A Bangladeshi\\\'s tribute to great Indian editor Vinod Mehta

The death of Vinod Mehta, one of the greatest Indian editors, in Delhi on Sunday last, has come to me as a bolt from the blue, not because he, being a mortal being, was not to die but because all journalists expected him to live longer to shed his brilliance in the field.
I was lucky to get Vinod Mehta as my 'guru' for my entry into Indian journalism living in Dhaka. I entered the foray with his great helping hand. When I was serving the erstwhile Bangladesh Observer, one day I discovered a worn-out copy of the Bombay-based Indian Post at the National Press Club.
The then 12-page Indian Post was not impressive in its look as all newspapers used to be decades ago due to hackneyed printing and use of low quality newsprint.
I got the name of editor-in-chief Vinod Mehta and address of the daily from its back page and two days later, sent a letter containing my photo and bio-data through post office at Ram Krishna Mission Road addressing it to Vinod at the paper's head office at Bombay.
Three months had passed with no response. I was almost frustrated at my first attempt at foreign stringership.  
Then, all on a sudden, I received an envelope, torn a little bit. Possibly, somebody in the foreign desk of the General Post Office (GPO) tried to see whether the envelope coming from overseas might have contained dollars!
I could find in the envelope an appointment letter signed by Vinod Mehta with monthly stringership allowance of US$100 at the beginning. An International Telecommunication Union (ITU) card that allowed filing of news stories through fax or tele-printer free was there. Thus my association and interaction with Vinod began. My learning process as a stringer thus began.
I still remember, it was Vinod Mehta who made one of my stories an eight column front-page lead in the Indian Post when the then President HM Ershad had sent an Indian chopper with relief materials for flood victims in Bangladesh back home packing as it had landed without prior permission and information. Even international wire services based in Dhaka missed the story. Interestingly, it was the Reuters which had sourced from Bombay my item that appeared in the Indian Post for global circulation.
Several hundreds of stories on Bangladesh events, filed by me, got prominent space in the Indian Post, founded by an Indian textiles billionaire Vijayapat Singhania and Vinod Mehta was its editor-in-chief.    
At that time, tribal insurgency in three south-eastern hill districts of Bangladesh was at its peak. All stories that I had filed were carried by the Indian Post prominently without hiding the fact that it was the then Rajiv Gandhi government which had promoted it. The Shanti Bahini guerillas were provided arms and training to fight the Bengali settlers brought into the rugged but resource-rich region first by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, then Ziaur Rahman and later HM Ershad.
I came into contact with great names like Coomi Kapoor, Nitin Padte, Seema Guha and others due to professional reasons.
Once during my visit to Delhi, I was taken aback by a senior Post reporter Aditi Phadnis meeting me in my hotel room with piles of my reports on the Chittagong Hill Tracts calling me an 'expert' on the issue! She wanted to know more from me in person.  
Incidentally, Phadnis later married Lieutenant General Ashoke Mehta, elder brother of Vinod. Ashoke had commanded Indian troops in Sri Lanka.  
But my stint with the Indian Post was short-lived as Vinod resigned as its editor-in-chief and was kind enough to invite me to join the daily Independent, a Bombay-based paper of the Times of India Group. And while resigning, the great Indian editor was at his real self.    
As the India Today had said, not for a long time had a newspaper editor's resignation created such a stir in the Indian media. Vinod Mehta unexpectedly resigned from the paper, provoking charges that the then Indian government was trying to muffle an independent voice in the fourth estate. His exit  revived speculation that the Post's owners, the Raymond's group headed by Vijaypat Singhania was looking for a buyer for the two-year-old daily.
Vinod Mehta's press statement later was revealing: "I was informed by the management that certain reports appearing in The Indian Post against prominent persons had caused the Raymond's group serious problems and embarrassment and jeopardised the group's business interests. As a result, I have tendered my resignation."
The next day, the Indian Express reported that the Post's management told Mehta in writing "not to carry adverse reports on Rajiv Gandhi, Satish Sharma, Amitabh Bachchan, Dhirubhai Ambani, Sharad Pawar, Murli Deora, Lalit Suri and V.P. Singh".
It added, the letter came close on the heels of news that JK Raymond's had obtained government clearance for new projects worth over Rs 5.0 billion (500 crore). "Subsequently, Satish Sharma told the proprietors to sell the paper to an industrialist close to the ruling Congress (I) party," the Express stated.
Vinod Mehta was true to his guts. He denied the claims as being totally false and baseless. He later said: "The story is substantially correct. With nearly Rs 5.0 billion of projects on the line, Singhania was under intolerable pressure. It is a great tribute to him that he withstood it for all of 18 months of my editorship."
"If even a small paper like the Post cannot remain independent, press freedom is obviously under threat".
Mehta's resignation had prominent journalists and his staff raising a protest. Sixteen editors and columnists had signed a statement saying that the reasons for the resignation "reveal disturbingly the perils to press freedom in India today".
"It has been the government's constant refrain that the Indian press is not free because newspaper owners have other business interests. Shockingly, it is precisely those interests which are being manipulated to undermine the independence and perhaps the very existence of a newspaper," they added.
The Post was launched by Singhania in April 1987, but its first editor, S. Nihal Singh, quit just three months later, reportedly due to constant interference from the management. Vinod Mehta took over in October that year, and the Post soon made a mark for its lively coverage of not just national news but also world events, culture and sports. The relationship between the owner and editor, however, remained delicate, and Mehta threatened to quit once before.
In a recent report in the OUTLOOK magazine, his brainchild, a senior journalist justifiably called Vinod Mehta a born editor. "This is how one might describe Vinod Mehta. He was simply cut out for the high-profile position. A genuine intellectual well-versed and well-read in numerous subjects, Mehta could have lived his entire life as a freelance writer. And lived equally comfortably. But he was destined to excel as an editor, of newspapers as well as magazines, and leave a lasting imprint in English language journalism."
My interaction with Vinod Mehta later helped me get stringership jobs in the weekly Sunday (magazine) where I met yet another brilliant editor Vir Sanghavi, the Anandabazar Patrika, the Hindustan Times and the Bombay-based DNA. It had a bearing on my journalistic links to newspapers like the Saudi Gazette, the Arab News, the Khaleej Times and lately the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) news agency.

 The writer is Editorial Consultant, the Financial Express. Email: arjayster@gmail.com