However, Samaren Roy’s young friend Pratap Kumar Roy observed Ghosh’s work and liked it well enough to offer him the job of a proof-reader with the daily paper he was about to publish. It was named Satyayug, after the earliest and most righteous of the four ages of the Hindu world cycle, it was owned by the country’s largest newspaper chain, TheTimes of India group.
After a short stint as proof-reader at Satyayug, Ghosh was given charge of the ‘children’s and cinema’ pages. During this time, he published a few of his own short stories for children. In 1949 his first book, Ei Kolkatay(In this Calcutta), was serialised in the Sunday edition. Ghosh believed that this autobiographical satire gave him, “some prominence as a writer.” Ei Kolkatay was published as a book in 1950, followed by his second book in 1951, Meghnamati (the name of a legendary girl), a collection of fairy tales.
Ghosh often wrote under his pen name Rupadarshi (meaning ‘one who sees beauty’). Ghosh’s Rupadarshi column was “about common folks seen every day but never noticed.”
After Satyayug closed in 1951, Ghosh was unemployed for about a year. During this time he concentrated on his writing for which he had one steady outlet; a regular column for Desh entitled “Rupadarshir Naksha” (Sketches by Rupadarshi, his pen name). Ghosh started this column in 1950 at the initiative of Sagarmoy Ghosh, the editor of the popular literary weekly. It had a successful run until 1953.
Ghosh’ intent was to make people aware that there is beauty in everyone if only they adopt a more humanist viewpoint. A second series of sketches of ordinary people was compiled as his third book, Sarcus (aka Circus, how the English word was often pronounced by Bengalis), and published in 1952.
In 1952, Ghosh also started work as a junior reporter in Calcutta’s largest Bengali-language daily, Anandabazar Patrika. Despite having little experience as a reporter, Ghosh believed he was hired because Ei Kolkatay had attracted the attention of the paper’s publisher.
While working for the newspaper Ghosh continued contributing to Desh. Between 1952 and 1954, the publication of six stories he wrote about Sagina Mahato and five other political personalities he had met in his early days, added another dimension to his reputation as a penetrating social critic. The series was published in book form in 1956 named after the eponymous hero Sagina Mahato.
In 1958 Gour Kishore Ghosh and Amitava Chowdhury decided to start an independent news weekly on the side, Darpan (The Mirror). Through this weekly they could express their opinions without the inhibitions imposed upon them by their respective commercial newspapers. Upon querying how they managed to do it, Ghosh had exclaimed, “How did we do it? That is a wonderment! I don’t know how Amitava (Chowdhury) persuaded prominent journalists from almost all the papers to join us and put in share money to start Darpan.”
Chowdhury also urged Ghosh to write a satirical column for Darpan entitled “Hing Ting Chhat” (freely translated as “Sim Sala Bim”). For this column Ghosh took the pen name Goudananda Kavi (meaning ‘Poet Laureate of Bengal’; Gouda is the ancient name of Bengal). Ghosh stayed with Darpan for 18 months and Chowdhury a year or so longer.
After he withdrew from Darpan, Ghosh published his popular column under the title “Goudananda Kavi Bhane” (Thus Spake the Poet Laureate of Bengal) as an occasional feature in Anandabazar Patrika. In the early 1970s it became a regular weekly column and in 1974 a collection of these columns was published in book form.
From 1953 through the middle of 1975, in the Goudananda column, he continued chronicling the deterioration of law and order in India, and “the growing lack of simple brotherhood”.
Ghosh’s second column for Desh, “Rupadarshir Sangbad Bhashya” (News Commentary by Rupadarshi) was a revival of his earlier Rupadarshi column. It ran from 1968 to 1975. Desh never hesitated in printing Ghosh’s biting political commentaries. Ghosh himself was never daunted by the risk of calling out and holding powerful and dangerous elements accountable, despite being assaulted by the police in 1953 for criticising their attempts to suppress political movements.
Ghosh’s EiKolkatai was published as a book in 1950, followed by his second book in 1951, Meghnamati, a collection of fairy tales.
He published ten novels, collections of satires, short stories, and children’s books with this remark: “many have long been out of print and even I have forgotten the titles.”
However, Ghosh remembered his Brajodar Gulpa-Samagra (Absurd Stories of Brajada) with delight. The Brajada stories were a collection of satires on the inflated ego of the Bengalis. Not wanting to use the adjective “absurd” in the title he distorted the Bengali word “galpo” (meaning story) to “gulpa” to imply absurdity. In Ghosh’s own words, the character of Brajada is a typical pompous Bengali gentleman who “excels in everything and believes that Bengalis are the best dressers in the world and that Bengalis can do anything. I punctured him in hilarious ways.”
The Brajada stories sold well and one was even made into a popular film.
In 1965 he wrote the novelette Lokta (That Nonperson), which in the words of a colleague, “portrayed in graphic detail the social tension which had begun to reduce individuals to nonpersons.” A condensed English version was published in the Australian periodical Quadrant the same year. Its sequels, Baghbandi (Game of Checkers) and Toliye Jabar Aage (Before the Deluge), were written between 1967 and 1969. They “depicted the seeds of internal decay, the inevitable growth of violent minority movements and urban guerrilla action and the resulting counterforce of cruel government suppression.” The aforementioned colleague ranks Baghbandi as “a modern classic for its human insight into a group of young urban terrorists whose policies he strongly disapproved but for which he suffered immense grief.” The two stories, he continues, “comprise a treatise on contemporary history in extraordinarily sympathetic terms.”
Ghosh emphasises that these stories were written before the Naxalite outbreak but said, “If you read them you will understand why a boy became a Naxalite.” Because of their relevance they were republished in a book entitled Amra Jekhane (Where We Are) in 1970 when the Naxalites were at the height of their power. While recognising the phenomenon as an excess of Bengali emotionalism with historic precedents Ghosh deeply regretted that educated young people should see no other way to express protest.
On two occasions Marxist leaders took strong exception to Ghosh’s writing. In 1967 his Gariahat Bridger Upar Theke Dujane (Those Two on Top of Gariahat Bridge), a satirical novelette commented on Marx and Mao Tsetung, brought an attack on the Anandabazar Patrika editorial offices by CPI (M) supporters. They broke the office’s window panes and threatened to “smash the black hands of Gourkishore Ghosh.”
In 1969, after Ghosh’s mercilessly satirical, carefully documented exposure of the land accumulated by CPI (M-L) Chairman Charu Mazumdar, who had touted himself as the protector of India’s landless peasant, he was again surrounded and threatened by Marxist activists in a Calcutta alley.
Ghosh’s literary battle with the Naxalites came to a head on July 4, 1970 when he received a letter signed by the CPI (M-L) District Committee sentencing him to death within one month. He was accused of writing sarcastic and derogatory pieces about Marxism-Leninism and about the thoughts of Mao Tse-tung, using his pen name Rupadarshi; of writing seedy novels under his own name; of trying to misguide the younger generation of Bengal by preaching Gandhism, “which is but another name for fascism, a philosophy of the Indian reactionaries”; and in his personal life being “a vile, lecherous individual.” A postscript added that his case “may be considered” if he apologised.
The accusations were a familiar ploy of politicians to embarrass their critics, and were easily dismissible. But the failure of these anonymous threats to distinguish between sarcasm and satire prompted Ghosh to publish both the letter and his reply in which he resorted to more sarcasm “for the first and only time” in his life.
“To my incognito executioner…Death is one’s natural end. To be tormented by self-reproach for having done something against one’s conscience is the only thing that I deem as punishment or penalty.”
His closing riposte was a quotation from the Indian classic, the Mahabharata: “Who is man? The sound of virtuous deeds touches heaven and the earth. As long as that sound vibrates, he (the doer of virtuous deeds) is recognised as a man.”
In his criticism, Ghosh was being consistent with his principles.
“I am anti-communist and I am anti-fascist,” he declared, “because in both political systems the fundamental rights of man are trampled underfoot. I consider it the moral duty of every democrat to protest strongly if in the democratic system, too, the policeman or anyone else dares to trample upon the fundamental rights of man.”
After the Naxalites had been quelled in 1971, there was a comparative lull. A collection of Ghosh’s columns published under the title he had used for his Darpan column, “Hing, Ting, Chhat”, was published in 1973. In that same year a new element in Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s Congress party emerged: Congress Youth who were “as dangerous and violent as the Naxalites,” Ghosh reported that, “both of them were extremists, barbarians.”
In 1974 Desh introduced a new column, “Rupadarshir Socchaar Chintaa” (Thinking Aloud by Rupadarshi) which until mid-1975 was one of Ghosh’s chief forums for comment on political happenings. The same year Jayaprakash Narayan (1965 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Public Service for “constructive articulation of a public conscience”) became concerned about developments and emerged from his self-imposed political exile. After visiting Calcutta and other localities to assess opinions, he called for a united opposition to the repressive actions of the ruling party. Ghosh supported Narayan’s cause but opposed enlisting the help of Marxists. He and others tried to persuade Narayan not to resort to political agitation until a groundwork had been laid. “We felt,” Ghosh explained, “that unless real democrats were rallied, the movement would fail.”
Ghosh now found himself in direct conflict with a new adversary: the central government. On June 25, 1975 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a State of Emergency “due to internal threats to security.” He responded eloquently to this suspension of civil liberties, with both straightforward criticism and pointed satire. On June 30, his columns in Desh and Anandabazar Patrika were promptly cancelled. He thereupon sent in another article which was disallowed by the principal officer of the Board of Censors himself, leaving no doubt that his voice had been halted.
Ghosh reacted sharply. Marking the “death of his freedom to speak out” with a traditional Hindu act of bereavement, he shaved off his curly black hair, but “to achieve maximum propaganda effect” he kept his full moustache, and walked through the streets drawing passers-by into his loss. Within seven days “they put a tail on me,” Ghosh said.
Meanwhile Jyotirmoy Datta, the young poet-editor of the Bengali literary monthly Kolkata (Calcutta) came to see him about publishing a protest. When Ghosh was convinced that Datta had seriously considered the probable consequences, he helped him plan and produce a special political edition of his magazine which was not submitted to the censors. For this edition Ghosh contributed his two previously-censored articles, wrote one more and, most importantly, addressed a symbolic letter to his 13-year-old son. In this letter Ghosh stated his dilemma:
“If I recognize as the supreme end of my life the task of providing you all with a secure shelter, the question of my taking the risk of registering my protest does not arise. But then I have to make a compromise with the untruth, to sell my honour as a writer. I have to stifle the urge to assert myself as a man.”
A printer willing to print uncensored copies of his writings was finally found, and in August, 900 copies of the special edition of Kolkata were on the newsstands.
Ghosh remained under surveillance but moved freely until the early hours of October 6th, when his home was raided. A copy of the offending issue of the Kolkata magazine was found and he was arrested without charge on the orders of the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Siddhartha Shankar Ray, who had been a personal friend. On the evening of that day the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) was enacted to place him in solitary confinement in Presidency Jail, Cell No. 10. Kolkata was proscribed and Datta went underground, publishing an abbreviated English version of the proscribed material before he too was arrested eight months later.
Translations of Ghosh’s “Letter from a Father” were published in Marathi in Sadhana, and in Gujarati in Bhumiputra. These issues were also confiscated and Bhumiputra had to pay a fine of Rs.25,000. But the two magazines fought and won their cases for free speech in the Bombay and Gujarat high courts respectively. The “Letter” was a symbol of resistance to denial of freedom. Ghosh was quick to emphasise that he was not alone: “The same thing was being done by other people all over India during the period of the emergency.”
Ghosh knew that under MISA he could not challenge the validity of his detention, but he could challenge his registration as a second class prisoner, i.e. convict or political prisoner. His allies were people in the jail who became his friends. One in particular, Ghosh had noted, “was not only a sweet man but also clever and intelligent. He supplied me with all the materials I needed and put my writings in the hands of the proper person. I don’t know how he did it.”
Ghosh successfully smuggled out his “Open Letter to the Prime Minister” which was circulated in Calcutta on December 1,1975. And a second letter addressed to his countrymen, “Not Slavery, Not Servitude but Freedom,” distributed on Republic Day January 26, 1976, at a large gathering on the parade ground in Calcutta where Prime Minister Gandhi was speaking. These two letters also were translated into most regional Indian languages and widely read.
Ghosh had suffered a heart attack in 1971. He had said, “it was light and I ignored all of the advice the doctors gave.” There was a second one in 1972 stemming from a myocardial infarction. In February 1976, he was struck by a third and more serious attack, this time due to angina, while he was still in jail. He was taken to Seth Sukhlal Karnani Memorial Hospital that night, and kept there for treatment and convalescence for four and a half months.
After two weeks Ghosh’s wife was allowed to visit him, and as his health improved his puckish nature reasserted itself. Ghosh noted, “I got good doctoring and I calculated the cost. For my treatment, my food and my medical benefits, my government spent a little over Rs.7,000. For my guards, they spent ₹80,000 on eight guards in 24 hours in three shifts! This is the way you ‘economise’ in an authoritarian regime.”
From his sickbed Ghosh smuggled out a satirical poem, Epitaph for a Certain Giraffe, where he likened himself in his hospital confinement to a giraffe, fed tenderly, while penned in a zoo.
After four months in the second cell, Ghosh was released on September 26, 1976. The very next day, he began writing editorials for Anandabazaar Patrika and in early 1977 was made an associate editor. Although the emergency ended in March 1977, Ghosh feared the renewed freedom was superficial. He had hoped that in the 19 months of authoritarian rule, educated Indians would have learned to strengthen and protect the democracy they had lost, and that the uneducated would have come to appreciate what democracy had offered. Ghosh had ruefully observed, “But this did not happen. The basic attitude of the educated and uneducated alike was apathy to any form of government.”
Ghosh’s humanism pervades all of his writings. In the preface to his book Amake Bolte Dao (Let Me Have My Say), published in 1977, he wrote that his title refers to the perennial cry of the human soul:
“Language is at once the creator and carrier of knowledge. It is man’s only aid in his eternal quest for truth. It is for this reason that the freedom of speech and expression is as important for man as his right to live as a human being. That at least is my view.”
The book, which opens with the satirical poem written from Ghosh’s hospital bed and closes with his three famous letters, includes a selection of articles published in Desh and the quarterly literary journal Samatata (the ancient name for lower Bengal) between 1970 and 1975. An English translation of 17 of the 44 articles contained in Amake Bolte Dao was published in 1978. A collection of Ghosh’s columns from Desh was also published in book form in 1978 under the title Rupadarshir Sangbad Bhashya (News Commentary by Rupadarshi).
Aside from the politically inspired extremism which has wracked West Bengal, an underlying and unresolved cause of anguish to Ghosh and to the state has been the continuing communal strife. Ghosh pointed out:
“In the partition that accompanied Indian independence, Punjab and Bengal were the only two states divided. The transferral of non-Muslims to eastern Punjab (India) and of Muslims to the west (Pakistan) was virtually complete; the communal problem in Punjab ended in 1947. But in Bengal many people on both sides just refused to leave their homes, thereby causing new kinds of trouble. Pakistan was created absolutely for the Muslims, but even now, long after partition, of the population of some 54 million in West Bengal, India, at least 10 million are Muslims; of the population of about 90 million in East Bengal Pakistan, now Bangladesh I think more than 12 million are Hindus.”
Ghosh’s only trilogy was published between 1958 to 1995. They were about the circumstances that led to this “tragedy of partition.” Jal Pade, PataNade (Rain Drops, Leaves Quiver), published in 1958, was written against the background of Hindu-Muslim relations in Bengal from 1922 to 1925. It set the stage and introduced the protagonists.
The second novel in this trilogy, Prem Nei (There Is No Love), was serialised in Desh and published in 1981. It took place between 1935 and 1937 when the British Administration ruling India extended the voting franchise. All of the major characters in this novel are Muslims; Ghosh explained why: “because the Muslims constituted a majority of the population of Bengal and for the first time they got a taste of power by virtue of their larger vote. The currents and crosscurrents of Muslim politics is my subject.”
The third novel, Pratibeshi (The Neighbours), takes place during the 10 days of August 1946 that culminated in “the Great Calcutta Killing” which made inevitable the partition of India and division of Bengal. Ghosh elaborated:
“If there is a sinner for partition of the country, Mohammed Ali Jinnah is not the only one. Not Mountbatten [Lord Louis, the last British Viceroy]; the psychology behind his work was just to finish the job so that he could go home to his next assignment. Not Mahatma Gandhi, who quit the talks in protest. But there is no doubt that, except for Gandhi, the Congress leaders Jawaharlal Nehru and the others were as eager as Jinnah to have independence by partition. If one only focuses upon those three months of negotiations resulting in partition, it appears that Jinnah’s insistence upon a separate Muslim state was overriding. But if you study history with a dispassionate mind you must ask yourself, ‘What else could people like Jinnah do?’ It was we Hindus who alienated him. He was not the same Jinnah of 1934-35. Because of Hindus, from 1935 Jinnah turned steadily toward the partition solution. I am trying with much difficulty to compress and illuminate this complicated history in three novels.”
In 1979 Ghosh discussed starting a new kind of newspaper with Amitava Chowdhury, whom he hoped would come back from Hong Kong where he was heading Asian Finance Publications, to edit it. They shared a dissatisfaction with “frivolous, sectarian, provincial and unnecessarily sensational Bengali journalism.” The project began to materialise in 1980 when they were offered financing by Abhik Ghosh, a successful manufacturer and international businessman, who had decided that his next venture would be in the media field. Ghosh had noted, “He is an idealist, but a businessman and businessmen have an ideology of their own: good business.” Abhik Ghosh’s goal was to create a network of successful papers.
When Chowdhury decided he could not leave Hong Kong, Ghosh accepted the position of editor, with a clear understanding in writing from his backer that he would have absolute editorial freedom. He warned the financier that the paper would be non-conformist. Ghosh had said, “I told him that he had only two alternatives: ‘Either play third fiddle to the other two big newspapers and go the usual way, or come my way and produce a different paper. You have no third alternative. The only chance of survival is to make a new kind of newspaper, a paper with character.’ Being a shrewd businessman he saw some future in it, I think, and he agreed.”
In India a publication’s expert may be the publisher of a paper without owning a financial interest. Hence for a publisher who would be a “good manager” Ghosh recommended PK Roy who in 1948 had given him a job in Satyayug. Roy resigned as publisher of the English-language Amrita Bazar Patrika(with which he retained a consultant relationship) and joined the new venture.
Abhik Ghosh the financier, PK Roy the publisher and GK Ghosh the editor, brainstormed and agreed upon a modus operandi. The paper, to be called Aajkaal (This Time), would have both a daily and a Sunday edition. Rather than the usual ratio of 35 percent news to 65 percent advertising, they agreed on a ratio of 40 percent advertising to 60 percent news and features. Ghosh noted, “We calculated that a newspaper can make a profit by keeping this proportion.”
They also agreed that there would be no political or other bias and the paper would not be beholden to the interests of the financier or of advertisers. Ghosh saw the job of the newspaper as twofold: “One is to bring the current world nearer to its readers and the second is to make readers understand the meaning of the news by providing analysis and background. These are the two things that we have set out to do, nothing new.”
The first issue of Aajkaal appeared on March 25, 1981, with nearly 80,000 copies; for the Sunday edition two days later 100,000 copies were printed. Circulation settled down to 55,000 per day the following week and gradually increased to 70,000 daily and 120,000 on Sundays. Ghosh’s intention was not to compete with the daily circulation of the two major papers (400,000 and 300,000 respectively) but to restrict Aajkaal to a daily maximum of 150,000 so that circulation would not be increased at the cost of quality; he hoped to achieve this by the end of 1982. The daily edition had 8 pages and the Sunday edition 12.
Instead of bringing in “choice people from the old type newspapers with fixed thinking,” Ghosh decided to mould professional newcomers. He chose a “fresh group of boys and girls with ideas,” and trained them for five weeks with the help of two veterans; he himself talked to them on the subject of ideals. The editorial staff was 40 and the entire staff, including janitors, did not exceed 100, a fact that had astonished other Indian publishers back then.
Ghosh’s approach to news-features was also unusual. Determined to break into new fields, he sent an appeal to several important papers outside Bengal suggesting an exchange of stories. The first to respond was The Indian Express in Delhi, whose material Aajkaal would translate into Bengali to reach their audience. The second largest newspaper in India, Malayala Manorama (in Malayalam) from Kerala, also joined the exchange. Ghosh had noted with delight: “Instead of being rivals, they are cooperators and we can get what is happening in those places from their own mouths.” He had fervently hoped this idea (now indeed a common practice in modern-day journalism) would grow.
Aajkaal also carried stories from district newspapers from all over West Bengal. The district papers in turn, could print any article published in Aajkaal with only a “by courtesy of” acknowledgement. This exchange generated a keen enthusiasm among frustrated small town editors who cheered to see their stories in a Calcutta daily. Ghosh planned a seminar with these editors to discuss the exchange and ways to improve their reporting. “I am trying to break new ground so that I can get firsthand all-India news and news from the smallest towns in West Bengal, and at the same time distribute Calcutta news. Integration,” he added, “is one of our major headaches in India and Aajkaal is trying to generate the feeling with others that we belong to the same country.”
Ghosh was gratified that student readership of Aajkaal became substantial. His aim was to open windows in young minds. Ghosh said, “What pains me most is that the people of India, in general, accept things as they are. They say of a new idea, ‘It cannot be done.'”
His column “Goudananda Kavi” reappeared in Aajkaal after a long absence from the newsstands. This was a way for Ghosh to reach out to his old audience while attempting to connect with a younger demographic.
When the freedom of the journalists was curtailed due to the infamous Bihar Press Bill (1982), Ghosh was arrested in Calcutta for delivering speeches in favour of the freedom to speak. In 1983, he was one of the organisers and mediators of the procession of opposition journalists and non-journalists, who went to office to break the 52-day strike on Anandabazar Patrika at the instigation of a particular political party.
While reporting on the infamous 1989 Bhagalpur riots, Ghosh involved himself in the work of rehabilitating the riot victims. He worked for the same purpose during the riots in Calcutta after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992.
While collecting news of the Bhagalpur riots, Ghosh realised that it was not just a Hindu-Muslim communal problem, it was a well-planned plot to evict the inhabitants from the land. He began researching the subject with funding from the Magsaysay Award Foundation. However, he became seriously ill and the work remained unfinished.
