MADHU SHETYE, AMONG THE FOUNDERS OF THE MUMBAI PRESS CLUB, FREEDOM FIGHTER AND CHAMPION OF JOURNALISTS' RIGHTS, PASSED AWAY AT THE AGE OF 89 ON 27 NOVEMBER 2019

THE MUMBAI PRESS CLUB, ALONG WITH HIS FAMILY AND FRIENDS, ORGANISED A MEMORIAL MEETING ON WEDNESDAY, 11 DECEMBER, 2019, AT 6 PM

AT PRESS CLUB TERRACE, TO HONOUR AND RECALL HIS CONTRIBUTION TO JOURNALISM. 

MADHU SHETYE, THE INDEFATIGABLE FIGHTER

Madhu Shetye, fighter for good causes, senior journalist and a founding member of the Mumbai Press Club, breathed his last on 27 November, 2019. He lost the final battle to a string of illnesses at the age of 89.

Madhu lived a simple life from a small, two-bedroom apartment at Grant Road, just opposite the August Kranti Maidan, in the heart of south Mumbai. But it was his long, upturned whiskers that flagged him as the militant he always was. He was never without a twinkle in his eye; and with his booming voice and a guffaw that could be heard miles away, Madhu will be remembered as a fighter who never gave up. 

Madhu Shetye was not just a progressive journalist. He was a community activist, winning two terms as a corporator of the Communist Party of India (CPI) from 1961 to 1968 from a ward called Chikalwadi. As the name indicates, the working class neighborhood had huge housing and access issues; and as a corporator, Madhu led a successful fight for ensuring housing rights for hundreds of residents.

It is no wonder that his last journey to the Chandanwadi Crematorium on 27th November wound its way through Chikalwadi; and it was residents from his old ward raising slogans of ‘Madhu-Shetye-Amar-Rahe’ that made up the largest number of mourners at the last rites.

EARLY YEARS

Madhu was an activist from his school days, participating in the Quit India Movement in 1942 as a student and then going on to taking part in the Samyukta Maharashtra and the Goa Liberation movements thereafter. He also emerged as a close confident of to one of icons of the Samyukta Maharastra Movement, Acharya Prahalad Atre, serving as his secretary for some time.

Inspired by his maternal uncle, the late Pamchandra Purshottam Nadkarni, who worked as a journalist for the publication Vividha Vrutanta, Madhu joined the profession starting his career with the pro-Independence daily Free Press Journal in 1952. He cut his teeth under the legendary freedom fighter, S.Sadanand, and then went on to work for The Patriot and Link Weekly in New Delhi in 1974. Here too he had the privilege of working under pioneering editors like Edtata Narayanan  and Aruna Asif Ali.

Madhu was also a regular contributor to a string of Marathi dailies including Navakal, Loksatta and Sagar, and was close friends with political doyens of his age, including George Fernandes, Bombay Pradesh Congress chief Rajni Patel and Bal Thackeray.

With his graduation in political reporting, Madhu finally decided it was time to strike out on his own with his comrade-in-arms S.B. Kolpe. The duo launched the weekly Clarity in 1976, a no-holds-barred tabloid that carried the legend ‘Newsman’s Newsweekly’ on the masthead. Clarity continued to publish without a break till the 1990s when shortage of funds and the death of Kolpe finally forced Madhu to discontinue publication.

It was while taking a leadership position in the Bombay Union of Journalists (BUJ) (he held many positions of office in the 1968-84 period) that Madhu and his comrades launched the Press Club of Mumbai as a sister organization. The BUJ, functioning out of a small hall and office in the crowded Fort area of Mumbai, neither had the space nor the flexibility to provide recreational facilities for journalists.

FOUNDING THE PRESS CLUB

In these circumstances, Madhu Shetye led a delegation along with seniors like K D Umrigar and K P Samak, to the then chief minister of Maharashtra, V P Naik, demanding space for journalists where they could hang out and debate the issues of the day. Naik finally allotted a barrack-like structure opposite the Esplanade Courts, near VT station, that used to be earlier occupied by housing department engineers. It was given a lick of white paint and Madhu and his comrades started operations by taking a few brooms and sweeping it out themselves, and then setting up the first carom board there.

The Press Club was thus born with its old world charm. With a façade of large glass windows, it came to be christened ‘The Glass House’. But with the perennial shortage of funds, the Glass House remained till the turn of the century a barrack with a partly enclosed lawn area at the back, till it was rebuilt in 2007.

Rewinding back, there were further problems in store. The Mumbai Marathi Patrakar Sangh used to have a makeshift office in the Press Club premise. When the Patrakar Sangh moved out to its own building in the 1980s, instead of handing over the space to the Press Club as was agreed, the then state minister for culture, Pramod Navalkar, passed orders giving the premises to the Maharashtra Sahitya Sanskriti Mandal.

Led by Madhu Shetye, the club members once again came on to the streets, and after a 6-month battle convinced the chief minister Manohar Joshi to hand over the barrack to the Press Club. This later became the Club’s Conference Hall.

NATIONAL BATTLES

At the national level, Madhu was elected Secretary of the Indian Federation of Working Journalists (IFWJ) and represented the national union before the Bachavat Wage Board. The apex body split in 1990, after which Madhu joined the Indian Journalists Union (IJU).

In Mumbai, Madhu, as leader of the Press Club and the national union, led the fight against the Bihar Press Bill on the streets. In 1982, the chief minister of Bihar, Jagannath Mishra, introduced a bill that gave authority to the state government to ban publishing of what the government considered ‘grossly indecent’, ‘scurrilous matter’ or one that was ‘intended for blackmail’. It was a measure to muzzle the press and it prescribed jail sentences for scribes who challenged the government writ. Journalists poured out into the streets, and Mumbai witnessed huge protests too. Newspapers across the country shut down in anger. The Bihar Press Bill became one of the biggest unifying platforms for journalists in post-independent India. Finally after a year, and on the advice of the Congress Central command, the bill was withdrawn.

As an investigative journalist, Madhu Shetye was a recipient of many awards including the Chandrakant Vohra Award for best investigative Journalism in 1973, and the G.G. Jadhav Sanman Puraskar of Daily Pudhari of Kolhapur for Life Time Achievement  in December 2003. He was also felicitated by the Government of Maharashtra in 2007 for his participation in the Samyukta Maharashtra Movement, and received the prestigious Mumbai Press Club Award for Lifetime Achievement on 5th May 2012 at the hands of then Union minister Kapil Sibal.

Few know that Madhu was a connoisseur of Indian classical music too. His elder brother, Manohar Shetye, was then a leading vocalist of the Agra Gharana, and Madhu himself took training for the Agra style under Pandit Chidanand Nagarkar. Till his health permitted, he was a regular patron of the Sawai Gandharva Music Festival in Pune.

Madhu slowed down after his by-pass surgery in 2003, but continued to write books and articles from home. Infection of the lungs, diabetes and other health problems took a toll in the last 7-8 years, and he passed away after a chronic attack of aspiratory pneumonia.

He is survived by his daughter, Chandana, who tirelessly looked after him in the final years, and his wife Usha.

Madhu Shetye will always be remembered as the exemplary journalist-activist, and one who led from the front.

Gurbir Singh

President