New Delhi: An erudite and sincere voice in the newsroom, with deep insight into the pulse of the people. A journalist who could listen with respect to both sides of the political divide, who punched far above his weight from a young age — these were among the tributes that colleagues, well-wishers and kin at a prayer meeting in Delhi Wednesday paid to Ravish Tiwari, who succumbed to cancer last month.
Several senior political leaders, including Union minister Bhupender Yadav, former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, and Congress leader Jairam Ramesh were in attendance. Many hailed Tiwari, who was chief of The Indian Express’s national bureau, for setting the benchmark for exceptional political journalism in India.
“I have known Ravish for the past nine years,” said Yadav, adding, “He was the only reporter who would have deep insights and knowledge about the social and caste dynamics of a particular state. When he was with the Economic Times in 2015, he wrote four big columns after touring the whole of Bihar.”
“No one understood the pulse of the ground better than Ravish. His journalism was about understanding the perceptions on the ground,” Yadav said.
Recalling a conversation with Tiwari, Prasad said, “When asked why he switched to doing journalism, Ravish replied, ‘Woh mera junoon tha (it was my passion).’”
“What is remarkable about Ravish is that his journalistic instinct and accomplishments cannot be bracketed in groups. He was truly an all-rounder,” added Prasad.
Punching above his weight, mentor to young reporters
ThePrint’s editor-in-chief, Shekhar Gupta, spoke about Tiwari’s — an IIT topper who received the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship and earned a postgraduate degree from the University of Oxford — decision to enter journalism.
Gupta, who first met Tiwari when he was with The Indian Express in Mumbai, said, “Ravish punched way below his weight in terms of what he could have earned. But the fact that he agreed voluntarily and did it became such an asset to journalism. Because in journalism, at his age, he punched way above his weight.”
He further said, “Increasingly in our newsrooms, there is a paucity of reporter mentors. In that environment, Ravish, to me, was a big rising star. Even at a young age, he was already mentoring young reporters.”
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Atishi, who studied with Tiwari at Oxford, said that he was always there to give his opinion both as a friend and someone who had deep political insights.
“When I was totally shattered after coming third in my first parliamentary election, Ravish quoted Mulayam Singh Yadav ji and said, ‘Madam agar rajneeti karna hai toh akadi mein kushti ladte rehna parega.’ (Madam, if you have to do politics, you have to keep wrestling in the ring.),” she said.
Mourning the loss of a great storyteller, Raj Kamal Jha, editor-in-chief of The Indian Express, said, “I have to confess, and I am being very selfish here. We will miss the stories that will now never be told because there is no Ravish to tell them”.
“These are stories that only he could have done. Because there are very few people left in our ecosystem who can listen to both sides with respect,” he added.
Anant Goenka, executive director of The Indian Express, said, “At a time when much of political journalism is more political and less of journalism, when the byline proudly wears its bias on its sleeve, Ravish brought to the newsrooms a voice that was erudite, incredibly well informed, and most importantly in which each note rangs sincere.”
Praising him for his determination and integrity when working on his stories, Goenka recalled how Tiwari once read a 300-page book and did four one-hour interviews for a one-page article.
Nitin Saluja, founder of the tea café chain Chaayos and a close friend of Tiwari, also spoke at the event. He said, “Since he has left us, I have been saying one thing very regularly. Apna bhai stud tha, yeh pata thai. Apna bhai legend tha, yeh nahin pata tha. (My brother was a stud, I knew that. That he was a legend, I didn’t know.)”
“He continued to be so humble, making your problems his problem, and he never, never made anybody believe that he is what scholars look like,” he added.
Also read: My friend Ravish, the IITian, Rhodes scholar who loved the roads & pavement thumping journalism