Wing Commander R. Raju Srinivasan, a gallantry award winner, is not a prolific writer to this office. However, his occasional letters invariably point out an error in editorial judgment or an act of oversight. In his latest mail, he expressed profound sadness about the lack of mention of the passing away of Air Chief Marshal Idris Hasan Latif , former chief of the Indian Air Force, in the national pages of The Hindu. “I understand it has appeared in the Hyderabad edition,” he said. “Surely, the Air Chief Marshal deserved a mention in the national editions. For your information, the Air Chief was a World War II veteran and the face of secular India in more decent times. He was also the Governor of Maharashtra and Indian Ambassador to France. Details of such personalities should be read by everyone — not only by the Hyderabad readers.”
The importance of obituaries
I share Wing Commander Srinivasan’s sadness. We do tend to forget some of our yesteryear heroes. One of the elements of journalism that I have been stressing on for half a decade is the significance of obituaries. I wrote a column on it in 2016 (“ The importance of an obituary ”, July 4). Even as a Readers’ Editor, obituaries give me an opportunity to look at critical issues confronting journalism. The focus of my column when Gabriel García Márquez died (“ When words fail ”, April 21, 2014) was to celebrate journalism as a vocation and to emphasise the importance of using the right words. When the doyen of Tamil magazine journalism, S. Balasubramanian, passed away, my column (“ Our resourceful readers ”, December 19, 2014) looked at the limitation of relying on Web-based information. And for my former editor, Vinod Mehta, I explored the idea of chequebook journalism in my ombuds-obit (“ A rare exception to chequebook journalism ”, March 16, 2015).
Before The Economist started its regular obituary page in April 1995, it looked at the viewpoint of the critics of obituaries: “Those prone to searching for deeper significance may argue that some kind of fin-de-siècle preoccupation with death is at work here; or that the relish taken by British obituary pages in chronicling the lives of old soldiers of empire reveals a craving for an idealised past to supplant a degraded present.” But the magazine saw it as a celebration of people’s lives. Rob Kirk, a distinguished journalist and a military history researcher, was often asked: “Why remember? It’s all in the past — so let’s move on.” His reply was simple: “The past shaped the way we are today — not only the world we grow up in, where we struggle with conflicts the seeds of which were sown long ago. But also the opportunities — or lack of opportunities — we’re dealt as individuals.” And this is the role played by newspaper obituaries.
Metaphor for nation-building
Air Chief Marshal Idris Hasan Latif did more than serve the armed forces with distinction. He represented the idea of an inclusive, plural and cosmopolitan India. His choice to be an Indian during the Partition was as important as Maulana Abul Kalam Azad’s political decision. In a sense, he was a metaphor for an idealistic nation-building. Hence, limiting his obituary to the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana editions was a wrong call by the editors of the national pages.
How do these glaring oversights happen in newspapers? Is it because the next generation handles crucial pages? It is possible that journalists who grew up in post-liberalised India have a better emotional connect with leaders and personalities from the 1990s and later? It is rather difficult to point out the reason for these lapses. For every miss, even a sceptic like me can point out five hits. When Ram Kumar, master of abstract art, passed away in April, there was an excellent write-up on him that not just provided his biography but also gave the context to his work. Last week, economist Jayati Ghosh’s “The end of multiple eras” gave a glimpse into the wonderful mind of Ashok Mitra who straddled the worlds of literature, economics and politics with consummate ease. However, the journalistic community which questions the wisdom of people who indulge in whataboutery cannot take comfort in citing the instances of getting it right when someone points out a shortcoming. Each day is evaluated on its own merits.
readerseditor@thehindu.co.in
