Ramdhari Singh Dinkar is a poet of radical nationalist stream of thought of post ‘Chhayawad’ period. During the period, when the entire nation was vehemently protesting against colonialism and the British brutality with the native Indians, the poets of ‘Chhayawad’ were indulging in writing ‘Juhi ki kali’ (Bud of Jasmine), ‘Pallav’ (New Foliage) and ‘Neehar’ (Fog) etc. Their ‘Chhayawadi’ mind (the mind which lived in the realm of shadow) had hardly any care, concern and anguish for the pangs of native Indians. This led Dinkar to term ‘Chhayawadi’ poets as ‘Poets in exile’. He, castigating those poets, wrote, ‘O Poets in exile!Your lyrics are the lyrics of collar, tie and clean clothes. In them is the fragrance of perfume and scented oil, not the wet-earthen smell. In them one finds the colour of lipstick and chemical mixture, not the greenery of the new tender leaves of poetry. Dinkar’s poem started a huge revolution against the elite poetry of ‘Chhayawadi’ poets which was extremely intangible, over-imaginative and cloying and which also lacked social reality and national consciousness. Dinkar is a poet of both beauty and revolution but he firmly believed that when the motherland is enchained and people are hungry then it can hardly be the time for the worship of beauty. He moved on the path of revolutionary poetry. His poem ‘Himalaya’ included in ‘Renuka’ is the originating point of his poetic genius as well as the portrayal of his nationalist temperament and extreme love for his motherland. There is a long list of Dinkar’s nationalist and patriotic poems but ‘Delhi and Moscow’ is the finest example of his radical nationalist temperament in which he completely exposes the hollowness of Left-Intellectuals’ opposition to ‘Quit India’ movement. Unfortunately, this intellectual hollowness of left intellectuals continues unabated even today, rather it has exponentially increased in recent times. The ‘Quit India’ movement was a kairotic moment in the fight against colonial forces. This was also the period of the second world-war. In the beginning, Hitler had entered into a compromise with Stalin but later he breached the compromise and attacked Soviet Union. Because of this the Indian communists started supporting the British and opposed the ‘Quit India’ movement. They supported the colonialists against the nationalists. Remember this extreme irony that the intellectual lineage of the same pseudo intellectuals keeps claiming today that the nationalist organization RSS didn’t play any role in the Indian freedom movement. Only God knows, in whom they don’t believe, that from where they derive their moral authority and logical potential to claim so. This was the period when the Indian intellectuals had divided themselves into two blocks of nationalists and communists. Hitler had declared that it would only require ten weeks for him to capture Moscow. The Russian put up a stiff resistance. The German army had kept St. Petersburg besieged for three years but couldn’t capture it. The communists of the entire world saw in it a great retaliatory struggle. The Indian Poet Shiv Mangal Singh Suman, who had a strong inclination towards communism had written: “जब बहादुरी की चर्चा हो, एक नाम हो स्टालिनग्राड, जब न बंधे-बंधे लहम्मत तो एक नाम हो स्टालिनग्राड” (Whenever there is a talk of bravery, give it only one name, Stalingrad, When you feel defeated, take only one name Stalingrad) After the failure of the Germans to reach Moscow, Shiv Mangal Singh Suman had written in a tone of celebration that: “दस हफ्ते दस साल हो गये, मॉस्को अभी भी दूर है” (Ten weeks have lengthened into ten years but Moscow is still far). This was a period of great moral and intellectual crisis for India. The time around which the fight against the colonialism was at its culminating point and the shackles of slavery were about to be broken then for the Indian communists the independence of Delhi didn’t matter much, for them Moscow was more important. This was in the background of this very moral, intellectual and ideological crisis that Dinkar showed his moral and intellectual courage and affirmed his commitment to Delhi through his popular poem ‘Delhi and Moscow’. It was probably in response to Suman’s Moscow glorifying poem ‘मॉस्को अभी दूर है’. Marxism stands for internationalism by rejecting nationalism. Its commitment is to the world philosophy of Marxism. During this period Soviet Union was their only stronghold. So, when Mahatma Gandhi gave the clarion call of ‘Quit India’ movement, the communists of India were bothered for the safety of Soviet Union and for them the Indian independence was a non-issue. Dinkar writes in his essay ‘साहित्य और राजनीति’ included in his masterpiece ‘मिट्टी की ओर’ that: “We are the members of a subjugated nationality. The undue adulation of Internationalism will cause the decline of our national strength. Nationality is our greatest religion and slavery is our biggest problem. Those seeking to put us under the delusion of Internationalism and want to divert our focus from Delhi to elsewhere, are certainly deceiving us.” Dinkar had always been a fiery spokesperson of Indian Independence. He further writes: “We respect Moscow but each drop of our blood is committed to Delhi. Until Delhi is far, it doesn’t matter at all to us whether Moscow is near or far. One who belongs to a slave country belongs only to his own country. How can he hope to be a world persona? And who will allow the slaves to sit along with the world citizens? Until the chains of Delhi break the slogan of Internationalism are fruitless and meaningless.” He says that any attempt to build a relationship with the universal humanity will be false if we ignore the slavery of Delhi and become restive for the sake of Moscow. He writes: “जहाँ मृग सम्बन्ध विश्व-मानवता से नर जोड़ रहा है, जन्मभूमि का भाग्य जगत की नीति-शिला पर फोड़ रहा है” (Where men are getting into false bonding with world humanity, They are smashing their motherland’s fate on the policy-rock of world-politics.) Dinkar in his poem ‘Delhi and Moscow’ further writes against

The famous Mexican poet and diplomat Octavio Paz Lozano who had also been named Mexico’s ambassador to India in 1962 had once remarked, When hypocrisy is a character trait, it also affects one’s thinking, because it consists in the negation of all the aspects of reality that one finds disagreeable, irrational or repugnant. His observance stands completely correct, if you deeply analyze the deep-seated sorry state of affairs in the Indian English Mainstream Media, the arcane agenda it loves to air openly and the hypocrisy that it loves to wear brazenly on its sleeves in the process. Hypocrisy has been the hallmark of the Indian English Media. The one thing that they can’t stop doing is to cant continuously. The English Media have been preaching since long to beef up the representation of SC/ST judges in the Supreme Court. Their hearts bleed to see a miniscule representation of SC/ST judges in the apex Court of the Country. They have been giving this sanctimonious sermons to the Supreme Court for quite long, despite the fact that the Supreme Court has declined reservation in higher judiciary. This sermons-delivery process has regained its momentum once again after the Supreme Court’s verdict on the misuse of SC/ST Act. From time to time, some Indian Presidents too have raised this issue of underrepresentation of SC/ST judges in the Supreme Court. For example, the former President K.R Narayanan had gone on to offer an unsolicited suggestion to appoint Dalit judges in the Supreme Court that had strained the President-Judiciary relationship to a certain extent. Last year, the newly elected President Ramnath Kovind has also aired a similar view of underrepresentation of OBC/ST/SC Judges in the Supreme Court. The President K.R Narayanan in his note to the Justice Ministry had gone on to officially record his suggestion as: “I would like to record my views that while recommending the appointment of Supreme Court judges, it would be consonant with constitutional principles and the nation’s social objectives if persons belonging to weaker sections of society like SCs and STs, who comprise 25 per cent of the population, and women are given due consideration. Eligible persons from these categories are available and their underrepresentation or non-representation would not be justifiable.” To this, the then Chief Justice of India Adarsh Sein Anand had responded that, “All eligible candidates, including those belonging to the schedule Castes and Tribes, are considered by us while recommending names for appointment as Supreme Court judges. Our Constitution envisages that merit alone is the criterion for all appointments to the Supreme Court and High Courts. And we are scrupulously adhering to these provisions. An unfilled vacancy may not cause as much harm as a wrongly filled vacancy.” In this article, I do not intent to discuss whether merit should be the sole criterion for the selection in the higher judiciary or the reservation could be considered there also. That is not the purpose of this article at all. The whole purpose of this article is to expose the blatant hypocrisy of the Indian English Media on this issue that continuously claim itself to be Dalit sympathisers and the staunch advocate of Dalit Rights. I have quoted the two former Presidents of India on this issue to show that they have every right to voice their opinions, but the same rights do not extent to Indian English Media for their moral murkiness and the malaise that is deep-seated in them. Let me take you to the hypocritical zoo of Indian English Media through its double-standards Safari vehicle. According to an old Aljazeera’s report by an investigative journalist Sudipto Mondal, he says, he could find only 8 Dalit journalists in Indian English Media and only two of them preferred revealing their identities. By the time, he had been writing that report only 4 of them were still in journalism. This report further claims that in 1978, the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) passed a historic resolution calling for greater inclusion of minorities in American newsrooms and since then, the ASNE maintains a strict audit of the diversity ratios, and provides support and training assistance to aspiring journalists from oppressed communities. This has tremendously improved the situation. In contrast, Indian Media just engage in a hypocritical debate of preaching others on what they themselves have been blatantly snubbing. Commenting on the negligible presence of Dalits in the Indian Media, an opinion piece published in ‘The Hindu’ starts with, ‘There were almost none in 1992, and there are almost none today: Dalits in the newsrooms of India’s Media organisations’. There is a popular story that around two decades ago, a veteran journalist named B.N Uniyal was once requested by a foreign correspondent to help him to get in touch with a Dalit journalist as he had to speak to one on a squabble between BSP leaders and media persons. The story is that he couldn’t find a single Dalit journalists in the Country despite his tremendous efforts. This led him to pen a story titled ‘In Search of a Dalit Journalists’ published in ‘The Pioneer’ on November 16, 1996. In 2013, senior journalist Ajay Ashraf, in an investigative report for ‘The Hoot’ could find and identify only 20 Dalit journalists in the Indian Mainstream English Media. Remember, only 20 Dalit journalists after passage of 22 years of B.N Uniyal’s experience of not finding a single Dalit Journalist in 1996. By what moral authority these hypocrites conduct debates and pen opinion pieces about underrepresentation of Dalit judges in the Supreme Court? As the famous saying goes, one should not throw stones at other’s houses whose house itself is made of glass, suits best for the Indian English Media running such debates and giving sanctimonious sermons to others. The solution must be found but in the process hypocrisy must not prevail.