A doyen passes away (1921-2014)
A doyen of journalism, prolific author with nearly 50 books to his credit on a wide gamut of subjects, former Chairman of Prasar Bharati, educationist and political analyst par excellence, M V Kamath born on 7 September, 1921, passed away at Manipal on 9 October, 2014, after a brief illness. Ninety three-year-old Kamath was active till his last breath and his last column for the Free Press Journal, where he cut his journalistic teeth, appeared just a fortnight ago. Having shifted to Manipal after a long stay in Mumbai, Kamath was instrumental in the setting up of the Manipal School of Communication and was its Honorary Director from its inception till his demise.
A graduate of the Bombay University in Physics and Chemistry, Kamath had dreamt of securing a degree in medicine. But fate had willed that journalism would be his calling, and after serving as a chemist for five years, he landed a job as a cub reporter in the Free Press Journal and had the privilege of being put through his paces by S. Sadanand, a legend in the field at that point of time. He was to later become the paper’s Delhi correspondent and Editor.
He also edited ‘Bharat Jyothi’ and went on to become the United Nations correspondent of the Press Trust of India in the late fifties. Kamath also had a distinguished tenure in The Times of India serving in Bonn, Germany, and in Washington, where he was the paper’s correspondent for nine years from 1969-78. His long assignments abroad turned him into an expert in international relations. He also had a successful stint as Editor of the then popular and now defunct journal, The Illustrated Weekly of India, also from the Times stable, before hanging up his boots in 1981.
In well over six decades in journalism, M V Kamath earned a fair name for his honesty and integrity and had the distinction of being a witness to memorable events like the hoisting of the national flag and the lowering of the Union Jack on 15 August, 1947, and also covered the Nathuram Godse trial among other landmark events in the country’s history. Not one to be bitten by the technology bug, Kamath remained wedded to his ‘Olivetti’ typewriter and typed out all his articles and books himself. He also had a fascination for the written word and writing at least a thousand words every single day remained an abiding passion for him till his last days. While his weekly column in the Free Press Journal, ‘Odd man In’, covered topics of interest and was translated into other languages including Kannada as well, his books, each of which was eminently readable thanks to his free, flowing style, devoid of highfalutin prose, covered a wide range of subjects, including journalism, history, politics, biographies and even fiction.
Among the books that won him considerable acclaim from all quarters were tomes like ‘Gandhi – A spiritual journey’ and ‘Reporter at large’. His last book released in 2009 was a biography on the present Prime Minister Narendra Modi, titled ‘Narendra Modi – The Architect of a Modern State’. Strange as it may seem, Kamath who had no links with banking as an insider at any time in his life, authored the biographies of six banks with ‘A Banking Odyssey – The story of Canara Bank’, setting the ball rolling. He once confessed to this writer who was associated with him in penning the sequel to the biography of Canara Bank to commemorate its centenary, his teething troubles vanished after he completed the first book, and this enabled him to do adequate justice to the other assignments as well.
When the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government came to power, M V Kamath was chosen to head the Prasar Bharati. The Vajpayee government also honoured him for his contribution to Journalism, by conferring on him the Padma Bhushan award in 2004. Incidentally, M V Kamath also served on the Advisory Board of One India One People (OIOP) since its inception, and remained a source of inspiration and guidance from the days of the founder of OIOP, the late Sadanand A. Shetty and thereafter. Soft spoken, affable, accessible, and an avid conversationalist as well, M V Kamath’s spartan habits, adherence to principles and his writings are certain to serve as a beacon light to the present as well as to the future generation of journalists all over the country.