TODAY, we mourn the 49th death anniversary of Tofazzal Hossain Manik Mia, the pioneer of journalism in our country, who symbolised the power of press to mobilise public awareness for freedom of speech and expression. A towering personality in the media world and founder-editor of The Daily Ittefaq -Manik Mia, fought against all odd throughout his career as an editor, publisher and political thinker. His personal columns especially under the pen-name ‘Musafir’ were most popular to the people and equally thought evoking to the government. As he was famous for his political write-ups, the Awami League activists followed his editorials more than any actual decision of their party meetings. He was able to establish journalism as a force to reckon with by the government. And yet he enjoyed all round respect for his personal honesty and honest journalism.
To Manik Mia, journalism was a tool of socio-political change. He used journalism, particularly his write-ups, to establish Awami League as the party of democracy under the leadership of Mr H.S. Suhrawardy at first and later under Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. He was Bangabandhu’s most dear ‘Manik Bhai’. He had full confidence in Awami League about establishing democracy as people’s power. Manik Mia believed in politics of democracy.
Apart from Ittefaq, he also led the way of publishing The New Nation as an independent English newspaper to join in the struggle for democracy and upholding people’s rights. For his entire life, he represented the power of the fourth pillar for setting a remarkable example for the journalists. He had to suffer imprisonment and closures of his newspaper by the autocrat government. But he remained undeterred to his commitment. It’s a matter of deep regret that at present the journalists are mostly activists of undemocratic party politics. It must be recognized that, Manik Mia had fought as a valiant warrior for establishing democracy through his pro-people journalism. His struggle was against autocracy, and for freedom.
Manik Mia taught us that the true journalists are force of the people but in Bangladesh journalists are found to be too eager to be political workers of than remaining a force of the people.
