During the summer of 1943, Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata, popularly known as JRD Tata, was in Kashmir on a short holiday where he was involved in a controversy over an interview he gave to a local newspaper. The interview stirred up a hornets’ nest as Maharaja Hari Singh was not happy over its contents. He asked his Prime Minister for action against the newspaper beyond ‘mere warning’. The Editor of the newspaper had to apologize for “wrong” reporting while JRD admitted it was “imprudent for him” to give the interview to a reporter he did not know.
In 1935, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and Pandit Prem Nath Bazaz had jointly started from Srinagar an Urdu newspaper, Hamdard. However, the two soon fell apart. Subsequently, the newspaper was solely owned and edited by Bazaz. In the eighth year of its publication, a reporter of the newspaper approached and interviewed JRD Tata who, as a State Guest, had arrived in Kashmir on a short holiday. The interview was published on 14 May 1943.
The newspaper quoted JRD as criticizing Kashmir Government for the State’s backwardness and pitiable condition of its people. He was also reported to have denounced the State’s policy of land ownership. The strictures, as these came from a prominent personality, a leading industrialist and father of civil aviation in British India, were highly embarrassing for the ruler and his Government. The timing of the interview was crucial, leaving Hari Singh red faced. The Muslim majority of Kashmir had risen against continued ill treatment and oppression meted out to them by an unsympathetic autocratic rule. The National Conference and the Muslim Conference were in the vanguard of a mass movement fighting for the basic rights of people. The media in India, mostly based in the Punjab, was divided into pro and anti-Maharaja camps. The Hindu Press defended Hari Singh’s regime and measures it took to quell protesting Muslims. The Muslim Press, on the other hand, sympathized with the oppressed masses and highlighted their plight.
With a background like this, the JRD interview was a serious indictment of the Maharaja and his Government, second such by a non-local highly influential personality. Earlier, Hari Singh’s Bengali Prime Minister, Albion Banerji, reacting to the plight of Kashmiris, had resigned in 1929 with those famous parting words: “Jammu and Kashmir State is labouring under many disadvantages, with a large Mohammedan [Muslim] population absolutely illiterate, labouring under poverty and very low economic conditions of living in the villages, and practically governed like dumb driven cattle. There is no touch between the government and the people, no suitable opportunity for representing grievances.… The administration has at present no or little sympathy with people’s wants and grievances.”
The Press in Kashmir was still in its infancy and among the few newspapers published from Srinagar Hamdard enjoyed a fair amount of respect and credibility among its readers. The publication of an interview critical of the Maharaja’s Government and its policies by a prominent British Indian would mean vindication of the Muslim Press of the Punjab. The Kashmir Government felt awkward. On 17 May 1943, Prime Minister Maharaj Singh asked his Government’s Publicity Officer, Shankar Lal Koul to visit JRD at the Guest House and show him the newspaper clipping of his interview. In a hand written note the Prime Minister wrote to Koul:
“There was a cutting in one of the local newspapers which I saw today purporting to give an interview with Mr. R D Tata. The latter denies some of the statements attributed to him. Can you please see Mr. R D Tata (Iqbal Masjid Guest House) and if you have the cutting show it to him. He is leaving for Bombay by plane at 6.30 a.m. tomorrow morning. Kindly speak to me tomorrow.”
The Publicity Officer met JRD the same day and the latter issued a rejoinder in the form of a 4-page handwritten and signed letter addressed to Koul wherein he regretted that the “few words” he had said were “grossly distorted” and that words he never uttered were put in his mouth in an attempt to make him appear critical of the State and its policies. He claimed to have in fact expressed enthusiasm in the scenic beauties of Kashmir and offered his help in building up the tourist traffic and influx of money into the State. He said that it was “absolutely untrue” and “pure fabrication” that he found the condition of the people of the State pitiable. He also denied having expressed the opinion that the State was industrially backward or that he criticized the policy of land ownership. JRD described himself as a “sincere admirer of this beautiful land and a friend of His Highness (the Maharaja) and of a number of State officials” to emphasize that the last thing he would do was to criticize the State in an interview with, what he labeled as, “an obscure and evidently unscrupulous newspaper.” The letter dated 17 May 1943 and written on the official stationery with the State emblem reads:
“My attention has been drawn to an article appearing in the “Hamdard” of Srinagar dated 14th May which purports to report an interview given by me to a representative of the paper. I much regret to find that the few words I did say have been grossly distorted and words that I never uttered are put in my mouth, the whole object being apparently to make me appear critical of the State and of the policies of the State. In actual fact my few remarks to the reporter were quite the reverse of critical! I expressed enthusiasm over the scenic beauties and wonders of the State and said it rivalled the finest one could find elsewhere in the world including Switzerland. I said I would be happy if it was found possible after the [World] War for my firm to help in building up still further the Tourist traffic of the State and thus in helping to increase further the influx of money into the State and therefore the prosperity of the people of the State. It is of course absolutely untrue to say that I found the condition of the people of the State “pitiable”. This is pure fabrication. Nor did I express the opinion that the State was industrially backwards. Finally, I certainly did not criticize the policy of the government in the matter of land ownership. I am sorry that the courtesy I showed to the reporter by agreeing to see him for a few minutes and by exchanging a few polite words with him instead of refusing outright to see him, has been taken advantage of by this newspaper, in a most dishonest manner, to suit some selfish motive of theirs which, as far as I can see, is to find by hook or by crook some support for their criticisms of the government. As a sincere admirer of this beautiful country and a friend of His Highness and of a number of State officials and as the guest of the State the last thing I surely would do would be to criticize the State in an interview with an obscure and evidently unscrupulous newspaper. You may by all means make use of what I have said in this letter in any way you or the government may think fit.”
Next day, on the basis of JRD’s letter, the Publicity Department of ‘His Highness’ Government’ issued a handout, a copy of which was endorsed to JRD on his Bombay address as he had left Srinagar in the morning. The handout was published by the Hamdard on 19 May. It was also carried by the Government Gazette of 27 May 1943 which caught the attention of Hari Singh. Apparently not satisfied with the publication of the rebuttal alone, he sent a signed Note to the Prime Minister on 8 June asking him to “let me know what action you have already taken, or propose to take, against the Editor and Publisher of the “Hamdard” for concocting and publishing such a gross distortion and misrepresentation of Mr. J. R. D. Tata’s conversation with him. In a case like this a mere warning is not sufficient.”
Following the Maharaja’s missive, Prem Nath Bazaz was summoned by the Chief Secretary to his office and asked to express his “sincere regret” for, what he was told, “gross misrepresentation of Mr. Tata’s conversation with his reporter”. Bazaz expressed regret and published an apology in his newspaper under the heading, “The report was wrong”. After mentioning the publication of the interview and JRD’s rebuttal to it, he wrote:
“We published the [Government] press communiqué in the issue of the Hamdard dated the 19th May along with a brief statement from our reporter. But we did not express our personal opinion. We are now pained to learn that the report of our reporter was wrong and Mr. Tata did not utter these words. We are extremely sorry for having published this wrong report.”
Prime Minister Maharaj Singh informed Hari Singh about Bazaz’s published apology with the hope that “His Highness will consider this to be sufficient”. He referred to his conversation with JRD and the latter telling him that “it was imprudent for him to give any interview to a local reporter without knowing anything about the man.” An otherwise infuriated Maharaja felt convinced and disposed of the matter.
Given the categorical rebuttal by JRD, it is strange to observe the reporter of the Hamdard making such a serious error of judgment in understanding what the interviewee was speaking. What looks possible is that while vexing eloquent about the natural beauties and wonders of Kashmir, JRD might have casually mentioned the need for industrialization of Kashmir to alleviate poverty, which the reporter mistook as his criticism of the Government, generating a serious controversy. The only other scenario is that contents of the interview were deliberately twisted.
TAILPIECE: Maharaj Singh, a Christian by faith, was appointed Prime Minister after the exit of his controversial predecessor, Gopalaswami Ayyangar in 1943. Ayyangar was the architect of a huge controversy resulting out of the Government order changing the script of the official language of Jammu & Kashmir from Persian to Devnagri and polarizing people on religious grounds. It was said then that Muhammad Ali Jinnah had made a complaint to the Viceroy of India against Ayyangar for playing a mischief in the State politics after which His Majesty’s Government dropped a hint to the Maharaja leading to Ayyangar’s ouster. Bazaz shows warmth towards Maharaj Singh who had given him the permission – Ayyangar had refused – to convert his weekly newspaper into a daily. Without mentioning the Prime Minister’s role in saving him from a severe action in the JRD interview controversy, Bazaz writes about his sympathetic approach towards the State press and refusing to penalize a Journal even “when told to do so by the Maharaja himself.” Maharaj Singh served as Prime Minister only for a short period of three months and seven days before he resigned on 26 July 1943 when Maharaja Hari Singh resented his wife’s humanitarian gesture of donating her blood to a needy poor Kashmiri village girl at a hospital in Srinagar, and sent word to him that the Prime Minister and his wife should not mix with the common people.