My Inspiration.....

By B Jayakishore

Yesterday, when Malathi akka told me P.Sainath has won the prestigious Ramon Magasaysay Award, I was really thrilled. I have a reason for that. Frankly speaking, I was deeply influenced by his writings and his views on Deveplopmental journalism. Certainly he is the Role model for any of our aspiring journalists. Of course he is for me.

Sainath is the grandson of former President of India,V.V.Giri. He studied at Jesuits in Chennai at Loyala College. His preoccupation with social problems and commitment to a political perspective began when he was a student in college. He is a graduate of Jawaharlal Nehru University,Delhi.

He is currently the rural affairs editor of The Hindu.

After receiving a Masters degree in history, he launched his career as a journalist at the UNI in 1980 where he received the news agency's highest individual award. He then worked for the Blitz, then a major South Asian weekly in Mumbai first as foreign affairs editor and then as deputy editor, which he continued for ten years.

During this time He got an opportunity to tour nine drought-stricken states in India. It changed his perception about journalism what he is doing. Sainath felt that the media's attention was moving from "News" to "Entertainment" and consumerism and lifestyles of the urban elite gained prominence in the newspapers which rarely carried news of the reality of poverty in India. "I felt that if the Indian press was covering the top 5 per cent,I should cover the bottom 5 per cent", says Sainath.

He quit Blitz and in 1993 applied for a Times of India fellowship. At the interview he spoke of his plans to report from rural India. When an editor asked him, "Suppose I tell you my readers aren't interested in this stuff", Sainath replied prompmtly-"When did you last meet your readers to make any such claims on their behalf?"

He got the fellowship and took to the back roads in the ten poorest districts of five states. It meant covering close to 100,000 km across India using 16 forms of transportation, including walking 5,000km on foot. The TOI published 84 reports by Sainath across all these 18 months, many of them subsequently reprinted in his book, Everybody Loves A Good Drought. Which remained No.1 amongst non-fiction bestsellers on diverse lists across the country. His writing has provoked responses that include the revamping of the Drought Management Programs in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh.

As a reporter, he proved the power of the Press repeatedly. In one state after another, the bureaucracy and politicians acted upon his stories. Today, more than any other journalist in India, he has been responsible for the attention brought to the raging farmers' suicides in the country. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Agriculture Commission in Andhra Pradesh to suggest ways for improving agriculture in that state.

One of his more recent projects, on dalits, for The Hindu, is nearly complete, and he is planning a book based on this work. When the newspapers were unwilling to fund beyond a point, Sainath spent from his own resources, his savings, his provident fund, his gratuity - avoiding corporate sponsors.

His current project is on the agrarian crisis nationwide, particularly those regions where its effects are most severe. He has filed over 100 reports on the agrarian crisis in recent years. He has also himself taken all the photographs that go with those reports, which established a niche of its own.

Hats off to you sir!

(inputs from various sources)