FROM THE BLOGGER’S LIBRARY: REMEMBERING K.B.SAHAY:23
This particular article was published in "The Hindustan Times" (Patna edition) on March, 19,1989.
It was a chance encounter although I had for a long time wanted to meet
him. As I was about to leave the Indian Express building in Cochin where I had
gone to meet an old friend, he arrived there. “Who is he?”-I asked the
gatekeeper out of curiosity. “He is Mr. T. J. S. George”, - said the sentry as
he stood at attention and smartly saluted him.
When I told the receptionist
about my desire to meet Mr. George, he tried to dissuade me: “He meets people
only after an appointment”. “Please tell him that I am a journalist from Patna
and I am sure he would then call me”, I had to entreat. Sure enough, the
receptionist contacted him on the phone and I was immediately invited to his
room.
“I came here today. The
Sethji (Mr. Ramnath Goenka) is in town. Besides there is no one in in charge of
the edition here. So I have been asked to stay here for a few days till someone
assumes office”, said Mr. George welcoming me to his office. He seemed to be
extremely delighted to meet a newsman from Patna. More so when I told him that
I too had been associated with “The Searchlight”.
“I spent some of the best years
of my career in Patna. I have a lot of pleasant memories of my stay there”,
said Mr. George who was the Editor of “The Searchlight” in the mid-sixties.
“Are they all pleasant”” I was tempted to ask. “Are you referring to my
arrest?”- he shot back.
Mr. T. J. S. George shot into the
limelight when the Bihar police arrested him on the charge of inciting violence
and hatred against the Government and he was kept in jail for nearly a
fortnight. “Actually, there was no issue at all. When I first went to Patna, I
was told by some friends that the tradition there was to consult the Government
on all important issues and publish only its version. This was unthinkable for
me and I never bothered about this convention”, he recalled.
The provocation for the editor’s
arrest was the manner in which “The Searchlight” reported the news about a
bandh in Patna organized by the students who were protesting against a
lathicharge on them the previous day. “My only crime was that I gave a factual
account of the agitation that day. Not that I had omitted the Government’s
version. I gave fair coverage to that also. But, unfortunately, it was not very
pleasing to the powers-that-be.”
Even as the newspaper carrying
screaming headlines of the bandh and its aftermath was being distributed in
Patna and elsewhere, the police, on the
orders of the then Chief Minister, the late Krishna Ballabh Sahay, were on the
look out for Mr. George. They did not have to search for long as the young
editor was prepared to face the music and go to jail.
“Actually, Mr. Sahay wanted me to
be at his beck and call. When he found that I did not brook any interference in
editorial matters, he took it as a challenge. Once he telephoned me at my
residenceand started shouting at me. I told him that I was not used to being
shouted at and would put down the phone if he continued in the same manner. I
really had to bang down the phone”, said Mr. George recalling the incident.
Ever since that incident, the CM
had been after his blood. Once, it is said, he was invited to a dinner at the
CM’s residence where the latter expressed his opinion on the display of a
particular item in that day’s paper. “I do not like to be taught journalism by
a Chief Minister”, Mr George is said to have retorted and left the place in a
huff. Did the incident happen? “I don’t remember. It may or may not have
happened.”.
There are, in fact, several
stories about the way the two drifted apart. “It is pointless to remember all
that”, he excused himself from straining his memory.
His arrest caught the headlines
of the media and angered the public, particularly students of Patna, who were
at the receiving end of the Government. With the situation taking a turn for
the worse, the Government found itself inviting more trouble by keeping Mr.
George in a jail in Patna.
When he was dispatched to the
Hazaribagh Central Jail, the Government thought that the dust raised by his arrest
would automatically settle. But far from that, it only evoked bitter criticism
not only from the Press but also from all other sections of public opinion. Yet
Mr. K. B. Sahay was not prepared to listen to reason and derived vicarious
pleasure from keeping him in jail.
“I think Mr. K. B. Sahay was a
loner as many of his cabinet colleagues were opposed to the idea of sending an
editor to the jail. They lent me a lot of moral support and saw to it that my
stay in the jail was most comfortable”’ said Mr. George.
Since the editor found the
Government unrelenting, there was no other option for him than to knock at the
doors of the High Court where a writ petition was filed. The former defence
minister, the late Mr. V. K. Krishna Menon, who was a bar-at-law, was aghast
when he heard about the arrest of his friend and agreed to come down to Patna
to argue his case.
Mr. Menon’s arrival in Patna had
an electrifying effect on the case. The day he appeared in the Court to plead
Mr. George’s case, a record number of lawyers had swarmed into the Court while
a multitude of people waited outside to know the result.
An interesting anecdote of the
legal fight inside the Court room as recounted by a colleague has it that at
one point Mr. Menon got angry and told the counsel for the State, Mr. Lal
Narayan Singh: “I will teach you law”. The latter was not angered and replied politely:
“ I am prepared to learn, Sir”.
Since Mr. Menon had a field day
in absence of any valid points in the arsenal of the State counsel, it was
almost certain that the judgment would go in favour of Mr. George. The Chief
minister, who was keeping track of the proceedings from his house, realized for
once the futility of detaining him and ordered his immediate release.
As the writ was solely for Mr.
George’s release, it became in-fructuous with his release and Mr. Menon took
the next available flight to Delhi.”I knew Mr. Menon well as I had written his
biography”- explained Mr. George.
The adverse publicity that the
“Strongman of Bihar” Mr. K. B. Sahay got because of Mr. George’s arrest caused
irreparable damage to his political career. Less than a year later, Mr. K. B.
Sahay lost from both the constituencies of Patna and Hazaribagh from where he
contested in the 1967 Assembly elections.
After his release, Mr George, who
had started his career with the “Free Press” in Bombay, did not stay for long
in Patna. “I had decided to quit much before I was arrested”, said Mr. George.
He had a word of praise for the management of “The Searchlight” which stood by
him through thick and thin. “They even met the expenses of my counsel who did
not charge a penny by way of fees.”
Despite the harassment and the
mental torture caused to him, Mr. George had only words of praise for Mr. K. B.
Sahay. “What did he do? He only got me arrested by the police. Didn’t he have
respect for the Court? A politician in his place today would have got me
killed. Haven’t you heard about the Orissa journalist whose wife was gang-raped
and then killed?”- he asked.
After leaving Patna, Mr. T. J. S. George
founded the famous news magazine “Asia-week” and shifted base to Hong Kong. In
India he was the Editorial Adviser of the “Indian Express”.
“A leader is one who sees more than others
see who sees farther than others see, and who sees before others see.”
-LEROY EIME
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