Kewal, a brave friend

Malkani is no more! Such valued friends are departing without as much as a ‘‘By your leave’’, and with not an earlier wo...

Malkani is no more! Such valued friends are departing without as much as a ‘‘By your leave’’, and with not an earlier word which could even mildly hint at and condition one for such a shock. A few weeks earlier, Nirmal Chandra Jain passed away after a few months as Governor of Rajasthan.

My last contact with Shri Malkani was the letter I received from him, shortly before I left Bhopal, expressing concern at the domination of packaged water industry by Coca Cola and Pepsi despite reports about pesticides in them and communicating the production of hundred per cent reliable ‘‘Pondicherry Water’’ which could be supplied to Raj Bhavan and PSUs. That was so like him — willing to take interest in promoting his government’s good work good work particularly when it richly served public health whether it was in consonance with his constitutional status or not.

K.R. Malkani (1921-2003)

My relations with him cover several decades, mainly the period he was editing the Organiser. He had left his job at a national daily and while he often bemoaned its ‘‘disorganised office’’ it was with a skeleton staff that he laboured to make it what it is today — the organ of a cause which is maligned and calls for courage and perseverance in the face of an adverse wave. I told him it would take prodding for him to make me write but he had all the patience and suggested subjects were followed by repeated calls and personal requests.

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My longest continued contact with Kewal
(I was one of the two or three friends who addressed him lovingly by his first name) began on the dark night Emergency was imposed. When I was hauled up at about 2 am and taken to police station, he was already there. Thus commenced our couple of months’ lodging in Rohtak jail. Though it was his first occasion — if I am not mistaken — to suffer imprisonment, he was ever cheerful. His intelligent and witty remarks added sparkle to any discussion, his views were sharp and expression never lacked boldness.

From the jail he was taken to some unknown place for interrogation and — as we learnt later — kept awake long under glaring lights, persistently questioned. It was an almost mad attempt to discover some ‘‘conspiracy’’ against Mrs Gandhi. Their suspicions arose merely from an article published in the Motherland — an infant English daily which Malkani was editing. The article was by Vasant Kumar Pandit, a Mumbai astrologer who was a Lok Sabha member who predicted the grabbing of dictatorial powers and ultimate downfall of Indira Gandhi — the first part of which had proved true the latter yet awaited. He stood all the torture like a brave man when the press had by and large ‘‘chosen to crawl when it had been asked only to bend’’.

After the Janata Party came into power for a while, he felt hurt at being neglected but never betrayed the cause he had devoted his life to. Such was his sterling spirit imbibed at the fountain of RSS as a token of which he wrote The RSS Story. A distinguished intellectual, brave friend and an affectionate colleague. May his soul rest in peace!