Designing a better society

The landscape that Raj and Romesh Thapar tended through Seminar was a space inviting discourse, respectful argument and consensus around values essential to a ‘plural and intellectually energetic India’. For the Thapars, Independence had brought responsibility. New generations should flourish in an India ‘Where the mind is without fear... where the world has not been broken up into fragments...’ Raj and Romesh gave their lives to these liberating concepts, today under siege. Yet, the era which their memory evokes was not a halcyon time. Upheavals and suffering were witnessed on a scale not experienced since, demanding resilient vision and courageous analysis. Partition, wars, the Emergency, rebellion, corruption and repeated betrayal of ‘trysts with destiny’: Seminar debated them all with an integrity that remains the finest Thapar legacy. All that Raj and Romesh cherished and did together was measured against benchmarks of freedom and justice. In the midst of screamed abuses and military tanks offered as inspiration to young minds, we are reminded today of the perilous cost of neglecting the landscapes of freedom and hope. Seminar indicates each month that we have not lost them all, and yet we may. My first encounter with Romesh Thapar was on a sweltering Calcutta afternoon in the early sixties in my cramped office at the Metal Box Company above Chowringhee Road. Seminar had moved out of Bombay’s sophistication into what was then dismissed as village Delhi. Romesh’s immense frame filled my room, matched for size by his escort, Santi Chowdhury, film maker and partn...