The free press, for all its faults, is a force for good: Aroon Purie

The free press, for all its faults, is a force for good: Aroon Purie

Aroon Purie, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of the India Today Group, delivered the AAAI Subhas Ghosal Memorial Lecture in Mumbai on October 7

Team BrandSutraUpdated: Monday, October 10, 2022, 12:07 PM IST
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Subhas Ghosal, one of the most influential figures in the history of Indian advertising, was fondly remembered at the AAAI Subhas Ghosal Memorial Lecture in Mumbai last week, where media doyen Aroon Purie, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of the India Today Group, was the invited speaker.

Talking to a packed audience, Purie paid tribute to Subhas Ghosal and wished he had the opportunity to meet the legendary adman. About his own brush with advertising, he said, “I’ve spent 47 years on the editorial side of the business, but never sold an ad in my life. Not because I think it is beneath me, but just because I am a terrible salesperson! The only interaction I’ve had with ad agencies is as a client for our campaigns.”

JUST MY LUCK’

Going over his personal and professional journey, Purie described his life as “a series of coincidences, accidents, happenstances and just dumb luck”. He spoke of his birth in Lahore before Partition and his father, a self-made businessman who had never gone to college; experiencing the horror of Partition, moving to Mumbai (where his father became a film-financier and later started taking Indian movies abroad to places like Russia, South Africa, Iran, etc.), going to school at Christ Church, Byculla in the 50s, and being sent off to the London School of Economics (LSE) at the age of 16 to prepare to be a chartered accountant. It was at LSE that Purie became interested in current affairs, he said, reading the dailies and magazines, but he never thought of becoming a journalist. “I became a chartered accountant and started work as an auditor in London. By then my father had shifted to Delhi, and a chance meeting with the newspaper baron Roy Thomson resulted in a partnership to launch ‘Thomson Press’ in Faridabad for textbook printing. On a holiday to India, my father urged me to check out the press, and that’s when I became involved and stayed back to work on it. I was 28 when my father made me its managing director. I was thrown in at the deep end,” Purie said, adding that he soon figured out that the only way the Press would make profit would be to have its own work, and that’s how the idea of publishing was born. He invested in the latest technology and turned the press into a quality commercial printing facility.

Aroon Purie at the AAAI Subhas Ghosal Memorial Lecture

Aroon Purie at the AAAI Subhas Ghosal Memorial Lecture |

AN IDEA IS BORN

Purie went on to describe the birth of ‘India Today’ first as a magazine for NRIs wanting to know about India, in December 1975, then introducing it in the domestic market during the Emergency. He recalled that in January 1977, when Emergency was lifted and censorship was gone, India Today saw a turning point, with young reporters telling the India story without any ideological baggage, and there was no looking back after that. “That is the time I found my mojo. I loved what I was doing, and it became a passion. It also had a social purpose,” Purie said.

He recalled another turning point in 1980, just before the General Election, when two Delhi School of Economics professors – Prannoy Roy and Ashok Lahiri - walked in and offered him their expertise for predicting poll results, and he bought the idea. “They predicted that Indira Gandhi would return with a clear majority, which she did,” said Purie. “It enhanced the credibility of the magazine.” He also spoke of the experience of getting into broadcast first with NewsTrack and then the 24x7 news channel Aaj Tak and more recently, the Group’s success with digital media under his daughter, Vice-Chairman Kalli Purie. “I am confident that the India Today Group is in very good hands,” Purie declared. He concluded by saying, “While the Press is the favourite whipping boy for many, the free press, for all its faults, is a force for good. A free press is essential for India to survive as a country. On the other hand, journalism is a noble profession, and it must serve society the truth as honestly as it can.”

Anupriya Acharya of AAAI, Uday Shankar of Asia Initiatives and Marigold Park, Aroon Purie of India Today Group, Sam Balsara of Madison World, Sumantra Ghosal (son of Subhas Ghosal) and Avinash Pandey of ABP Network

Anupriya Acharya of AAAI, Uday Shankar of Asia Initiatives and Marigold Park, Aroon Purie of India Today Group, Sam Balsara of Madison World, Sumantra Ghosal (son of Subhas Ghosal) and Avinash Pandey of ABP Network |

TRIBUTES TO A LEGEND

At the event, remembering Subhas Ghosal, Sam Balsara, Chairman and Managing Director of Madison World, recalled his incredible legacy, his razor-sharp mind, mastery of the English language, wit and forthright attitude, while acknowledging his huge role in shaping the Indian advertising industry. “Ghosal laid the foundation for the arrival of professionals in the advertising industry. He pioneered the second agency concept when he launched Contract under JWT,” Balsara said. “I also remember stories about the camaraderie that existed between admen Subhas Ghosal, Subroto Sengupta and Mani Iyer, who were as much competitors as they were friends, and how they often came together to discipline clients or educate clients on the way things were to be done in advertising.”

Colvyn Harris, Founder, Harris-Mint and former CEO of JWT South Asia, who began his career working under Subhas Ghosal at HTA (as JWT was then known), said, “We respect Subhas Ghosal dearly for his professionalism, for his values, and above all, integrity. His deep and relentless vision saw him build JWT as one of India’s finest companies. He set the standard very high, and everyone did their best to follow. He always had the future of advertising as a discussion point on his agenda.”

The Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and the Subhas Ghosal Foundation (SGF) jointly organise the annual Subhas Ghosal Memorial Lecture. The SGF was set up as a memorial to Subhas Ghosal after his demise, by a band of 12 senior professionals who admired him as a man and as a professional.

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