The curious votary of free press

Narayan Dutt, H.Y. Sharada Prasad’s younger brother, one of India’s finest Hindi journalists, passed away in June 2014. In his memory, Mumbai University begins a lecture series from February 17

February 12, 2015 06:21 pm | Updated 06:21 pm IST

One often saw a lanky, bespectacled old gentleman, dressed in crisp, white khadi with a typical jhola to match, walking unsteadily and sometimes bang in the middle of the traffic ridden lanes of busy Jayanagar in Bangalore; lost in thought or sometimes busy reading a book or a newspaper as he walked! Few knew that the man whom they perhaps angrily honked at was one of India’s finest Hindi journalists, Narayan Dutt. The genteel and soft-spoken Dutt always shied away from praise, as also speaking about himself. With his acquaintances he spread only affection and his vast knowledge. Being one of them myself, I was beneficiary to his selfless goodwill and genuine outpouring of love each time I met him or invited him for my book readings and literature conclaves. There was no place for self-glorification in his life. Possibly one reason why people knew so little about him or his personal life. He personified the old world charm of princely Mysore state and everything refined about it that modern Karnataka is possibly not.

He was born on February 17, 1929 in Mysore to Saraswati and Holenarasipura Yoganarasimham. A renowned Sanskrit scholar, Carnatic musician and composer, Yoganarasimham joined the Mysore Educational Service serving as Principal of the Maharaja’s Sanskrit College and took on several responsibilities including those of a music examiner, High School Headmaster and finally a District Educational Officer. Saraswati was a writer and a free-spirited woman with a mind of her own, inspiring her children to join the freedom movement and flouting government regulations to hoist the tricolour atop their house. In such an enlightened, progressive and culturally enriched household, Dutt was third among eight siblings. Yoganarasimham wanted at least one of his sons to attain scholarship in Sanskrit and in 1940 put young Narayan into a gurukul in Kurukshetra after his initial Kannada medium education in Mysore and Bangalore. Here, he completed his Higher Secondary education along with Sanskrit studies. Then, at the Gurukul Kangri Vishwavidyalaya (Haridwar), he obtained a ‘Vidyalankaar’ title in History and Political Science and passed out with flying colours in First class. The foundations of his sound Hindi knowledge were laid here.

Narayan Dutt, thereafter, plunged into the world of journalism and in 1952 joined the editorial team of the Hindi magazine ‘Screen’ and shifted to Bombay. Its editor was the indefatigable perfectionist Manorama Katju who personally inspected all the 16 pages that went to print. She was initially sceptic of this South Indian man and his Hindi skills, but Dutt managed to win her confidence in just a few weeks. In an article in the ‘Jansatta’ dated February 20, 1994, Dutt recollects many interesting anecdotes of these early years of independent India’s journalism — one that was driven by purpose and fair-play and far removed from today’s corporate and advertising driven cacophony. Since he lived close to the printing press of the ‘Screen’, he once casually went there on a Friday when the office was shut and this helped to catch in time a wrong caption that went with a photograph. He quickly halted the printing and took it to the editor who was very thrilled by his conscientiousness and that too on a holiday! He recalls how the ‘Life’s’ Asia edition sent an entire crew from Tokyo in a special chartered flight with a processing laboratory too to cover the funeral of Pandit Nehru in 1964. Colour pictures were not in vogue in Indian press then. He firmly believed that his training and background in the traditions of Hindi journalism were facilitated by stalwarts like Indra Vidyavachaspati and Banarsidas Chaturvedi and practical journalistic and editing skills from Thakur Rajbahadur Singh, Ratanlal Joshi and Satyakam Vidyalankaar. But his true ideal in journalism was perhaps his own elder brother, the illustrious H.Y. Sharada Prasad who had even submitted his resignation from the post of the editor of ‘Indian Express’ to protect the freedom of expression of a junior scribe. Sharada Prasad also served three Prime Ministers as their media adviser.

After his stint in ‘Screen,’ Dutt was made Deputy Editor of the Hindi Digest ‘Navneet’ by its Editor Ratanlal Joshi in 1959. With time, his stature grew in the magazine and from 1967 to 1980 he served as its editor. Refreshing stories that were new in the world of Hindi journalism were published under his editorship. A very popular one was a discussion on Satyajit Ray’s ‘Shatranj ke Khiladi’ where Gulzar, Harivansh Rai Bacchan and NVK Murthy participated and discussed threadbare the adaptation of works of literature to celluloid and how that became a completely different work of art, distinct from the original literary work.

He briefly worked in Hindi weekly ‘Dharmyug.’ In 1981 when the Press Trust of India started a Hindi Feature Service, Dutt served as its Editor till 1993. But he never retired from journalism and intellectual pursuits. He teamed up with Jayant Salgaonkar in ‘Kal Nirnay’. His own writing and reading pursuits kept him perennially occupied.

In 1987, he was among the ten senior journalists of Hindi to be honoured by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. He won many accolades; he was among the few journalists who were felicitated by the then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee--those whose mother tongue was not Hindi but excelled and contributed to its journalism.

He also had several publications to his credit including ‘Sahas ke dhani’, a translation of American President John Kennedy’s ‘Profiles in Courage’; ‘Navneet Saurabh’, a collection of outstanding essays published in the ‘Navneet’ and a compilation of letters of Pt. Banarasidas Chaturvedi.

He was a life-long votary of free press and believed in cultivating readership through quality writing and honest, fact-based journalism. Recounting an instance he narrated in the Jansatta, he said that the British planned to arrest Gandhiji at Malabar Hill in such a way that no journalists would come to know and hence had telephone lines cut off in the city. However, news spread and a few of them, including him, gathered in disguise around Malabar Hill as milkmen, vegetable vendors etc. and saw Gandhiji being brought in there. Within half an hour, this was reported to the press offices. The British were left stumped to see the news leaked the next morning.

An avowed atheist, Narayan Dutt was deeply influenced by the philosophies of Dayanand Saraswati, Vivekananda and Gandhiji. He considered Gandhiji’s assasination as the saddest event in his life and the liberation of Bangladesh as the happiest.

Intellectually alert, curious and agile till the very end of his life, Narayan Dutt remained a bachelor throughout, but his loving siblings and extended intellectual family gave him the nourishment he needed. He was always a loving elder brother to all his junior journalists who looked up to him for guidance. He passed away in Bangalore on June 1,2014.

In his five decades of journalistic career, not only did Narayan Dutt carve a niche for himself as a writer, editor and reader but also for his characteristic simplicity, precision, clarity of thought and gentleness.

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