This column from Business World of 29 January 2004 was a tribute to Krishna Raj, a friend with whom I had worked closely in the early years of Economic and Political Weekly which he edited.
The passing of a standard bearer
Krishna Raj passed away on 17 January. He was in his
mid-sixties, when many begin a new life these days; and he lived a life of
moderation and discipline. If anyone deserved to enjoy the fruits of his labours,
it was Krishna Raj.
Today Sachin means the cricketer
with the tax-free, bright red racing car. But for economists of my age, Sachin
meant Sachin Chaudhury. Sachin lived in a small flat behind Taj Mahal hotel in
Bombay. He was a great host. If he had money, he served drinks; if not, one
could still rely on being asked to dine. And he sought out good economists.
I do not know how he found me out
when I went in 1964 to teach at Bombay University. A carefree bachelor then, I
lived in Colaba and walked to work in the shadow of Rajabai tower; I found food
in one of the cheap restaurants between the two. Soon I got into the habit of
dropping by on Sachin on the way back home. I never knew whom I would run into in
his house –Amartya Sen, Daniel Thorner, Pitambar Pant, all would drop in on him
when they were in Bombay. Sachin would ask me what I was working on, or
thinking about. He would prise it out of me, and start an argument about it.
Then, at some point he would say, “Why don’t you write that up for me?” So I would
write it up next day and take it to his office on Frere Road; the following
Thursday it would go into Economic Weekly – his Weekly, his child, his
passion. He lived for the Weekly, breathed economics, and sought out good
economists, however young, however obscure.
But unknown to me, Sachin was
dying. He was worried about what would happen to Economic Weekly after
he died. The whole establishment – the Weekly, the office, the staff – belonged
to a businessman who had financed Sachin and helped him build it up. Sachin was
unsure that the arrangement could continue after he died. So he collected money
from the friends of Economic Weekly and set up a trust – Sameeksha Trust
– to run it. The businessman was offended; he had never interfered with the
Weekly, and could not understand why Sachin could not trust him to carry it
forward. So Economic Weekly stayed with him, and died. Sameeksha Trust
started Economic and Political Weekly.
Some time before his death,
Sachin asked K N Raj for someone to help him, and Raj sent him Krishna Raj.
Soon Sachin was too sick, and went away to Kotagiri, leaving it to young
Krishna Raj to bring out the Weekly every week. Economic Weekly had many
friends, but Krishna Raj did not even know many of them. He was thrown in at
the deep end. There was an inner circle of well-wishers who helped him as best
as we could. Ashok Rudra, Ravi Hazari, Krishnaswami, and I dropped by at the
EPW office on Thursday afternoons and filled up the blank pages with instant
commentaries. We could fill the pages; but ultimately it was for Krishna Raj to
make sure that the EPW was sent off to readers on Friday evening.
For almost 40 years after Krishna
Raj came to Bombay, he kept EPW running. I myself drifted away from it. In the
1970s I was away in Fiji and England. When I came back, I found EPW flooded
with second-rate leftist economics. I pointed out some of its errors. I
remonstrated with Krishna Raj. I told him Sachin had meant EPW to be something
quite different – a debating forum for good economists of every colour. My
protests had no effect. If the protégé of one of the leftists sent an article,
it was published immediately; an writer without the right patron might not even
get an acknowledgment. My protests were of no avail. I believe it was not Krishna
Raj’s fault; one of the trustees had ordained it so.
Anyway, by the 1990s, leftist
policies had failed, and leftist ideologies disgraced. Then Krishna Raj won
some autonomy, and tried to bring back all those economists who had given up on
EPW. It never reached the intellectual heights that Sachin had won for Economic
Weekly, but it did become India’s most widely read and respected journal in
social science. When Krishna Raj asked me some years ago to return to writing
in EPW, I told him he had built up something he could be proud of, and did not
need me any longer. It was not what I would have liked it to be; but it was an
achievement in its own right, and the achievement was Krishna Raj’s. Today, it
is his creation, a monument to his devotion, his assiduity, and his unremitting
labour. It is his mantle that his successor will inherit.
