Kuldeep Nayar, brightest journalist of India’s darkest era, passes away at 95

NEW DELHI: Veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar, widely respected for his columns and reportage, died at a Delhi hospital early on Thursday morning, his family said. His articles were the most trusted sources at the time of the Emergency which lead to Nayar’s arrest by the government.

As a young law graduate in Sialkot (now in Pakistan), Kuldip Nayar witnessed at first hand the collapse of trust between Hindus and Muslims who had been living together for generations and like the multitude of the population, he too was forced to migrate to Delhi across the blood-stained plains of Punjab. From his perilous journey to a new country and to his first job as a young journalist in an Urdu daily, Nayar’s life has been a narrative of India.

“I had seen so much blood and destruction in the name of religion that I vowed to myself that the new India which we were going to build would know no deaths due to differences in religion or caste,” he wrote in his book. The journalist is survived by his wife and two sons. His last rites were performed at Lodhi crematorium.

Nayar, known as a crusader for civil rights and Press freedom, worked in several newspapers including as the editor in The Statesman. He had also served as Indian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom in the 1990s and was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 1997.

His works included the appointment of Lal Bahadur Shastri as prime minister following Nehru’s death — Shastri bested Morarji Desai for the top job — and the new PM’S untimely death in Tashkent two years later. A firm critic of the Emergency as editor of The Statesman, Nayar was jailed in 1975 for leading a protest against it.

Two years later, he broke the story about Indira Gandhi’s decision to go in for elections. Among his other scoops was a story on Pakistan’s plan to build a nuclear weapon and the Pakistani military’s decision to go ahead with the hanging of former prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

Historian Ramachandra Guha tweeted, “...he was a journalist who followed the dictates of his conscience rather than the lure of money or fame... Nayar was not a prose stylist, and prone to the odd conspiracy theory, yet his commitment to interfaith harmony, his professional commitment and integrity, and his courage during the Emergency absolutely shine.”