of his office which by now had become a fortification of sorts. The filial bond however gave way. He desperately wanted to attend to his very sick father and having already sent his family to Delhi, decided to visit the ailing father like the dutiful son he was on that fateful evening of thirteenth February, 1990…… The ambush of the evil terrorists had worked. Bullets pierced his head and abdomen. An illustrious son of the soil, a distinguished civilian, a loving innocent father to his children and an illustrious son to his parents laid his life for the country.

Lassa Kaul Award for National Integration

The government honoured him by instituting an award in his memory. The Special category award “Lassa Kaul Award for National Integration” would be given every year to the best such All India Radio programme.  The last Akashvani Annual Awards ceremony was held in 2019 when Shri Prakash Javadekar was the   Union Minister of Information & Broadcasting. Even prior to 2020, many attempts were made to do away with the Lassa Kaul National Integration Award. However, it was during the tenure of Fayyaz Sheheryar, who in the capacity of Director General, All India Radio firmly put his foot down and ensured that at no stage, during his tenure, this prestigious award gets scrapped. However, soon after Sheheryar’s superannuation in December 2019, Akashvani Annual Award Ceremony was altogether stopped for unknown reasons. Interestingly many professionals from Radio Kashmir Srinagar and Jammu, now rechristened Akashvani Srinagar/Jammu received all these years this prestigious award, thereby affirming the bond Jammu Kashmir shares with India.  Till 2019, Producers working in other Stations of All India Radio across the country have also won prestigious Lassa Kaul National Integration award during the Akashvani Annual Award Ceremonies when the   national consciousness would get stirred every year and the memory of this great son of Kashmir would be revisited. The tragedy would be lived on this occasion to affirm the belief “Lest We Forget” ……But forgotten he was!

All India Radio abandons Lassa Kaul

It is tragic that Prasar Bharati’s institution of All India Radio has abandoned the annual presentation of this award altogether for the past four years!  It is more intriguing that in a proposal mooted in 2022-23, some of the ignorant and unprofessional top rung of Akashvani/Prasar Bharati, who seem to possess no idea what broadcasting is all about, had the temerity to do away with Lassa Kaul National Integration award! Ironically, there is also not a single portrait of Lassa Kaul available in any of Prasar Bharati’s offices in Jammu and Kashmir or even at main offices of Akashvani and Doordarshan Directorates or at Prasar Bharati Secretariat!  Same is the fate of M.L Manchanda, an Officer of All India Radio, Patiala, Punjab, who was abducted on 18th May 1992 by terrorists. His beheaded body was found in Patiala on 27th May 1992, while the head was found in Ambala.

Akashvani is an institution that swears day in and day out of aiding and fulfilling Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream of a prosperous and fabulous India with inbuilt messages and mission to honour the patriotic citizens. The irony being that Lassa Koul who was the one among the ranks of the institution of All India Radio and who  laid his life while fighting the enemies of Mother India should altogether be  abandoned and forgotten and  the discontinuation of presentation of  this prestigious award in his memory is indeed a pity. Perhaps neither the Honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi nor his government is aware of this gross misconduct prevailing in All India Radio’s establishment. Even the present CEO Prasar Bharati, Gaurav Dwivedi must have been kept in dark while abandoning Lassa Kaul.

If it is so—- it must be then beyond All India Radio!

Pandit Lassa Koul is a national icon and will continue to be so.

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*Kanwal Krishan Lidhoo, a Renowned Broadcaster and Author is an accredited translator of Kashmiri, Urdu and Hindi by Sahitya Akademi New Delhi and Indian Institute of Languages Mysore. He is a Patron of Kashmir Rechords and can be accessed at kklidhoo@gmail.com