SWATANTRA—JULY 19, 1947
THE golden jubilee of the firm of G.A. Natesan was celebrated
the other day in the presence of a very distinguished gathering. Mr. Natesan is
the last representative of a type of journalism that is fast ceasing to exist.
Nowadays the difference between business and public spirit has become
pronounced. It has become difficult to combine both. If only because the taint
of capitalism attaches to successful business which is frowned upon by the vast
body of proletarians that shape public opinion. People are no longer taken in
by the patriotic professions of merchant princes running newspapers, who are
discovering to their cost, after having built up huge fortunes with chains of
papers, that their influence has not grown with the money earned by them.
* * *
The capitalist proprietor of the
big daily who gets planted in journalism as a managing editor through the lever
of ownership has outlived his brief period of glory and is nowadays more of a
pathetic figure than an important one in the circles which he vainly seeks to
dominate. This is because of the incorrigible uncommercial character of working
journalists as a class wherever they may happen to work in the world. Working
journalists have stubbornly refused to learn the facts of commercial life, to
the despair of their employers who never could completely subdue them to their
will with the economic weapons so potent in other fields of employment. The Hindu is perhaps the only daily in
the country where a reverential attitude to the owner is conceded by the
journalist members of the staff. In other offices characterized by direct
proprietorial assumption of the editorship, a little residue of hostility is
always mixed up with the routine loyalty needed to keep things going. Willing
obedience is yielded not the paymasters but to the masters of the profession
whose worth, irrespective of pay or position is sensed by the rank and file
with an unerring collective instinct. The atmosphere of newspaper offices is
not conducive to the peace of mind or equanimity of proprietors setting
themselves up as editors without proper qualifications. They are assailed in
their seats by a pervasive derision which saturates the whole place without any
need on the part of anybody to utter a word. We find therefore so many of the
“bosses” rushing like mad to the four corners of the globe in quest of tributes
to their vanity denied them in their own offices.
* * *
Mr. G.A. Natesan was fortunate in
the acquisition thirty-five years ago of a namesake with the energy and working
power of a battalion of “subs” but without an iota of that refractory tribe’s
yearning for independence and autonomy. In the whole history of Indian
journalism I do not think anyone gave so much for so little as B. Natesan has
to G.A., in service of the Indian Review and other publications that have
brought wealth to the house. Mr. G.A. Natesan’s genius lay in making commerce
appear like public spirit and making public spirit as profitable as commerce.
His influence therefore kept abreast of his prosperity and his prosperity was
multiplied by his influence, and there is no knowing to what pinnacle he might
have risen, had not Gandhian non-cooperation come on the scene shattering the
whole structure of our public life and the foundations of recognition, reward
and preferment for its leading figures.
* * *
By no means a zealot in any cause,
Mr. Natesan is an expert in social relations with an enormous passive
receptivity, the greatest of all aids for eliminating unpleasantness and
getting on successfully and well with all varieties of men. Of Sir Alexander Cadogan,
the British delegate to the U.N. General Assembly, it is stated that he is a
perfect product of the iron rules in the education of a British Foreign Office
diplomat, that calm, good temper, patience and caution are for ever spread over
his deportment, that when he speaks no manifestation of personal brilliance is
ever allowed to come to the surface, he never laughs, never makes hasty
gestures, and seeming all the time to be gazing into the distance, he is an
adept in the game of non-committalness that diplomats have to play. Our Natesan
laughs and loves gaiety, and is socially light, buoyant and agreeable, but
without being grave and portentous he is capable of teaching lessons to Sri
Cadogan himself in the matter of non-committalness. He is a skilled artist in
mobilizing social contacts to desired ends, and as I wrote on him on another
occasion, confidences pour into his ear as air rushes into a vacuum. He seems marked out by nature for diplomacy
and ambassadorial missions, for which openings have begun to come to Indians
only just now. It is a pity they have come too late for the exercise of Mr.
Natesan’s gifts.—(SWATANTRA July 19, 1947) S A K A.
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