Thayil Jacob Sunny George, the founder of Asiaweek who launched the publication in 1975 to provide an English-language magazine owned by Asians that spoke for the region at a time when none existed, died at the age of 97 on Friday.
Over a seven-decade career in journalism, George forged a stellar reputation as an advocate of press freedom, revered among colleagues as someone who spoke his mind and was unrelenting in questioning even top political leaders.
In his last column for the New Indian Express newspaper – where his writings were published under the title “Point of View” for over a two-decade period until June 2022 – George summed up his belief in independent journalism under the poignant headline “Now is the time to say goodbye”.
“Some of us feel that we should not criticise our own country. Some feel exactly the other way – that a big country like ours needs to be cautioned all the way about pitfalls. All arguments have their own supporters and their own critics, their own validities and their own drawbacks,” he said.
“But there is something not right if a country and its rulers start feeling that they should not be criticised at all – and especially by newspaperwallahs,” he warned.
Hailing from the southern Indian state of Kerala, George started his career in the country’s financial hub Mumbai with the Free Press Journal in 1950, when he arrived in the city with a degree in the English language to help shape a distinguished writing career.
