A noble thought on Jawaharlal Nehru’s 45th death anniversary

Today is 27th May, 2009.

My thoughts go back to down memory line. I was then a little boy of eight-years old. On 27th May 1964 our neighbour Kamlakshan was returning from the village shop with hot news and while returning home he was saying to everybody Nehru died! No television, internet, direct dialling telephone or other means of fast communication system were not available at that time in India.

Now 45-years have been passed. However, I still remember that day.

Today, on 27th May 2009, the Wednesday, India paid rich tributes to Jawaharlal Nehru’s 45th death anniversary. President Pratibha Patil  and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh  were among a host of leaders who paid floral tributes to India’s first Prime Minister. Jawaharlal Nehru was born on November 14, 1889.

On the 45th death anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru I would like to share my thoughts with my readers. Now in India the Congress Party is back in power with 200 plus seats in the recent elections. I wrote an article last year about the closure of Nehru’s National Herald newspaper.

The Congress party and its president Sonia Gandhi can revive Jawaharlal Nehru’s National Herald. The paper is part of Nehru’s legacy and has upheld the tradition of secularism and non-alignment. Any thought of reviving the paper would be the most befitting tribute from the Congress party and Sonia Gandhi on his 45th death anniversary.

I reproduce below excerpts from my article published last year to refresh the memory of my readers:

“Creating something is not an easy job. Making something from the scratch and raising it to the top is a hard task to accomplish. Jawaharlal Nehru did this job 70 years ago in the form of launching the newspaper, National Herald at Lucknow on September 9, 1938. And now, bidding farewell to this venture is a difficult task. But, the 70-year-oldNational Herald and its sister Urdu newspaper Quami Awaz closed down on April 1 (Tuesday). The last editorial titled ’Herald hopes for a better tomorrow indicates perhaps the closure would be only a temporary phase.

Manikonda Chalapathi Rau was the editor of the National Heralad from 1946 onwards for over a period of 30 years. The founder, Jawaharlal Nehru was the soul and M Chalapathi Rau was the body of the newspaper.

Rajiv Gandhi revived the National Herald in 1987. The Lucknow edition of the National Herald and Quami Awaz were closed down about 10 years ago. The paper also had a Hindi edition Navjivan - a name given by Mahatma Gandhi - that was also closed down several years ago.

According to the oldest employee of the newspaper, 70-year-old TV Venkatachalam, the editor-in-chief of National Herald, New Delhi, who joined the newspaper in 1987 when Rajiv Gandhi revived it, and with 20 years’ service, nine years as editor said, "The paper is part of Nehru’s legacy and has continued to uphold the traditions of secularism and non-alignment and I hope the Congress party will not allow it to close down finally."

TV Venkatachalam further added, "The National Herald team always tried to keep a fine balance in our news, especially the editorials, and never tried to make it sound like a party publication. Unlike any party newspapers, there has never been any interference from the Congress party in presenting the news in the National Herald."

Can anyone imagine that the editorial department of a 70-year old English language newspaper did not have a computer in 2008? The press section had five computers and there was one computer in the teleprinter room, which was used by the editorial and advertisement staff to check mails. Some senior editors brought their own laptops to work. The management had wanted to computerise Quami Awaz four years ago, but the proposal was shot down by the union as around 20 calligraphers would have been displaced. The National Herald newspaper, which officially claimed a circulation of around 40,000 copies, ’never had a history of making profits’. Management is an art. Similarly unprofessional attitude and mismanagement is an art for quite a number of political people.

Jawaharlal Nehru once told "I will not let the National Herald close down even if I have to sell Anand Bhawan (to avoid it)".

It was his hope. Time has changed. Yes, time will tell the difference. Now who is interested in a non-profit making and dying heritage newspaper? As a person of Sonia Gandhi's stature, who has written longer Forewords than Indira Gandhi, in the latest editions of Jawaharlal Nehru’s three famous classics, Glimpses of World History, The Autobiography and The Discovery of India should have avoided the closure of the National Herald.

Had she some problems to avoid the closure of National Herald, competently manage the mismanagement and to find out means and finance, she should have consulted with the great fund raising Congress leaders from Gods own country, Kerala, who claim running a party newspaper and a TV channel, though the second claim is invalid. The Congress leaders from Kerala could have easily raised funds from the Middle East through their well-wishers and party supporters for National Herald.”