BALJIT MALIK

Remembering Raj Thapar

Raj Thapar, cofounder with her best in her political instincts. Formerly husband, Romesh Thapar, of the friends of , she and monthly journal Seminar, which Romesh refused to succumb to the provides a forum for free discussion one party, one person rule. Seminar of problems, national and was one of the few journals which international, died of cancer on April closed down during 10, 1987. Raj’s commitment to ideas of rather than submit to precensorship. social justice and human freedom was It resumed publication only in 1977. you, and you see the police, meant to evident in her lucid and concerned Through Seminar, she kept protect you, pass by the raging fire in writings in Seminar and elsewhere. herself informed about many things jeeps, frightened or conniving with the She was also deeply involved with that affect our lives today— killer squads, where do you go? To children’s literature and had written communalism, ecology, women’s which place, to which person, to several books for children in English issues, cultural genocide, economic which wall? ... Let us begin to look and Hindi. Two of the better known change. She intervened in and was into this and punish the identifiable are Introducing and Seventh part of the national debate. Her writing guilty ... For it is not a Hindu-Sikh Daughter of the Sun. She had worked always held the attention with its problem alone...” (Lokayan Bulletin on the children’s magazine Toy Cart immediacy, descriptive power and 3(1) 1985). and also served as chairperson of Bal conversational quality. Raj was one of those whose youth Bhawan. In her last years, she was Besides her own impending end, coincided with the youth of planning a foundation for children’s her life’s most critical ordeal was the independent India. One whose media and literature that should be ordeal of Delhi in November 1984. I idealism never vanished, pained child centred, and free from the hidden met Raj Thapar many times during though she was by the decline in agenda of preaching to children. those days. When I read what she standards of political behaviour. I was not one of Raj Thapar’s wrote about the scars on Delhi’s soul, I shall always remember Raj as a close friends. It was only in the last I was reassured that I was not alone remarkable woman, a remarkable five years that I got to know her a in my madness, that it was not mad to human being, little. That little was enough to imprint be mad. her in my mind as a woman of immense “How do you do it?”, she wrote. To All Those Sending charm, intelligence, dignity and grace. “Yes. How is it done? You take a stick, Material For Publication A communist in her youth, Raj wrap some cloth around it, dip it in a 1. Please do not send to Manushi grew critical of the party’s mixture of kerosene and some other any article that has been published in opportunism and authoritarianism. In deadly stuff, and you hurl it into a another newspaper or magazine, or 1959, she and Romesh launched lifetime’s work, a shop, a taxi, a mud that has been sent of publication Seminar. hut, a scooter. Then you catch the elsewhere. We consider only original The Seminar office with its inmates, you chop off their hair and unpublished work for publication in pleasant atmosphere, conducive to amidst gleeful shouting, you hurl them Manushi, unless it is from a regional discussion and conversation, into the raging fire, one by one...What language newspaper or magazine but reflected Raj’s personality. She was sort of monster can do this? No one has not been published in English. always there at her desk, a picture of bred on nonviolence and meditation 2. When you send us a manuscript command and control. Over the last and shanti. So, were all these for publication, please keep a carbon 28 years, she edited and proofed each meaningless words, defeated and copy for yourself. We will not return of the 332 issues of Seminar that buried under the onslaught of the original manuscripts. appeared, and continued this work values of today? ... And when you 3. Please type the article on sturdy even in the last few weeks of her life. recognise amongst the vicious faces paper, leaving space between lines, The Emergency brought forth the some belonging to the ones that rule and adequate margins.

26 MANUSHI