Collectively, these five men represent the voice of India’s intelligentsia and embody the most cherished ideals of journalism. Manini Chatterjee pay tribute to Khushwant Singh, Kuldip Nayar, Nikhil Chakravartty, Girilal Jain and MV Kamath
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To newspaper readers round the country their bylines are as ubiquitous as the inverted red triangle was to rural Indians a generation ago. Their columns cover a range of subjects and whether it is straight news or idiosyncratic views, there is a certain authority, a level of understanding which gives them a special place in the otherwise ephemeral world of daily journalism. Bombarded as we all are by headlines on corruption, terrorism, riots and coups, their writings provide almost a refuge, an oasis – of reflection, of perspective, of analysis of the seemingly chaotic events that go by the label of “news”.
While these senior “statesmen” of journalism are by and large respected by an informed readership, there is a fashionable trend among the younger, over-confident scribes to dismiss them as “armchair pundits” who pontificate on everything under the sun without moving out of their air-conditioned rooms. But hours of conversation with the grand old men of contemporary Indian journalism show that this view is not only uncharitable but also erroneous. For it is easy to forget – and perhaps difficult to accept – that despite their current eminence, these men have mostly come up the hard way, where discipline and diligence have played as much a role as dame luck.
Khushwant Singh, Kuldip Nayar, Nikhil Chakravartty, MV Kamath and Girilal Jain may fall in the category of eminent editors and former editors, but in every other way – be it style, content or belief – they are different. If for Nikhil Chakravartty, journalism was an extension of his commitment to the Communist Party, Khushwant Singh became a journalist relatively late in life after establishing himself as a successful writer. Kuldip Nayar continues to regard himself as a reporter on the beat while in sharp contrast, Girilal Jain remains the last of the cerebral editors disseminating ideas rather than mere facts. But unlike today’s generation which plans on a career before it is quite out of school, all five stumbled into journalism and then stayed on in the profession they had strayed into.
Kuldip Nayar studied law in Lahore (one of his lecturers, ironically enough, was Khushwant Singh, whom he still refers to as “professor sahib”) and was set to practise in his hometown at Sialkot, when Partition took place and he had to flee to Delhi. In Lahore, he had been associated with the CPI’s student federation and so one day, while walking around aimlessly in the Jama Masjid area of old Delhi, he spotted a red flag and was drawn to it. The CPI leader, M. Farooqui was inside the house that sported the red flag and after a few minutes of conversation, he told Kuldip Nayar of a job going at an Urdu paper, Anjam, propagating the Two-Nation theory. The daily, edited by one Yasin Mohammad, had been in the forefront before Partition and later wanted an Urdu-knowing Hindu on the staff. Kuldip Nayar was offered a job at Rs 100 per month, and apart from his duties as a journalist, he was to teach math and English to the proprietor’s school-going children and help him out with his family business. In return, he got the exalted title of joint editor.
“I decided to make a career in journalism because setting up a legal practice would take a long time and I didn’t want to be a clerk in a government office.” Having decided that, he moved out from Anjam and managed to get admission for a course in journalism at the Northwestern University, Illinois. Though the travel was paid for, he had to work his way through for the tuition and mostly waited on tables and washed dishes. And he soon became “the fastest dishwasher on campus.” On returning to India, Nayar joined the government’s information department and was information officer to both GB Pant and then Lal Bahadur Shastri. He left the government to become general manager and editor of UNI in 1964 and was present in Tashkent when Shastri died. Three years later, he joined The Statesman as their Delhi editor and became the correspondent for The Times, London, a position he still retains.
In 1975, Nayar began his most well-known stint with the Indian Express, got jailed during the Emergency but by 1981 “resigned because of certain differences.” Since then, he has been running his syndicated service through which his columns appear in roughly 70 newspapers in 14 languages in the country. He has written nine books in between but sees himself as “a newsman of the beat.”
Even today, Nayar leaves home every afternoon and scouts around governments offices and literally stalks the corridors of power in search of scoops. “A news story is like oil. It is found where it is struck. On days you get nothing and suddenly you strike. “ Nayar says proudly, “I have been in the field of breaking stories all the time – I was the first to disclose that elections were going to be held after the Emergency and more recently stories on the Postal Bill, the differences between Zail Singh and Rajiv Gandhi and that Pakistan had the nuclear bomb.” Despite his years as editor, Nayar maintains, “I have not spent even a day on the desk, I have been a field man all my life.”
If Kuldip Nayar had it relatively easy after his first few years of hardship, Girilal Jain, the venerable editor of the country’s most important newspaper, came step by step up the hierarchical ladder of The Times of India. Jain is truly a self-made man, having studied in a village school in his hometown of Sonepat and then graduating in history from Hindu College in Delhi. A bright student, he was attracted to politics during the Quit India Movement and was even jailed for a while in 1943. In his college days, he read mostly Marx and Lenin but on reading Koestler’s Darkness at Noon among other things, got “disenchanted with the Communist system, with the Soviet experiment.” For a while he became a Royist (a follower of MN Roy) and in 1945 worked with the Royist paper, Vanguard. (On his current beliefs, he says with a smile, “I am no ist I am just a journalist”. For the next couple of years, Jain drifted into business with a paint company and then a brief stint at teaching, but neither excited him and in 1948 he joined the News Chronicle under the editorship of his mentor and friend, Sham Lal. In January 1950, The Times of India started their Delhi edition and six months later, Jain, along with Sham Lal and a host of News Chronicle staff, joined as a sub-editor.
Though today, with his measured tone and studied phrases, Jain appears to be the archetypal editor, he first made a mark as a bright, young, local reporter. After a year on the desk, he became a reporter and went on to become chief reporter in 1958. As a reporter, he covered routine stories in the crime, court and other local beats and never ventured into political reporting. He kept reading a great deal and discussing politics and sociology with friends, but that did not creep into his daily reportage. “I reported as part of my job and I kept my overall perspective to myself. In our time, editorialising in reporting was not allowed – one had to be very factual.”
Wasn’t it frustrating to stick to routine reporting? Jain replies with a benign smile, frustration is a relatively new concept. There was little professional rivalry in our time. We were all very close friends. We would give our lives for each other. We were like a fraternity, not only those of us in The Times of India but journalists as a whole. We would spend hours in the Coffee House together, walk around Connaught Place, with almost no money in our pockets and all the time discuss ideas and books. “
In 1961, Jain was posted to Karachi and a year later went to London as The Times of India correspondent. When he returned to the country three years later he was made assistant editor because the then editor, NJ Nanporia, felt “this boy Giri will be good at writing edits.” He later became resident editor and for over 10 years now has been the editor of the paper. Jain is justly proud that he has come up through merit and not by kowtowing to anybody. “I have never asked for a job in my life. Apart from the initial job, I never asked anyone for any promotion and posting or any favour. I didn’t ask for the Karachi posting, I didn’t ask for London, I didn’t want to be assistant editor, or resident editor or editor.” Without disclosing details, he admits that he has been offered every editorship worth the post in the country but has never felt the need for a change because, “When I was not the boss, the bosses were very nice editors who showed great affection and respect for people who worked under them. And ever since I became editor nobody has ever told me what to write, what not to write. “
A self-confessed loner, Girilal Jain is a man of many parts and in his youth was influenced by Sri Aurobindo and he spent a few months in the Pondicherry Ashram. It is an influence which has remained, giving him a certain quality of detachment that lends an oracular touch to his editorials and lead articles. He labels himself a “Liberal Conservative” and the preservation of the Indian nation state remains his prime concern. He reads all the time, mainly history and sociology. (“At one time I read a lot of psychology, much of Jung, and also philosophy”) and this has imparted a broad perspective to his writing, a quality few journalists can hope to have. It is a perspective where personalities do not matter so much as polity, and unlike other editors who constantly meet politicians and bureaucrats, Jain firmly believes in keeping a distance. “I have never been to the central Hall of Parliament (the place where all political gossip, rumours and news emanates) and no politician can claim that he is my friend,” he says.
In what seems almost quaint by today’s standards, Jain also does not believe in reporting for his paper or writing anything but edits. “I regard the edit page very important and won’t do anything that detracts from it. When you come on the front page, you are yourself announcing to the world that your edit page is not important. Which means really your editorship is not important.”
Far removed from Girilal Jain’s scholarly theses is Khushwant Singh’s irreverent style which has made him the most widely read, if not the most popular, columnist of the land. His columns are a medley of analyses, anecdotes and jokes with the unique quality of never talking down at the reader but talking to him. Khushwant Singh started out a lawyer, joined the information wing of the diplomatic service after Partition in 1947 and on leaving “did different kinds of jobs but mainly stuck to creative writing.” He strayed into journalism when “my articles appeared in different magazines – mainly foreign magazines which impress Indians no end – but the 1965 war really got me started. The New York Times asked me to do an article on Hindu-Muslim tension. I was given only 12 hours to write a 3,000 word cover story for The New York Times magazine and it took me 45 minutes to dictate it over the phone and I never looked back.”
Thereafter, Khushwant was often asked to do specialised articles on India and was soon offered the editorship of The Illustrated Weekly of India which he initially refused but later accepted.
Sprawled on his favourite armchair in one of Delhi’s most relaxed and comfortable drawing rooms, Khushwant Singh fondly reminisces on his heydays in journalism. “I joined in the summer of 1969, spent nearly 10 long years as editor of The Illustrated Weekly and that was for me the biggest break in journalism because I took over the Weekly with a circulation of under 80,000 and a losing concern which had the lowest circulation among all the Times of India publications and in three years I had put it on top of all the others. When I say I, it sounds immodest but the team working with me and at one stage we touched 4.10 lakh and we pegged it at that.”
As far as political allegiance is concerned, Khushwant Singh has been guided more by personal equations than ideological positions and so he supported Mrs Gandhi right through the Emergency, regarded Sanjay Gandhi “a loveable little goonda,” and then fell out with her when he continued to support Maneka Gandhi after Sanjay’s death.
Few know that Khushwant Singh was editor of National Herald, “at Mrs Gandhi’s request” during the Janata rule. “I did not draw a single penny and we could not publish since there was a strike every other day and there were police raids and all that kind of thing and at the end of six months, not having drawn any salary I just resigned. I could not go on, the paper would not publish and it was pointless editing something that didn’t appear. And then I joined New Delhi and it was the same, the magazine wouldn’t come out.
And then the Janata went out and Mrs Gandhi was back and “1 was offered on a platter the choice of either being an ambassador or taking the Rajya Sabha and the Hindustan Times. I chose the latter.” By the end of his three-year stint, he had fallen out with Mrs Gandhi and his term with Hindustan Times was not extended. “But Birla was keen that I continue my association with the Hindustan Times and today I earn as much from the paper (from my column) as I did when I was editor. In fact, more, because it gets syndicated and thereafter I took on two more columns and I get reproduced in 50 papers all over the country. I never had it so good.”
Khushwant admits his columns are not strictly journalism. “I don’t go in much for politics for the reason that I find it very uninteresting and I think it is very saturated. Everyone of these columnists is only writing politics and churning out the same kind of things. Mine is a largely analytical, largely also book-based. My concern is with social problems like, for instance, superstition and belief in astrology or religion. So I have to throw my net much wider and of course I think what really makes people read my column is the element of humour I introduce. No other Indian journalist uses humour at all, either political or any other kind.”
Despite the saturation of politics in journalism today, Khushwant Singh has a low opinion of the level of political reporting. “After all what do our journalists know about politics – they only know factions and names. There is no attempt at analysis. For instance, of all the writing on Punjab, I have yet to see someone analyse the phenomenon of Bhindranwale and his rise and acceptance among the Sikh masses. Now, that’s the kind of journalism I like to do – to analyse how a man like this became accepted.”
He also feels that journalists must specialise. “My advice to young journalists would be that it is a highly competitive field and you have to specialise. It’s not good enough to limit yourself to reporting. It’s not good enough to do cinema reviews and book reviews, that doesn’t make journalism. Specialise in military science, nature, agriculture, anything and so when the editor wants an article on something, he knows whom to turn to.”
Regarding the success of the Weekly, Khushwant Singh feels that for one, there was little competition and then “I made it controversial, I gave it a distinct slant of my own and then there was my column which was surprisingly successful. And the real reason for the Weekly’s increase was telling Indians about their own country. We did a series on different communities, and then a whole series on India that you do not know and a whole annual on birds and trees and animals. These gave Indians an introduction to their own country. Today journalism has become too politicised. It’s a bore.”
For Nikhil Chakravartty, politics can never be a bore, the politics of ideas and debate and commitment. A widely respected commentator who has been bringing out the weekly Mainstream for years now, Chakravartty entered journalism through his work in the Communists party. A bright student from Presidency College, Calcutta, he had had a brief brush with both politics and journalism when he edited the Presidency College magazine in 1933-34 and wrote a tribute on the death of Congress leader, J.N. Sengupta, describing him a “political martyr.” Sengupta had died while he was interned in Ranchi but the authorities were shocked that a government college magazine could dare do such a thing. Chakravartty was taken to Lalbazar police station for questioning and though nothing was made of it, he still recalls the experience as his first acquaintance with political journalism.
It was during his years at Oxford that Nikhil Chakravartty came to be influenced by Marxism and eventually got close to the CPI. Those were heady days of intellectual ferment and Marxist debate in England, and many bright Indian students – among them Jyoti Basu, Indrajit Gupta, N.K. Krishnan, Mohan Kumaramangalam and others – came back to India converted to Marxism and eager to join the movement back home. Chakravartty decided not to take up a full time teaching assignment and instead took tuitions and did freelance journalism. One of the first articles he wrote, under the pseudonym of Vanguard, was on Lenin. It appeared in The Hindustan Standard Sunday magazine and he was paid Rs 70 for it. Other articles followed, but once while walking down the corridor of the university, Dr Radhakrishnan (later President) spotted him and urged him to teach. “Oxford has spent money on you and you are not serving the university. You are wasting, your time… journalism is only meant for the riffraff,” he said. And then ‘turning towards the dean of the university, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee (later the founder of the Jana Sangh), Dr Radhakrishnan reportedly asked him to give Chakravartty a job and so he began teaching history at the university.
In 1943, Bengal was struck by its worst famine and Nikhil Chakravartty and other CPI activists concentrated wholly on party work. The then CPI general secretary, P.C. Joshi, turned up and said, “Nikhil, what are you doing here. Go to the districts and report back.” And so, the young Communist travelled to all but two of Bengal’s districts and sent his despatches on the famine for the party paper, People’s War. Joshi later remarked, “You write so well. Don’t waste your time as a lecturer. Become a party reporter.” And finally, P.C. Joshi’s advice prevailed over Dr Radhakrishnan’s and Chakravartty worked for different party journals for several years. Though a politician, Joshi was a very good journalist and an even better editor. “Whenever I did a good story, he sent a telegram to the party office but when he did not like my reports, he wrote a letter to my home address. His idea was that when I did a good story everyone should know and it would make me work better but when I did not, I should be told privately, so I could improve. “
In 1948, the CPI was banned and Chakravartty went underground and worked with different committees. On coming overground in 1952, he went back to the party paper, first called Crossroads and then New Age. It was in in 1957 that he felt that many news items which were “radical and progressive” in nature did not reach a wider readership because of the limited circulation of a party paper. “So the two of us, David Cohen (a Calcutta Jew) and I, took permission from the party for long leave from active party work and began a feature agency called the India Press Agency (IPA).” The stories circulated had a Left orientation but were not under party control.
Then in 1960, in the last days of CPI general secretary, Ajoy Ghosh, Chakravartty felt the need for a paper where interaction between Communists and radical Congressmen could take place. And so in 1962, he along with a Congress supporter, Chittaranjan, borrowed Rs 70,000 from friends to start Mainstream. The policy was that if Chakravartty attacked the Congress, he should do so in a signed article and the same went for Chittaranjan writing an anti-Communist piece. Otherwise, the paper would reflect the joint concerns of both. At that time, CN Chittaranjan was the editor to be replaced by DR Goyal but by 1967, Nikhil Chakravartty who was running the show from the start took over formally as editor.
Mainstream with a circulation of 12,000 is a “vaguely Left-wing journal which is receptive to listening and propagating any point of view that is useful to the readers. We are interested in discussion, “says Chakravartty. He gave up party membership in 1978 because of differences with the CPI over its support to the Emergency and though no longer a party member, has close links with individual party leaders – be they CPI or even CPI(M). Over long years of interaction he knows several ruling party politicians personally and continues to follow the cardinal principal of “never betraying the trust of your sources.”
Despite the fact that he started out in a party paper, Chakravartty has the rare gift of objectivity and reasonableness which goes beyond dogmatism or personal rancour and he is thus respected by even rightwing politicians in the country. Mainstream remains a forum for scholars, academics and a few serious politicians but through his columns in different newspapers, Chakravartty has managed to enlarge his readership. Like Kuldip Nayar, he believes that among all the branches of journalism, the “most important is reporting. That’s why I still go on my rounds.”
He also believes that with the increasing corruption all around, “It is extremely difficult to keep your integrity. We are not elected people. We handle very sensitive things, the public affairs of the country, and have access to a large measure with people wielding power. We are like an iceberg, we know much more than we show. If we do not court vigilance and constant self-introspection, we can fall for allurements, we can become too egoistic… My slogan has always been ‘To thy ownself be true’”.
Becoming a journalist was furthest from M.V. Kamath’s mind when he was young. A doctor was what he looked forward to being, but the medical profession required a financial backing he did not have. Philosophy and literature were in the realm of the impractical in 1939 so he took to science and then a five year stint as a chemist.
However, journalism became his vocation though it took five attempts before he managed to get a foothold in the Free Press Journal (FPJ), which employed a man who had “no typing, shorthand or local language” at his command. He was given a three-month deadline to “shape up or…” Kamath says in retrospect, “I managed.”
In three years he moved to New Delhi to cover the Asian Relations Conference and stayed on for a year, after which he was summoned back to Bombay to soon join the select rank of editors. Editor of the Frees Press Bulletin, the group’s eveninger, may have seemed small but with it went de facto editorship of FPJ and its Sunday edition Bharat Jyoti.
The death of FPJ’s legendary editor, Sadanand, and a new management brought an end to Kamath’s nine-year stint with the paper. A.V. Baliga who was in charge of editorial policy was Marxist-oriented, unlike Kamath, who left for the Press Trust of India (PTI). He became the news agency’s UN correspondent based in New York until a clash with V.K. Krishna Menon brought him back to India where PTI failed to renew the contract. “I became a freelance writer, which meant I was ‘unemployed’ for nearly a year,” says he.
During those “unemployed” days he was contributing editor for United Asia, a Bombay-based monthly brought out by a friend G.S. Pohaiker. The job meant editing the magazine and by way of payment he received “a free lunch and use of the office”.
Horizons broadened with The Times of India and in August, 1959, Kamath began a seven-year stint in Europe covering “earth-shattering” events. The journalist from Udipi in Karnataka, which in his words has produced cooks, cooks, and correspondents, saw Europe’s history in making. He covered events from the UN, Geneva, Common Market, Brussels, European parliament in Straussberg, besides local events in the continent. Landmarks in Europe and during a later stint in the US made memorable pages in his work diary – the first UN conference, Kennedy’s visit to Berlin, the Kashmir debate, the Suez Canal debate, entry of Britain in the Common Market, the Watergate scandal and Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon.
Returning to Bombay in 1967, Kamath spent two years as editor of the Sunday section of The Times of India. He then went to the US as TOI’s correspondent for nine years. When Mr Khushwant Singh retired he came back to Bombay to edit The Illustrated Weekly. He retired in 1981 to return to “unemployment and writing columns for about a dozen newspapers and journals.” He has written about 20 books.
Looking back, Kamath says, “At that time we didn’t know how the future would shape up. There was a missionary spirit, to prepare the country for progress on different fronts. Now we know our limitations, we realise that the grasp is further, after 45 years we cannot say we haven’t realised our mistakes.” He still sees himself in the missionary role, “trying to dispel the mist and project the forces of order. I am not a pessimist. I see a bright, happy future and my role as one who breaks through these unseen barriers to progress. To see things as they are and project things as they should be. It sounds very pretentious, I know, but it is true.”
Some of the events that he will never forget are the demise of the Gandhian philosophy and the death of Gandhi which brought in a slow erosion of values. “Nehru’s Avadi Resolution adopting the socialistic pattern of society was a sharp watershed between the past and the present, a departure from the Gandhian society. It was a new step and gave a new sense of direction. Now a generation later they are back-peddling”. The Gandhi murder trial is still fresh in Kamath’s mind. “I covered it for the Free Press Journal and Nav Shakti. When Nathuram Godse asked for the newspapers, he got Nav Shakti. He wrote to the editor saying that mine was the best coverage of the case. Imagine a certificate from Nathuram Godse,” says Kamath, who now writes a highly respected column on the strengths and weakness of the Indian media.
And as these men reach the twilight years of their life, the most remarkable aspect remains their commitment and their humility. Commitment not in the ontological sense of the term but a daily diligence to the work at hand and the ability to retain hope despite the sense of decay all around. Even as editor, Girilal Jain “goes through every word that appears in the editorial page” while Khushwant Singh, for all his breezy style, spends hours drafting and redrafting his columns. Both Chakravartty and Nayar do not sit back and relax but do their rounds every day in search of information that forms the basis of their opinion.
None of them feels they have reached where they are because of their brilliance. They attribute it to hard work, enormous reading and, of course, as Kuldip Nayar puts it, “luck or the way circumstances develop.” Khushwant Singh insists that “I have very little talent. I have no illusions about talent but I am a slogger, I keep a very strict discipline on my time.” Says Chakravartty, “It is a very tiring profession, I don’t recommend it to anyone who is scared of working hard.”
And finally these editors emeritus, who could easily have done well in other more honourable professions, have no regrets at making journalism their career. Jain with typical aplomb says, “I have never been bored in my life, I have never had any regrets in life and I have no sense of guilt. Whatever I could do, I have done. Politics is not for me – I know my limitations. I am in many ways a loner, I prize my privacy.” For Nikhil Chakravartty too, there are no regrets “though I feel a little nostalgic when I pass Presidency College, specially the library. Sometimes I think I should have continued teaching but there is always the danger of ossified intellectualism, here one is always alive.” And for Khushwant Singh, who with his wealthy background and experience in law, diplomacy and politics, could well give up the profession “this is the only thing in which I have found expression and a certain amount of fulfilment. And today I feel fulfilled and that is perhaps the ultimate test…”
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Interviews
NOT A MISSIONARY: KULDIP NAYAR
What do you think of present day journalism?
What I find is that maybe the presentation has improved, writing has improved but hard news is lacking today. In our days we tried to find out what went on behind the scenes but journalists today have become very dependent on the information that is dished out to them, they wait for the government to tell them what is happening.
How do you see your role as a journalist?
I am not a missionary – all that I have wished is to put things before the readers and help them to make up their minds.
What do you feel was the high point in your career?
Detention during the Emergency. I was used to sleeping in an air-conditioned room and all the luxuries and then I went to Tihar and my cot was placed in a comer besides a dry latrine. There were no fans and a film of files swam over the dal and roti we were given to eat But it gave me a sense of satisfaction because I think I raised the standard of defiance.
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JUST A SQUARE: KHUSHWANT SINGH
What do you have to say about your image as a hard drinking, womanising old man?
That is partly self-created and it’s only based on the fact that I don’t make a secret of my drinking and make fun of people who are prohibitionists and call them humbugs. As for womanising, I would like to be able to live up to it. I am about as square a man as anyone else and I know some of my fellow journalists who are far from being square but strictly maintain the image of being very puritanical. I accept that I pay compliments to pretty girls on their faces, in front of their husbands, in front of their parents. They like it and unlike Mr Ramrao Adik or anyone else, I have never been slapped on my face or taken to court. I have never yet offended anyone with my compliments.
But there are people, reading your dirty jokes, who do not consider you a serious journalist?
You know, human beings ate complex characters. It is hard for me to tell these people who have this image of me as a dirty old man that I have written two volumes on Sikh history and I am probably the only Indian who is a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. I mean that can be taken as a hallmark of scholarship of some kind. And I am perhaps the only Indian after Radhakrishnan who has lectured at Oxford on comparative religion.
Out of your journalistic days, which phase do you look back with fondness?
The Weekly was of my making but I enjoy the present most. I make a damn sight more money and now I am reaping the harvest not in terms of money but in terms of notoriety. I can’t move out anywhere without being stopped for autographs and being photographed. It’s highly flattering to one’s ego. I know it’s also corrupting but …
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VERY CAREFUL: NIKHIL CHAKRAVARTTY
What is the major change you have witnessed in journalism over the years?
When we joined the profession, it was a profession of penury – almost like becoming a whole-timer with a political party. Press in India grew as a weapon against foreign rule…. but now big money has entered, generally speaking it is no longer indecent to be known as corrupt. It is (therefore) extremely difficult to keep your integrity. One has to be very careful – like putting on a chastity belt in a brothel.
What do you feel is the role of a journalist?
To inform. Please don’t try to save the world. If you can see the going up in flames, your job is to communicate that there is a fire so that people can call the fire brigade. It is not to play the fire brigade yourself.
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IVORY TOWER PERSON: GIRILAL JAIN
How would you characterise your kind of journalism?
In journalism, one must write what one has digested. I practice the journalism of ideas, not the journalism of facts. And I don’t belong to the “publish and be damned” school. I feel responsible for the consequences of what I write. Since I deliberately set out to inform and influence, I cannot disown the responsibility. For me citizenship comes before profession – concern for the future of India must take precedence over everything.
You are perhaps the last of the old school of editors. What do you think marks your generation out?
Experience, an inter-disciplinary approach, wide reading, but most of all detachment. We are what you would term the Ivory Tower People. But I think being in an ivory tower is a virtue for an editor.
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OPTIMISTIC, BUT… : M V KAMATH
(Mr Kamath was interviewed in Bombay by Lekha Dhar)
Why did you stop supporting Indira Gandhi?
During the Emergency, when I was in Washington, I had the misfortune of supporting her. I was set right by a friend and I wrote her a 40-point letter in 1976. I said ‘I supported you during the Emergency, I understand things are going wrong’. The letter asking her to explain the position, was sent through her press advisor, Mr H.Y. Sharada Prasad, She promised to answer, but never did. This spelt a break with her. To my eternal shame, I did support the Emergency in the first few months.
What is your opinion of contemporary journalism? Do you feel it lacks a sense of direction?
It is bright, brash and irreverent. It is readable, it seeks to be ‘investigative’ – that’s the key word. It does not seem to have any direction – like punching all around. There seems to be no focus. When you punch, you punch the nose. In the old days (pre-independence) we knew where everybody stood. Many people thought the Congress would lead us to the land of milk and honey. Today there isn’t anybody who can lead us out of this jungle and the press reflects the lack of direction of society.
We are the twilight of the morning of our society. We require the sun’s rays of thought to pierce through the mistiness of our thinking and ideology. I find this missing. May be, morning is not far behind. We have to emerge from the darkness of post-Independence to the morning of the technological era ahead, I am optimistic but I don’t see optimism reflected in the press.
The Telegraph, Colour Magazine, 23 October 1988