New Delhi: Veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar, whose byline became a trusted source of news and analysis for generations of Indians, passed away in New Delhi on Thursday following a brief illness. He was 95 and is survived by his wife and two sons.
Born in 1923 in Sialkot in undivided Punjab, the Nayar as a 24-year-old was eyewitness to the massacres that followed the partition of the country into India and Pakistan. “When I crossed the border on September 13, 1947,” he wrote many years later in his book, Scoop!, “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.”
Fluent in Punjabi and Urdu, Nayar began his career as an Urdu language journalist before switching to English. A graduate of FC College, Lahore, he studied journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in 1952 and upon his return plunged headlong into reporting.
His career as an active journalist spanned over four decades and gave him the opportunity to report first hand some of the major news developments of the period. These 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.
In 1990, the V.P. Singh government appointed Nayar as Indian high commissioner to the United Kingdom. He also served as a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha.
An advocate for human rights and peace between India and Pakistan, Nayar traveled with Atal Bihari Vajpayee on his famous bus journey to Lahore. In all, Nayar authored 15 books, including his autobiography, Beyond the Lines.
Historian Ramachandra Guha remembered him as a journalist who followed the dictates of his conscience rather than the lure of money or fame.