Govindrao Talwalkar

Govind Talwalkar is a former editor of Maharashtra Times, who is a recipient of the Lokmanya Tilak Award, instituted by the Government of Maharashtra, India. He was born on July 22, 1925.
Coming from a family with limited means Talwalkar graduated from the university of Mumbai while doing odd jobs at the same time to pay for his fees. Talwalkar family has a special place in Maharashtra. Govindrao's uncle Gopinath Talwalkar was a well-known poet and writer. His other uncle Sharad Talwalkar was a famous actor in Marathi films and on stage.
After getting the degree, Talwalkar joined an intellectual magazine. After that, he was invited by Mr. H.R. Mahajani, the then editor of Loksatta, a Marathi daily of Indian Express Group, to join Loksatta. He joined as a sub-editor of Loksatta. In those days the designation and the assignment of work were not clearly defined. Hence, even though designated as a sub-editor in the editorial section, Talwalkar started writing the editorials, editorial notes in the daily and the weekly edition of the paper. In fact, he wrote an editorial the first day he joined Loksatta at the age 23. He was greatly influenced by the writings of Lokmanya Tilak, M.N. Roy and many intellectuals.
While working in the Loksatta, he was offered the post of an assistant editor in the Maharashtra Times, a new Marathi daily to be launched by the Times of India group in 1962. He worked in this capacity for almost six years. Then he became the chief editor in the beginning of 1968. He retired in 1996. Thus, he was the chief editor of Maharashtra Times for twenty seven years. He was instrumental in making the paper most prestigious. That was the most glorious period for Mahaharashtra Times. He also established a record of the longest serving editor in the Bennett Coleman and Co. which owns the Times of India Group. The company is more than 150 years old. The Maharashtra Times has completed 46 years.
As an editor, Govindrao made his mark as an intellectual, interested in diverse subjects, such as politics, literature, social and economic problems, history, culture etc. and wrote on them with great scholarship. He made his paper an open forum for a healthy discussions on various subjects and problems facing the society. Several foremost intellectuals, social workers and writers willingly contributed. In fact it became a symbol of honour and prestige to write for his paper. Thus, in no time Maharashtra Times became a public and intellectual forum which set the agenda. He was always very generous and big hearted. He gave opportunity to express diverse views and opinions of all political parties, whether he agreed with them or not. This was the great journalistic and democratic principle he observed. He had friendly relations with people in all political parties. He never blocked anybody, though his kindness was not always reciprocated.
Govindrao Talwalkar is best known for his editorials and articles. It was acknowledged that Talwalkar had no peer as an editorial writer. He had a style which avoided flowery language. Late stalwart of Marathi, Mr. S.M. Mate had admiringly remarked that Govindrao had a felicity of pen. He did not invoke or appeal to the emotions but relied on arguments and appealed to the reason. In this he followed the tradition of Lokmanya Tilak & the great Maharashtrian saint Ramdas Swami, who made it a point to write in simple Marathi with a view to making difficult subjects easily understandable to the common readers, thus, educating them, while at the same time, his mastery and scholarship of the topic enabled him to make all salient points with gravitas which the scholars found praiseworthy. Several of his editorials and articles are published in books (Agralekh, Bahar, Pushpanjali, Lal gulag, Niyatishi karar etc.). He took to task many corrupt politicians. Chief ministers and ministers used to be in awe of him and many tried to create many obstacles for him and his family and get him removed but to no avail. Though he criticized politicians, he did so selflessly for the good of the public and not for any personal agenda or getting something for himself and he never had any personal animosity against anybody. As an editor, he exposed corruption and many scandals in politics, government agencies, universities, hospitals, social and public matters. Talwalkar retired in 1996 and settled with his daughters in the USA. Even so, he takes interest in the welfare of people in India. He was very pained by the farm crisis last year and wrote a scorching article criticizing the inaction of the Maharashtra government while many farmers were doing suicide. The chief minister had to respond.
Though Talwalkar always championed the causes of Maharashtra, he was never parochial. Being a scholar of history,Talwalkar thought of the state problems in the national context and the national problems in the world context. That was why Talwalkar had friends in the various parts of the country and also abroad, some of whom contributed in his paper.
Talwalkar wanted his readers to be well informed of the happenings in the whole of India and the world. Though proud of his mother-tongue, Marathi, he thought that his readers should know whatever best was produced in the literature in various languages. He, himself, started a column introducing books in English which was very popular. He wrote under the pseudonym Vachaspati. His articles on books have been published as collections - Vachta vachta, 1& 2.
After retirement he is still writing on various subjects and on books in literary magazines and papers. He writes regularly in the Asian Age, among others. He also keeps busy reading and writing books.
Being a lifelong student of history, Talwalkar has written several books on modern history. He has read mountains of books and manuscripts and newspapers and published and unpublished documents. He is truly an authority on this. The book on the transfer of power in India ( Sattantar - 3 volumes ) is now running in the third edition. He has written books on the leaders involved in the freedom movement of India. These include Naoroji, Nehru, Justice Ranade, Tilak, biography of Gopal Krishna Gokhale. The books Naoroji te Nehru, Virat dnyani - M.G. Ranade, Tilak darshan, Bal Gangadhar Tilak. These books were awarded various prizes. Nek Nadar Gokhale is a biography of Gopal Krishna Gokhale in the context of contemporary historical times. He has also written this in English - Gopal Krishna Gokhale, his life and times. All his books were very well received for their information, insight, scholarship and style.
In the 1950s and afterwards India was compelled to take economic and technological help from the Soviet Union. This has created a class of journalists, who blindly follow and practice the creed of Soviet Union. They do not understand that Jawaharlal Nehru was essentially a nationalist and was never an advocate of the Soviet type of polity. That was why when it was fashionable to be a communist, Talwalkar remained an independent and wrote against the totalitarianism of the Right as well as the Left.
He was steeped in the humanist thoughts of M. N. Roy, George Orwell, Karl Pauper, Arthur Koestler, Kolakovwsky et al. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he toured the East European countries. He had discussions with those, who are known as authority on the subject in England and the US. He read several hundred books, unpublished documents, thousands of newspaper articles and journal articles and wrote a four volume book in Marathi on the rise and fall of the Soviet empire (Soviet samrajyacha uday ani asta - 4 volumes). This book was awarded Kelkar prize.
Talwalkar contributed articles to the English newspapers and weeklies such as the Times of India, The Telegraph, The Illustrated Weekly of India, Frontline, The Mainstream, Deccan Herald etc. For the past few years he has been contributing to the Asian Age. He used to regularly write an article in Marathi for a literary magazine Lalit, now he still contributes sometimes. He is not only honoured by several awards in Maharashtra but has also received the Durga Ratan and B.D. Goenka Awards for excellence in journalism and the Ramshatri Award for social justice.
Maharashtra Times had the stamp of the personality of Talwalkar. He and the paper could not be separated. Though he had an authority because of his writings and dedication, he believed in the devolution of power. He believed that in journalism power comes through the pen and not by following an agenda of any political party or ideological cult. Being very open minded and always ready to accept the reality, Talwalkar was never rigid. No wonder he has become an institution. A whole generation of Maharshtrians has been influenced and shaped by Govindrao Talwalkar's writings. BBC has a motto - inform, educate and entertain. Govindrao has set that example through his Maharashtra Times. It has been rightly observed that Govindrao has had the greatest influence over the literary, political, educational, social, cultural and intellectual fabric of post-independence Maharashtra for over forty years.
References
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