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The man and the journalist
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Date: 21-01-1996 :: Pg: 28
Cl: Biography
In these days news papers are ``sold like cakes
of soap,'' it is pleasant and edifying to recall a journalist who
held his ideals above all material considerations and was never
soured by disappointment. Khasa Subba Rao who was born in Nellore
dist.(Andhra Pradesh) on January 23, 1896,exactly a year before
Netaji Subhas Bose (like whom, he was a fighter in his own
field.)He graduated in philosophy from Presidency College, where
he was a pupil of Dr. S. Radhakrishnan. Though he qualified himself
for Law by passing the First Grade Pleader's examination, he
preferred such a one was to train as a teacher.
He started as a teacher in a middle school in Nellore
district. It was while working here that he came into contact
with a patriotic headmaster, Digumarti Hanumantha Rao, who was
the first major influence in his adult life. Khasa did not stay
as a teacher for long.
The second major influence, which was to prove even more
significant, was that of Andhra Kesari T. Prakasam. Khasa was one
of the fiery band of young idealists, who hitched their wagon to
Prakasam's star in the early.
He identified himself with his leader's paper, Swarajya
(English daily) as also his movement of non-co-operation. He
nearly lost his life in a lathi charge on the Satyagrahis in
Madras.
When the Swarajya folded up, after a bright, but fitful,
existence in the middle, Khasa tried his luck for some time with
S. Sadanand's Free Press Journal in Bombay.
Earlier, he was in Calcutta for a brief period in the
Liberty, sponsored by B.C. Roy and others of the Sen Gupta group.
But he soon found himself back in Madras, where he was in and out
of the Indian Express more than once and Free Press (now defunct)
once.
It was in 1945-46 that Khasa, who was always chafing
under proprietorial controls, launched his own journal, the
English weekly Swatantra, to which he added the Telugu Swatantra
later.
The third major influence on his life was Rajaji. Khasa's
editorials were highly regarded for their clarity of expressions
subtlety of thinking and courage of conviction. When he had to
give up Swatantra for financial reasons he started another
weekly, Swarajya which continued for some years under the
editorship of Pothan Joseph, K. Santhanam, and later that of R.
Venkataraman. Khasa died in June 1961, at the age of 65.
It may be convenient to pick out three main
characteristics of Khasa as a man and as a journalist. The first
was his humility. It is a rather old-fashioned virtue, if it is
to be considered a virtue at all. It is said of a great editor of
The Times that his name appeared only once in his paper. And that
was in the obituary column. (British newspapers were then not
obliged to print the name of the declared editor, in the
imprint).
Khasa did not quite go to the same extent. He knew as
well as anyone else, that his weekly Swatantra and later Swarajya
derived their essential character and reader appeal from his
editorship. But he never allowed himself to forget the fact that
it was the journal and its content that needed to be projected
and not his own name or personality.
He never, or hardly ever, printed his own photograph or
allowed his editorial assistants (whom he preferred to call his
colleagues) to print it in his periodical.
A published photograph of his, one remembers, was the one
taken with the British M.P., the Rev. Reginald Sorensen, whom he
interviewed in Madras for his Swatantra weekly in 1946.
Those of us, who were reading his Swatantra still
remember that he was more hospitable to letters of criticism than
to those of praise and agreement with his own stand in its
correspondence columns. This was a index of his spirit of
liberalism, something not seen nowadays. An impenitent liberal,
he took the stand that his editorial point of view needed no
reinforcement from the readers.
The second characteristic was his ``humanity'' I wouldn't
call it ``humanism'' here, as is a philosophy of life, believing
in man that as the architect of his own destiny. Khasa was
obviously a humanist as well. One is thinking rather of his
``human'' quality here.
He had profound faith in the goodness of human nature.
That faith was unshaken till the last day of his life and proof
against all kinds of disappointments and disillusionments. It did
not come of naivete. He was anything but naive.
Some friends described him as too emotional and simple-
minded. Emotional he certainly was when he reacted to wrongdoing
and injustice. He would then be breathing fire, full of righteous
indignation. Under this impulse, he would be prepared to do
anything and not count the cost.
There were many occasions of the kind. But he was far
from being simple-minded, if the term was used in the sense that
he did not understand the crookedness and complexity of certain
types of human character. He was not lacking in shrewdness to see
through them. He knew them very well indeed, but he made
allowance for them, as he did for all human frailties.
When he was sixty, he felt that the burden of newspaper
management was too heavy for him. So he took as partner a
prosperous businessman, to relieve him of the lion's share of the
burden. Other friends and well-wishers of his were sceptical
about his experiment in human relations. They made no secret of
their doubts about how long the partnership would last.
In fact, it did not last very long, as every one came to
know a little later. But Khasa was undeterred. He would say that
at his age in life he should have nothing to fear. He gladly
parted company with his friend and was prepared to start afresh,
as he did more than once.
As a critic of public affairs, Khasa was known to be
vehement, to the point of being harsh and violent, as some would
look at it. He did indeed let himself go at times. He was not
afraid to attack, but he was unwilling to wound, if he could help
it.
Just the reverse of Alexander Pope's Atticus. The best of
his personal friends tasted the lash of his whip. But they knew
that there was no bitterness in him. He attacked people more in
sorrow than in anger when he realised that he himself was in the
wrong, he was ready to make ample amends. He was sometimes in the
wrong; but never on the side of wrong.
The third characteristic of Khasa was closely connected
with the second his genius for friendship. He was far from being
the breezy, backslapping, hail-fellow-well-met type. But such of
those friends as he had tried and trusted, he kept till the end,
tied with hoops of steel, as it were.
In matters of friendship, Khasa was a true cosmopolitan.
His circle of friends was drawn from all languages, nationalities
and walks of life. Some of his best friends were non-Andhras
Tamils, Malayalis, Bengalis, Americans, Europeans and others. The
famous artist, D. P. Roy Choudhury, was one such, for instance.
He would do anything for him. Roy Choudhuri used to give his
paintings and drawings freely to him for reproduction in
Swantantra.
Khasa was let down by many of his fair-weather friends.
But that experience did not leave him embittered. It did not
shake him faith in man. He was great as a journalist. He was,
perhaps, even greater as a man.
D. ANJANEYULU
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