Scoops of history

The autobiography of acclaimed journalist Kuldip Nayar — ‘Beyond The Lines’ — is a treasure trove of information on major events and personalities, notes M K Chandra bose.

Among the multitude of terror-stricken people fleeing the blood-stained plains of Punjab in the wake of partition was a 24-year-old law graduate from Sialkot. The carnage that he had witnessed during the trip to India left a deep scar in him. Uprooted from his home and hearth, he had to rebuild his life from scratch in Delhi.

That was Kuldip Nayar, the most recognisable face of Indian journalism. In a career spanning over six decades, he had covered epochal events as an intrepid reporter with a keen nose for news and dished out scoops after scoops, often making him a marked man. As a human rights activist who believes in India’s pluralism, he took up the cause of victims of injustice. Indo-Pak friendship is an article of faith for him.

Beyond The Lines is Kuldip Nayar’s story. The autobiography is less about him and more about modern India, the history of the nation as he saw it unfold. As one who had watched Jinnah’s rise along with the widening chasm between Hindus and Muslims leading to partition, he was aghast at the failure of Congress leaders to prevent partition.

He equally blames Nehru and Jinnah for the division resulting in unspeakable horrors and the largest migration in history. Nayar feels the partition could have been avoided. He notes that Lord Mountbatten’s decision to advance the date of independence led to unforeseen bloodshed. A few months after starting his career in an Urdu newspaper in Delhi, he was assigned to cover Gandhiji’s assassination. He recalls that he had wept inconsolably at Birla Mandir.

The book begins on the day the Pakistan resolution was adopted by the Muslim League in 1940 and takes the reader through the ups and downs of the nation-building process and shaping up of the country’s foreign policy, development plans and threats to democracy. During the formative years of the republic, Nayar could witness major events from vantage points and observe senior leaders at close quarters.

The stint with the home ministry as Information Officer, first with G B Pant and later with Lal Bahadur Sastri provided him unique inside information on government functioning. A major development during the period was the re-organisation of states on a linguistic basis. He considers abandoning of the proposal to make Bombay a Union Territory a mistake. Nayar foresaw the prospect of linguistic states becoming ‘islands of chauvinism’.

Though Nehru was his hero, Nayar has no hesitation in blaming him for the Chinese debacle. Nehru was under the delusion that China would never attack India. Ignoring all warnings from Congress leaders, he pursued a policy relying on his judgment with disastrous consequences. While giving full marks to Nehru for building institutions and his commitment to press freedom, Nayar faults him for not standing up to vested interests and stalling drastic land reforms.

He suspects that Nehru wanted Indira to succeed him. He had an excellent rapport with Sastri and was privy to the negotiations leading to his succession as prime minister. He recalls Indira Gandhi’s hostility towards Sastri and how she had tried to block his access to Nehru. Nayar was present in Tashkent when Sastri died after signing the accord with Ayub Khan. He feels that the government’s refusal to release papers connected with Sastri’s death lends credence to the rumours that he was poisoned.

As the founder of UNI and Resident Editor of The Statesman, Nayar had made a mark with his column Between the Lines becoming hugely popular. But the most eventful was his stint with Indian Express. He was jailed during the Emergency for writing against the authoritarian streak in Indira Gandhi and her son.

He had resisted pressure from K K Birla and Kamal Nath to write in favour of Sanjay Gandhi. Nayar dabbled in politics briefly by associating himself with the JP movement and the formation of Janata Government, but soon got disillusioned by the infighting among top leaders. He feels that it was a mistake on the part of JP to associate the Jan Sangh with his movement. He describes Babri Masjid demolition as “daylight murder of secularism.”

He has no doubt that P V Narasimha Rao connived at the demolition. He quotes socialist leader Madhu Limaye as saying that Rao sat at a puja when the demolition was on and “rose only when the last stone had been removed’’. Beyond The Lines is a treasure trove of information on major events and personalities, be it Operation Blue star or Gujarat riots; Edwina Mountbatten or A Q Khan; Mujibur Rahman or Z A Bhutto; his stint as the High Commissioner in London or as MP.

The chapters dealing with the period up to V P Singh era are more incisive. Nayar writes on politicians, bureaucrats, whimsical press barons and spineless editors who were unworthy of the high positions they held. These are hard truths unpalatable to some. Radical Sikhs are already enraged. Better editing could have averted a few factual errors and typos that impede the smooth flow of the narrative.