RAJAJI, AS A JOURNALIST
A.
S. RAMAN
To
think of Rajaji not only in the birth centenary year but at any other time is
to think of someone stunningly unique, someone dear to everyone of us and, at
the same time, distant from us. Someone unique and yet not.
The word he detested most was unique. And its variants such as peerless,
outstanding, distinctive, unmatched, unequalled, unsurpassable, etc.
For he never considered himself superior or exclusive, because of his concern
for the lowliest of the lowly, the poorest of the poor, the humblest of the
humble and the weakest of the weak, with whom he spared no effort to
communicate on the same wavelength. He was a communicator par excellence,
because of his uncanny powers of perception, ratiocination and articulation.
Rajaji
was however unique in one special sense of the term: In the sense that in his
post-retirement years virtually he opted for the life of a working journalist
without being formally designated as one. He supported himself by writing books
and articles, resisting all the time the Government’s moves to tax him out of
circulation. He had all the qualities and credentials of a responsible,
crusading journalist of the pre-independence vintage. He was indeed a product
more of the pre-independence Gandhian era than of the post-independence Nehru
years which only made; it possible for crooks, clowns and charlatans to
proliferate. He could think clearly and independently, analyse
a situation with the cold-blooded dexterity and detachment of a surgeon, deflate
undeserved reputations without inflating deserved ones out of proportion,
listen to the other man with critical interest, study a subject thoroughly from
all angles before commenting on it, write briefly and tellingly attempting no
frills or flourishes and remain wide-awake intellectually lest time overtake
him. He could afford to be fearless, upright and fiercely unemotional, because
his only concern in life was the pursuit of the truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth. He was not afraid of being inconsistent in his search
for the truth as he understood it. Inconsistent, yes, but
never illogical or insincere. He was not for sale: Nobody could bribe or
bully him into doing something which he considered improper or inelegant. Being
an uncompromising democrat of the old liberal school, he firmly believed in the
interdependence of informed public opinion and democratic culture, which, he
maintained, only a strong and responsible parliamentary opposition and a
formidable Fourth Estate could strengthen and sustain. The Swarajya, of which he was the moving spirit for more than a decade,
had these ideals before it: “There is
before the country the great problem of how to secure welfare without
surrendering the individual to be swallowed up by the State, how to get the
best return for the taxes the people pay and how to preserve spiritual values
while working for better material standards of life. This journal will serve
all these purposes.” (C.
Rajagopalachari)
Rajaji
was no doubt a journalist in the accepted sense of the term. For he was closely connected with
four weeklies which were respected because of his association with them, as
long as he was with them.
They were: Young
No subject was too high or too low for him,
including sex. But he would discuss every issue, not with a view to flattering
the readers by confirming their fads and fixations but with the object of
shocking them by emphasising the hitherto unsuspected
suspects of a live controversy. He always itched for a fight unlike Nehru who
violently resented dissent. Rajaji would set his readers thinking. He treated
them as his equals, again unlike Nehru to whom all animals were equal, but some
more equal than others. Nehru also considered himself a journalist because of
his ties with National
Herald. But he was too emotional
and egoistic to analyse a problem or interpret a
situation or assess a person with the scientific detachment of one with an open
mind. Rajaji was well-equipped to perform the triple functions of the
journalist, namely, to inform, to interpret and to investigate. He was a great
champion of the free press. In his own words:
“‘I
am a sort of gadfly,’ said Socrates in ‘his defence
before the Athenian people.’ ‘The State is a great and noble steed who is tardy in his motions owing to his very size, and requires
to be stirred into life. I am that gadfly which God
has attached to the State, and all day long and in all places am always
fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you. You will not
easily find another like me, and therefore I would advise you to spare me’.
Athenian democracy condemned Socrates to death but his words carried a truth
that is immortal. Great Governments benefit by criticism, without which they
are bound to deteriorate in self, complacency and unchecked self-will. After
independence, patriotism and public co-operation in India have swung to the
other end of the arc, and the Indian press has gone all out for praise and
admiration leaving the Prime Minister of India in a dangerous state of
loneliness, for unqualified adulation day in and day out is loneliness...The
daily press which at present flourishes, in a business sense, is daily chiming
concord and approval and in all doubtful cases waits to form an opinion until
the Prime Minister indicates his own, and contributes but little or nothing by
way of criticism. The need is great for a gadfly weekly-paper, which is not over-weighted by finance and the
consequent fear of losing money, which can close down any time and start again
any day without serious loss, and which is governed by a sense of truth and
public welfare and does not look to mass popularity or votes or the power
derived from pleasing people. But to be a gadfly of the Socrates-pattern, one
must have in some degree the qualities of Socrates, regard for truth, purity of
motive and utter obedience to the voice of God within one’s heart. We may not
all attain Socrates’s level in these respects, but we may all try to be on that
road. Everyone concerned with public affairs and who is older than sixty knows
what powerful and healthy influence the very poor newspapers of the old days,
with a paying circulation that rarely reached 10,000, wielded in those days. Papers now printing a lakh and proudly
asking for advertisements on that basis carry far less influence than those old
daily newspapers. They have almost lost the habit of adverse criticism
either of Government of their small ineffective adversaries.”
“News
may be served by the daily press, but a good high class weekly has the
privilege of educating the public in thought and appraisement, which I fear the
daily press is not adequately or at all doing. Democracy to be good government
requires statesmen who educate and guide the people and are not merely
politicians occupied in conserving their popularity for future power. Without
guidance, adult suffrage and democracy based thereon will confirm the worst
fears of those Indians who opposed the movement for independence and allied
themselves with the British during the struggle. The press should not only aim
at reflecting and forecasting public opinion but should try to educate and give
guidance to the reading public. The rotary machine has come and with it the
doubtful blessing of large capital. The independence of the press has been
adversely affected by this revolution in the Indian press. The small
well-conducted high quality weekly can supply a felt want and render great
national service.”
This
passage is from the Swarajya weekly
of July 14, 1956. SwaraJya under his stewardship had become the
small but irresistible weekly he had in mind, read, not
because of the advertisements it carried nor the spicy half-truths and
untruths it purveyed but because of its perceptive and provocative editorial
writing. Swarajya had been identified
with Rajaji as Young India and Harijan and earlier Indian Opinion in
Rajaji
was thus a journalist in the sense in which Gandhiji was. Both treated
journalism, not as an end in itself, but as a means to an end, the end being
public good. They were both super-communicators, not because of their
professional expertise, but because of their rapport with the masses. They both
had the same objective. The pursuit of excellence, not for its own sake, the
style of professional admen, but for the good of the country, which they
rightly believed, was not negotiable. In fact for the good of
the world in general. Rajaji was neither a rightist nor a leftist,
neither a traditionalist nor a modernist, neither pro-East nor pro-West. He
supported whatever was clean, progressive, original, authentic and morally
sound, intellectually stimulating and spiritually elevating with a sharp
relevance to the situation at a given moment.
In the ’60s, during my
The
magnet at the Swarajya office of
course was the presence of Rajaji, a conversation with whom was spiritually and
intellectually most nourishing. The range of his interests was so wide, the quality of his perceptions so rich and
the thrust of his logic so lethal that his callers had nothing to say in his
presence. At the same time, being a true democrat, he had great concern for the
other people’s opinions, which he would respect only if defended convincingly.
Knowing his interest in saints, I once suggested to Mr
T. Sadasivam: “Would you like to meet Swami Muktananda of Ganeshpuri? I can
take you there.” “No, thanks”, he replied. “I am happy with my two acharyas: the Sankaracharya
of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham and Rajagopalachari.”
Once, during one of my visits to him, Rajaji said
to me teasingly: “So you are a champion of modern art. I think it is the
biggest legpull of the century. How is it different
from the doodles of a child? A child is at least innocent and spontaneous.” I
had no answer.
On another occasion: “I am happy that you have been
critical of Nehru’s
On yet another occasion: “You
working journalists have been wasting your rhetoric on a wrong cause, freedom
of the press. Whose freedom? Not yours, surely. If it is yours, it is freedom
to air your personal views at other
people’s expense. How do you expect your proprietors to give up their perfectly
legitimate right to hire and fire you? They have not invested millions in their
newspapers just for the amusement of their editors. If you were an employer,
would you give your staff the same freedom, the sort of freedom that you now
demand as an employee? I am not suggesting that the working journalists have no
case. But I think they weaken it by overstating it.”
Rajaji’s
work on the Swarajya was not confined
to writing. He was equally good at looking after the production side, i.e.
selection of type faces, choice of headings for articles, make-up of the page,
subbing of a most conscientious and meticulous nature–he would not pass a
single misplaced comma or a miss-spelt word or name or a wrong and inelegant
turn of phrase. His proof-reading and subbing were as exemplary as his own
prose which was crisp, vigorous and sensuous. He was against overwriting and flat
writing. He believed that if one was truthful, one’s expression would
automatically come alive. No effort was needed. Like Gandhiji, he wrote direct,
simple and unadorned prose, which demanded maturity, integrity and sensitivity
of the highest order. Rajaji never allowed anything shoddy or substandard to
appear in print. He would critically examine all items before publishing them. Even the cartoonist could not escape
his vigilant eye. Cartoonist Ranga tells us that
Rajaji not only suggested subjects to
him but illustrate his ideas in line for his guidance. Ranga
has collected a large member of Rajaji doodles.
Rajaji’s
journalism was not confined to his routine at the Swarajya. He often wrote for other papers articles, or if the
editors didn’t accept them, letters on subjects of public importance. Since he
never wrote for money it did not matter to him whether his contributions
appeared as letters or as articles. What concerned him most was the sort of
reader response that his pieces provoked. He wrote provocatively, because
without debate and discussion democracy, according to him, was an expensive
luxury for an underdeveloped nation.
Indeed Rajaji stood out among his contemporaries because of
his multifaceted genius and many-splendoured
character and personality. Whatever he did he did with the elan
and expertise of one specially trained for it. No wonder that he left a legacy of highly responsible and
enlightened journalism to his successors who have an uphill task, should they
choose to follow in his footsteps.
“Rajaji is a person of strong
convictions and strong beliefs, who has adhered to them....He accepted
basically Mahatmaji’s approach to various problems.
Nevertheless, at no time did he become a person who unthinkingly accepted
anyone’s dictum, even Mahatmaji’s. All our minds did
not function quite critically in the presence of Mahatmaji
because of our faith in him. Rajaji’s faith in Mahatmaji was tremendous; but he never allowed his mind to
slip away. If he did give in to somebody, he did so consciously and
deliberately, after arguing the matter. Therefore, Rajaji, whether he sometimes
disagreed with us or very often agreed with us, brought an extraordinarily keen
and analytical mind to bear on every question that came before us.” ...
PANDIT
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU
–From a speech
made on July 24, 1948