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Business News/ Opinion / MJ Akbar: A journalist or a minister?
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MJ Akbar: A journalist or a minister?

It's irrelevant whether Akbar is in the Congress or the BJP because the man has risen above party politics

A file photo of M.J. Akbar (left) with BJP chief Rajnath Singh. Photo: HTPremium
A file photo of M.J. Akbar (left) with BJP chief Rajnath Singh. Photo: HT

I have read Aakar Patel’s and Salil Tripathi’s pieces on M.J. Akbar joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but as someone who started his journalistic career under Akbar, my take on him in quite different.

First things first—let’s not judge Akbar in a hurry, please. It’s irrelevant whether he is in the Congress or the BJP because, honestly speaking, the man has risen above party politics. I don’t think Akbar’s place in history will be determined by his brief stint as a Congress member of Parliament or his new avatar as BJP spokesman.

History will remember him as a pillar of the fourth estate who fortified Indian democracy in the post-emergency era through fearless publications like Sunday, The Telegraph and Asian Age. He trained an army of reporters to expose injustice and fight alongside the common man. He nurtured sub-editors who produced eyeball grabbing pages night after night, setting the agenda for the day. The Akbar school of journalism is his biggest contribution to nation building. Whatever political colour Akbar may acquire from time to time, nothing can take away from his pioneering role as a media champion.

Of course, Akbar couldn’t have achieved what he did without a certain Bengali gentleman called Aveek Sarkar. Sarkar prepared the pitch for Akbar to bat and bowl on. Theirs was an unprecedented partnership; they were brothers-in-arm. Before Sarkar hired him, no big media house had a Muslim editor. Sarkar, a secular capitalist, not only signed him up, but gave him full freedom to push back the frontiers of journalism. To be sure, Sunday or The Telegraph did not make pots of money. But they lifted the morale of the print media that was shattered during the emergency. Thankfully, the print media hasn’t looked back since then.

I joined Sunday while I was still studying at St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata; my confirmation had to wait for my graduation, though. I first met Akbar as a freelancer. He published a few of my stories before hiring me as sub-editor-cum-reporter. My starting salary was 750. But that was 500 more than what The Statesman was willing to pay me.

Akbar was ecstatic when I broke the Bhagalpur blindings story in November 1980 which won a United Nations award; it’s still considered a milestone in investigative journalism in India. Akbar threw a party at his home to celebrate the scoop the whole country was talking about. But he called me a Bihari in a piece Sunday carried with my picture on the UN award which upset my family as we belong to Uttar Pradesh, which is considered a notch higher in the popular imagination!

I can’t imagine where I would have been today if Akbar hadn’t given me a break when I was all of 20 years old. Anyway, as the baby of the Sunday team, I observed him at close quarters. I’m yet to see another editor work as hard. He came to office even on Sundays. But he didn’t have much faith in subbing (sub-editing); he rewrote stories from top to bottom. Sometimes he rewrote half a dozen 1,000-1,500 word magazine stories in a single day, pounding away at his Olivetti typewriter in those pre-computer days. Like income tax, Akbar was a great leveller; he rewrote everyone’s copy—from assistant editors’ to mine—in his inimitable style. In the bargain, some of us managed to learn the craft of writing—a professional skill I have used for over three decades to earn a decent living.

In some societies, the men teach the boys how to fish so that they never starve. Akbar taught us the equivalent of fishing in an urban setting so that we could live comfortably with our head held high. As an exceptionally gifted teacher, he is entitled to guru dakshina from hundreds of men and women who owe him a debt of gratitude.

When I say that Akbar is above politics, I mean he has a huge, nationwide constituency of readers who have followed every word he has written for around 40 years since his Illustrated Weekly days. No politician belonging to the right, left or centre has a fan following anywhere close to Akbar’s. I’m not talking about Twitter and social media but old-fashioned print media. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, and from Kolkata to Kota, there are countless readers who pore over his pieces; he is an opinion maker par excellence. After he sold Asian Age, The Sunday Times of India provided him an unmatched platform for airing his views. Alas his column appears no more.

I think Akbar’s best book is The Shade of Swords, the treatise on jihad. I have received calls from some of the remotest parts of Africa from discerning readers wanting to know more about the man who wrote it. I also overheard the book being discussed on a flight from London to Kolkata by two British academics in the row behind mine. It seemed they had read the book many times over.

Many say that Akbar is angling for a Rajya Sabha seat. It’s a harmless wish; like Sachin Tendulkar, Akbar might indeed sit in the Upper House. But after Tendulkar’s Rajya Sabha term ends, will he be known as a cricketer or an MP? You know the answer. Similarly, Akbar will always be recalled as a journalist and author, and never as an MP or minister!

The author won a United Nations award for breaking the Bhagalpur blinding story in Sunday.

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Published: 17 Apr 2014, 04:17 PM IST
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