B. G. Verghese: An Embodiment of a More Dignified Era

While TV talking heads were recently splitting hairs over the appropriateness of timing of Dhoni's retirement, a famous journalist of yesteryears quietly 'passed away' causing a minor blip in the media's radar - a mere mention in the ticker of some TV channels and 'briefly' column in the inside pages of newspapers. For many even in the media it was B.G. Verghese who?
 
It may be upsetting to some, but not very surprising as the type of journalism Verghese and his peers practised is now a lost genre. It was far more nuanced, sober and shorn of present day narcissism and shrillness of 24/7 media. News reports were free from editorialising (it was strictly the domain of edit pages), glib packaging and of course paid news.
 
While in the mid 1970s journalism was subjected to a litmus test under Emergency, Verghese was one of the few honourable exceptions who did not 'crawl when asked to bend'. As Hindustan Times editor he was given marching orders for criticising Emergency. In fact for the HT management it was the proverbial last straw – they were itching to do so after he had earlier criticised India’s annexation of Sikkim. 
 
In the early eighties when I started exploring newspapers beyond cricket scores and comic strips to its far more rarefied spaces like edit and op ed pages, Verghese happened to be the editor of Indian Express. For India 1984 was a nightmare year starting with Operation Bluestar, Indira Gandhi's assassination and Bhopal gas tragedy. During anti-Sikh riots it was Indian Express which brought to limelight the infamous Trilokpuri massacre, thanks to some intrepid reporting by Rahul Bedi and Joseph Maliakan,  with Verghese backing them to the hilt.
 
After Verghese retired from Indian Express in 1986 he continued to be very active with his columns appearing in various publications and he was associated with Centre for Policy Research. He also penned some books and figured as member of various committees constituted by the government - probably the last notable one being the one to review Kargil war.
 
Though he always championed the cause of downtrodden his support for big dams raised many eyebrows. He had opposed the Narmada dam agitation spearheaded by Medha Patkar and even got into a long drawn but dignified debate with Arundhati Roy. He felt that despite displacement of population dams were beneficial in the long run.
 
With his demise and that of Kushwant Singh and M. V. Kamath recently, an era is drawing to a close. Kuldip Nayar and T J S George are probably the only notables of that generation who are still alive.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat