Arindam Sen Gupta protected, nurtured the flame of media freedoms

One has had the unique privilege of working with Arindam Sen Gupta (“ASG” as he is known to legions of media persons), as both a journalist and a manager in the same media organization, The Times of India Group. While as a journalist, one admired ASG for his impeccable news sense and ability to translate that into sharp, incisive stories and analyses.But it was as a manager, veritably on the “other” side, that one saw his true steel — courage, integrity, tenacity, sagacity. A tremendous grace under pressure, an absolute grip over the medium and its message. A superb “managerial” talent, a light touch and easy people skills that allowed a huge newspaper like the Times of India to churn out quality edition after quality edition – now totaling 55. Each with its own individual stamp and style, breaking, reporting and analyzing news with verve and balance, night after night.
For a bushy-tailed bright-eyed trainee fresh out of Times School of Journalism in 1992, ASG was the nurturing – and dashing! -- coordinating news editor of The Economic Times who honed one’s newspaper production skills and values before transferring one to the sharpest bureau in the business under AK Bhattacharya (“AKB”) -- today bereft at the loss of his friend of forty years. When Jaideep “Jojo” Bose took over as ET editor, one had the unique privilege of having been trained by three of the best minds in business journalism in post liberalisation India, who inculcated a razor sharp news sense, helped build great contacts and encouraged a hard core, high energy style of reporting where we competed for page 1 exclusives day after day. Those were heady days, with a new India, a new kind of business journalism, and the Jojo-ASG duo’s pinpoint news sense, flair and panache helped make ET into the most exciting newspaper of 1990s India.
But it was as a manager when I rejoined Times Group in 2003, 11 years later, when one saw ASG outside the prism of a top-notch newsman, and transform into something of a media guru. At a time when outside pressures — especially from governments and corporates — have turned much of media into amenable yes men, ASG never wavered, never compromised. He was firm that he would not give into what we call “soft censorship” – trying to influence editorial through the withdrawal of advertising — and the company backed him and the team to the hilt. He also believed very passionately in the independence of media, and any incursion — whether through proposed policy at top government levels or even draft rules in individual departments — would be taken apart in news and analyses, using hard fact and persuasive argument, lit by an innate passion to protect our hard won freedoms. ASG was always a rock, a protector of his people, a steady hand at the wheel … but beyond the obvious and the apparent, he shone, in his own quiet way, as nurturer of that flame of independence of media and press freedoms — without which our democracy means nothing.
As some of us kept vigil at hospital yesterday, Dylan Thomas’ immortal words kept reverberating in my head … “Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage, against the dying of the light … .” ASG did go gentle into that good night … but before he did, he became a role model for a couple of generations of newsmen and women. They will uphold that intellect, that passion – and most importantly, those values, for many years to come.
(Rachna Burman, Senior Vice President, The Times of India Group)