“I'd always believed that there was a method to the madness in the way governments functioned. It was only when I joined it that I realised that it was pure, unadulterated madness!” B.G. Verghese laughs. He should know. With 60 years spent, amongst others, at the helm of Hindustan Times and The Indian Express , and as information adviser to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, he has been, as the tagline to his book First Draft reads, a Witness to the Making of Modern India .
He lays down these years in the book, suffused with dry wit and a personal narrative, taking us through an India hurriedly-glued together, the darkness of the Emergency and the growth of journalism, peace and the nuclear bomb, freedoms and famines.
“And it is, of course, a continuing story,” he says. But now, unlike 1962 or Kargil, aren't the greatest challenges from within? “It's boisterous, factitious and violent, yes. But that dissent, I believe, makes for a far stronger democracy. And these are symptoms of growing up.”
Born in Maymyo in Burma in 1927, Verghese spent eight years at Doon School — much was learnt, several records made and broken (the first fracture of a limb in Doon, he proudly states, was his — though “Noshir Cooper suffered multiple fractures the next term and snidely insinuated a greater title to fame.” St. Stephens and Cambridge followed. “I wanted to teach. Or work in the U.N. To travel about settling the world's affairs.”
So, he turned down the first approach from The Times of India. “The British-owned paper was being brought by Seth Ramakrishna Dalmia, whose ideas included prevention of cow-slaughter.” The editor, Francis Low, felt it wise to have on deck a few British-educated Indians, so that the liberal traditions of Bennett and Coleman would not be entirely lost.
He finally accepted the appointment in 1949, returning to a country nascent in its Independence. Then, the first Republic Day, 1950. “All of Bombay was on the streets. Every building, ship and buoy, as far as the eye could see, was lit up. And lo! at midnight, every ship, factory and locomotive sounded its sirens and horns. Guns boomed. Strangers danced in the streets till early morning. It felt as though we were beginning a new world.”
Distinct voice
Into that new world, Verghese entered with a remarkably distinct voice, reporting on developmental issues. When Nehru, in 1958, first voiced his desire to step down as Prime Minister, Verghese was one of the few to agree. “And, I wrote that many, many times.”
The book is significantly forthright in its critique of not only the policies and politicians, but of the author himself. Sent to report the allegations against the first Communist government in Kerala, Verghese went “overboard, swayed by exaggerated fears engendered by a mob mentality.” But, his tirades worked, playing a role in the dismissal of E.M.S. Namboodiripad's government.
It is in the retelling of the years of the Emergency that the book comes powerfully alive. With new censorship rules in place, they tried to “see how we might beat the censor by allegory, quotations, puns, sarcasm…and innuendo. We believed our readers would soon learn the code.” In the appendix to the book, he has collected a series of poems from the Emergency, dark with rage and passion. On June 28, 1975, the Hindustan Times rolled off the press with an insinuatingly blank editorial page. “ The Times , Bombay, carried an obituary notice reading: ‘D.M.Ocracy — beloved husband of T. Ruth, loving father of L.I.Bertie, brother of Hope, Faith and Justica, expired on 26 June.'”
Was anything markedly different about journalism then? “There were editors,” he smiles. (He describes them in the book as “the gatekeepers, unsung and unseen heroes”) “Besides,” he adds, “with the recent exposes of the media, journalists have lost the moral authority to demand a ‘How dare you?' of anyone.”
It is the preface that best sums it all up. “On going through my files of clippings, I find …that ‘history' repeats itself. I could reprint some of my old columns verbatim today, only changing names and dates, and yet appear totally contemporary.”
Six decades later, one wonders when we will finally learn the lessons.
