'The Heart Has Its Reasons'
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50 YEARS OF EPW The third of the Chaudhuri brothers, ‘The Heart Has Its Reasons’ Hiten, exuded magnetic charm. He had left Dacca after completing his Inter- A Story Untold mediate Arts degree and wound up in Bombay where he did various jobs, including running chores for groups of Ashok Mitra businessmen. He simultaneously worked as a volunteer for the Congress party and This is the fi rst in a series of he story really begins a century or Sarojini Naidu was a friend of his. Soon articles that will be published more ago. Narendra Narayan he began mingling with people from the over the next 12 months to TChaudhuri who hailed from Pabna then nascent fi lm industry. He was a in north Bengal (Bangladesh) was a very close friend of Himanshu Rai and mark the 50th anniversary of practising lawyer at the Dacca District Devika Rani. Hiten helped Rai set up the the Economic & Political Weekly. Court. He had eight children—four sons Bombay Talkies fi lm studio. At the same A prolifi c writer in English and and four daughters. The eldest was time he himself began producing fi lms Bengali, 88-year-old Ashok Sachindra Narayan, commonly known as and accumulated immense wealth. He Sachin. He was a student of economics loved spending as freely as he earned and Mitra is former fi nance minister in the newly-started University of Dacca was an extraordinarily generous person. of West Bengal, and a former during 1922–26. According to A K Das- Sachin’s second brother, Deb Narayan— trustee of the Sameeksha gupta, an economist who was his class- Debu—too soon arrived in Mumbai. Trust, which brings out the mate and lifelong friend, Sachin was Debu had studied physics with S N Bose, the most outstanding student in the uni- a physicist known for his work with EPW . His reminiscences about versity. He was known for his sharp in- Albert Einstein, at the University of Dacca Sachin Chaudhuri, founder of tellect, wit and sparkling conv ersational and had obtained a fi rst class master’s the Economic Weekly which exchanges. However, he had little inter- degree. An American fi rm specialising preceded the EPW, include famous est in sitting down and performing well in the business of electrical goods offered in his examinations. He disappeared for him an appointment in Bombay. personalities from different three months before his semester exam, Sachin would live with his two broth- walks of life—politicians, roamed around the Himalayas and ers alternately. He had no interest in academics, journalists, novelists returned just a few days before the holding on to a regular job. He would and fi lm personalities. scheduled dates of his exam. He scraped sometimes write a column on fi lms for a through the exam and yet again, dis- newspaper or write political or economic appeared from Dacca. commentaries for some daily or the He, along with his cousin, Ajit Chakra- other, including the Indian Express. It varty (brother of Amiya Chakravarty, poet may sound unbelievable but he was even and one-time secretary to Rabindranath general manager of Bombay Talkies Tagore), set up a fl at in Calcutta (now after Himanshu Rai passed away. Sachin Kolkata) where they provided private had developed a very wide circle of tuitions as a means of living. But they friends and acquaintances among politi- really engaged themselves in meeting cians, journalists and share-market buffs. eminent people from various spheres of Simultaneously, he would be in close life. Sachin would charm everybody. It touch with scholars of economics and was during these days that he grew sociology at the University of Bombay. close to eminences such as Pramatha For some time, he worked as a research Chaudhuri, an author who was married scholar in the university. In the 1940s, to Rabindranath Tagore’s niece Indira, when the research department of the and D P Mukerji, who was from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was estab- Lucknow University but would come lished, he developed friendships with a down to Calcutta during vacations. number of young scholars working there. Things were upset when Ajit committed The two younger brothers held Sachin suicide. Sachin decided to leave Cal- with tremendous respect and silently cutta and proceeded to live in Bombay bore with his angularities. Hiten arranged Ashok Mitra can be contacted at ashokmitra. (now Mumbai) from the mid-1930s to rent a fl at in a new apartment build- [email protected]. onwards. ing that had come up in the early 12 AUGUST 20, 2016 vol lI no 34 EPW Economic & Political Weekly 50 YEARS OF EPW 1940s—Churchill Chambers, located on proposed periodical with his business those economists residing in Bombay were Merewether Road, right behind Taj friends and a family of traders known as K S Krishnaswamy and B V Krishnamurthy. Mahal Hotel near the Gateway of India. the Sekhsaria Group agreed to provide Others included Vinoo Bhatt (who was Sachin began to live there in a lord-like the entire equity capital for the new ven- part of the RBI’s research department fashion. There was a constant stream of ture. With fi nances no longer the prob- then), Ramdas Honavar, Deena Khatkhate visitors to his fl at: politicians, academics, lem, Sachin had to concentrate on the (who was also working for the RBI and journalists, cinema and stage artistes— shape and contents of the proposed new later with the International Monetary the list is indeed very long. Among them weekly. It was his personal decision to Fund), Dharma Venkataraman (who be- were Yusuf Meherally (the socialist have two distinct halves of the journal— came Dharma Kumar after she married freedom fi ghter), Sadiq Ali (a Congress the fi rst half would consist of editorial civil servant Lovraj Kumar). Among the leader) and his wife Shanti, Sadhana articles, commentaries and discussions sociologists was M N Srinivasan, who Bose (an actress and renowned dancer), on contemporary events, while the sec- went on to become the chairman of the Ashoka Mehta (the Congress leader who ond half would have a 100% scholarly Sameeksha Trust in the 1990s. Scholars of helped establish the party’s socialist fl avour with learned papers on economics international repute contributed articles wing), Sharda Pandit (sister-in-law of and other social sciences. It was typical that the EW published over the years. Jawaharlal Nehru’s sister Vijaya Lakshmi of him to carry anonymous editorial Others who helped in the editorial work Pandit, the fi rst woman governor of pieces written by eminent scholars and included Rama Varma, a long-time friend Gujarat), Ram Manohar Lohia (the so- others from all over the country. of Sachin who was scion of the royal cialist leader). Anybody visiting Bombay The fi rst issue of the Economic Weekly family of Cochin and had immense faith from Calcutta would, at Sachin’s insist- (EW) was published on the fi rst day of in the Marxist analysis of the social pro- ence, drop by—including individuals January 1949. I was then studying with cess. (In the early 1970s, the then left- such as communist leader Hiren Muker- Dasgupta at the Banaras Hindu Univer- leaning Government of Kerala had jee. Lohia used to stay with his friend sity and I still remember the thrill and appointed him as chairman of the Coir C G K Reddy who at that time was work- joy that greeted the appearance of the Board.) ing with the Hindu and was the father of fi rst edition of the weekly. The very fi rst C Rammanohar Reddy who went on to editorial, “Light Without Heat,” was Nehru and Mahalanobis become editor of the EPW. written by D P Mukerji. Advertisements Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (the were few and far between but that did statistician and architect of the Second Economic Weekly Is Born not deter Sachin. From the very begin- Five Year Plan) was extremely infl uen- Something unexpected occurred in ning, the EW led a hand-to-mouth exist- tial in government circles those days be- 1948. Hiten went to the United States ence. A gentleman hovering on the cause of his proximity to Prime Minister (US) with a group of industrialists and fringe of the business world, Alphonso Nehru. His views were considered ex- businessmen to explore trade prospects Fernandes, who was a bachelor like traordinarily radical in compari son to between the US and newly-independent Sachin, joined the weekly as its manager. those who then constituted the Planning countries. An eminent economist with The weekly subsisted on occasional Commission or successive Finance Min- the highest degree from the London releases of funds from the Sekhsaria isters, such as T T Krishnamachari (TTK) School of Economics and who was teach- Group as there were very few advertise- and C D Deshmukh. Nehru encouraged ing in Madras (now Chennai), was picked ments, that is, whatever that could be Mahalanobis to prepare a draft of the up by the Birlas to edit an economic arranged by Sachin’s brothers. Sachin Second Five Year Plan. The First Five weekly published from New Delhi. He took pride in his “cottage industry” and Year Plan was altogether timid and had was also part of this group of business- Fernandes was a wonderful help. Very set extremely limited targets. The Second men. Hiten was deeply disappointed soon, the weekly began to receive serious Five Year Plan drafted by Mahalanobis with this gentleman. In him he could attention not only from scholarly circles came as a thundering shock to the con- fi nd no spark of brilliance and on return- in the country but in the US and the United servative crowd but they could do noth- ing to Bombay kept cajoling Sachin to Kingdom as well.