NEW DELHI: Sankarshan Thakur, editor of The Telegraph, who brought a lyrical flair to hard-boiled ground reporting, and whose deep and nuanced understanding of national politics, especially of the state of Bihar, made him one of the distinguished journalists of his generation, passed away on Monday after battling cancer. He was 63.Sankarshan’s eye for the seemingly mundane detail and his gift of creating word pictures crafted unforgettable field reports on a range of subjects: the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, the Bhopal gas tragedy, the 1999 Kargil War, and the Kashmir strife, to name a few. His reports were eagerly awaited, attracting many towards journalism. He received the Prem Bhatia Award for Excellence in Political Journalism in 2001.Bihar was his janambhumi. Sankarshan understood the state’s knotted politics and its whip-smart rustic netas. He wrote about them with candour and insight. His books – The Brothers Bihari, Subaltern Saheb: Bihar and the Making of Laloo Yadav, and Single Man: The Life and Times of Nitish Kumar of Bihar – are mandatory reading for anyone who wants to understand modern Bihar and the role of caste and charisma in its shaping. But his abiding affection for the ordinary people of the state also shone through his writing.His death was widely mourned on social media. Among those who posted messages of condolence were Mamata Banerjee and Mallikarjun Kharge. Press Club of India said, “We have lost a fearless voice in journalism.” TNN
