Tribute to a man committed to free media

Late Azimur Rahman

He was a most unlikely person to head the board of directors of a media organisation, and he would never tire of saying it. He was shy, never seeking limelight and always maintaining a very low profile. He never felt comfortable with the public attention that being the chairman of The Daily Star's Board of Directors brought him. As we got to know each other better I recall him saying over and over again that he never expected to ever be involved with a newspaper. In fact, he did not have too high an impression of journalists. "Journalists were people I always stayed away from," he used to say. "But meeting S M Ali (founder-editor and publisher of this paper) changed everything. In our first meeting I was so impressed by him that I decided to respond to the invitation to join The Daily Star's Board of Directors. He was so knowledgeable, sophisticated and dignified that I at once felt that I could trust him to give us a quality newspaper. It was meeting him that changed my mind about being involved in a media organisation." That meeting, held in the residence of A S Mahmud, the founder managing director of Mediaworld in late 1990, was crucial for Star's future. Just as it changed Harun Bhai's mind about joining us, it also changed Star's fortune insofar as it gave us a man of his moral courage, professional ethics and personal dignity as the chairman of our board.

In retrospect, it was almost providential that he became one of us. From the very first board meeting where he was elected its chairman till his last day in this world he was a quintessential Star man. Over the years he truly fell in love with his new involvement and was very proud of the newspaper that he helped to establish. He knew nothing about a newspaper but started to familiarise himself with every facet of its work. His most sincere interest was in providing modern and good working conditions for the staff, a management philosophy that was spontaneously and actively shared by all other directors. Under his leadership the Star Board always put the interest of the staff above other considerations and was always willing to invest resources so that the staff would be provided the most conducive working environment. One indication of how seriously he took his responsibilities pertaining to the Star was that he never missed a single board meeting during nearly eleven years that he presided over it. He would always arrive several minutes before schedule and would linger on after the meeting making personal inquiries about staff members' families. He was so meticulous about meeting timings that he would sometimes arrive before we were ready to receive him. Seeing our embarrassment he would try to put us at ease by saying, "Don't worry about me. You carry on. I came a bit early to avoid being late due to traffic," Days before he was scheduled to travel he would call us to say if there was any pending matter he needed to attend to before he left so that the paper would not suffer due to his absence.

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Of all the staff of The Daily Star, I have a special debt of gratitude to pay to Harun Bhai. I have absolutely no hesitation in saying that a paper like The Daily Star would not have been possible without the role played by its board of directors under the leadership of its chairman Azimur Rahman. It is a whole philosophy of media management that Harun Bhai personified. All the directors sincerely believed in the complete independence of the institution of the editor and in his total freedom to act in the best interest of the paper. They all knew that without this the paper would never gain the credibility and stature that it, in all humility, attained. But it was the chairman who was mainly responsible for translating this policy into a daily affair. It was his ardent, constant and unwavering adherence to this principle that made the Star what it is today.

Never in the last nearly eleven years, not even on a single occasion, did the chairman or any other member of the board try to influence the editor to write or report on any matter or suggest any tilt or angle to be taken on any issue. This is the greatest asset any newspaper editor can have, and we in the Star had it from day one. If all directors believed in the freedom of the editor, Harun Bhai made sure that it was implemented on a day to day basis. As the chairman of the board, he had immense power, which he could have wielded over the editor. He never did. On the contrary, he was always encouraging me to take bolder positions on social and political issues. Every time I would write something he would be one of the first to read and share his thought with me. He knew the pressure I would face for writing what I did, but would say, "Mahfuz, as long as you are clear in your conscience that you have done nothing out of malice or for profit, don't worry about anything else." What more can an editor wish for?

Everyone knows how difficult it is to run a newspaper. It is more difficult if a paper wants to follow a truly independent course. It gets more difficult in a country like ours where everyone knows everybody else, especially in the circle that an English daily circulates. I have no doubt that on the numerous occasions when the Star had taken very strong positions on political, social or business issues, or on reporting some corruption or political incidents, Harun Bhai as chairman must have received many phone calls protesting the rule of the Star. As a businessman such calls are more difficult to resists than perhaps for us journalists. But never were such calls passed on to me or its contents made known. In fact, Harun Bhai protected me from such callers. He would defend the Star and its editor with such vigour and belief that after some time such calls started to lessen and subsequently disappeared, though not completely. Imagine the editor's position and that of the Star if Harun Bhai did not play the role that he did.

As a journalist, and as an editor, publisher, the tribute that I would like to pay on this occasion to the respectful memory of Azimur Rahman, our founder-chairman, is that he was a true believer in the freedom of the media, and he made immense contribution to that concept by helping to make The Daily Star a truly independent newspaper. Yes Mr S M Ali gave it a great start and, I as his fortunate successor, have tried to follow the trend set by Ali Bhai. But the Star could not have come where it has today without the vision, the commitment and courage to stand up for a free press as was done by Harun Bhai. He was a man totally unconnected with the media, and yet by the time God took him away from us, he had made a significant contribution to media development in Bangladesh by fighting for its core value of FREEDOM and INDEPENDENCE.

We will miss you Harun Bhai. We will serve your memory by making the Star a newspaper that will be more professional, courageous, ethical and relevant to the needs, dreams and aspirations of our people. You will live among us in the Star and through us in all its readers.