The Tribune honours legendary Editor-in-Chief Kalinath Ray

Chandigarh, April 22

The bust of The Tribune’s legendary Editor-in-Chief Kalinath Ray was unveiled by President of The Tribune Trust NN Vohra at The Tribune office in Chandigarh on Saturday in the presence of the trustees of The Tribune Trust, Justice SS Sodhi, Lt Gen SS Mehta (Retd), Gurbachan Jagat, Editor-in-Chief Rajesh Ramachandran, Officiating General Manager Amit Sharma, Editor, Punjabi Tribune, Swaraj Bir Singh, Editor, Dainik Tribune, Naresh Kaushal, and other senior functionaries.

The bust has been sculpted by Gurpreet Dhuri, an alumnus of Government College of Arts, Chandigarh.

Unveiling the bust, NN Vohra observed: “The need to institutionalise the memory of our great freedom fighters who have shone a light on the path of nation-building through journalism was felt for long. Public-spirited journalism is a potent corrective force in a society and in the history of our freedom struggle, there is no greater example of practitioners of such fearless journalism than Kalinath Ray.”

Ray (1878-1945) helmed The Tribune in Lahore, where it was founded, for 27 years. It was Ray’s efforts that made Mahatma Gandhi term The Tribune the ‘best views paper’ in India. For his scathing criticism of the oppressive regime of Michael O’Dwyer in 1919, which culminated in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, Ray was sentenced to two years’ rigorous imprisonment, subsequently reduced to three months.

In 1919, Ray had declined the editorship of the Leader, founded by Motilal Nehru, remaining committed to the province of Punjab and its premier newspaper. Ray remained editor of The Tribune from 1917 to 1943 when, owing to poor health, he left for his hometown, Khulna (now in Bangladesh), but continued writing for The Tribune. In 1944, the Trustees persuaded him to return to Lahore as the Editor-in-Chief. But due to failing health, he left for Calcutta on December 1, 1945, and died a week later.