Obituary: Sankarshan Thakur, chronicler of India’s turbulent soul

Sankarshan Thakur, one of India’s most respected political journalists and authors, passed away on Monday, 8 September after a prolonged illness. He was 63.

For decades, Thakur’s writing combined the rigour of reportage with the wisdom of memory, making him an authoritative interpreter of Indian politics, particularly the shifting ground of Bihar and its leaders. His death leaves behind a void in the world of independent journalism where conviction, depth, and empathy often marked his work.

Born in 1962 in Bihar, Thakur grew up in a state that would later become both his canvas and his muse. His mother tongue was Maithili, a language rich in folklore and poetry, which perhaps instilled in him an early appreciation for narrative depth. The son of veteran journalist Janardan Thakur, newsprint and conversations around politics were part of his formative years. While Thakur never flaunted his parentage, he carried forward the legacy of a life tethered to journalism with evident responsibility.

Educated in Patna, and later Delhi, Thakur gravitated naturally toward the field. Close friends remember his early years as those of a quiet observer, often listening more than speaking, soaking in the rhythm of political life in Bihar, from raucous village squares to cloistered corridors of Patna’s power elite.

His fascination with India’s layered democracy was seeded in these years. His subsequent work seemed deeply inspired by M.J. Akbar, under whom Thakur apprenticed as a journalist with Sunday magazine for many years. As a young reporter in 1984, he covered seismic events: the Bhopal gas tragedy, the anti-Sikh riots following the assassination of Indira Gandhi, and the escalating ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. His reports were marked by a rare empathy focusing not just on facts but the human cost.

Thakur was the executive editor of Tehelka weekly, which he helped launch in early 2004. In recent years, he returned to The Telegraph, where he had started his journalistic career in 1985, as the newspaper's roving editor. In between, he put in some time as associate editor of the Indian Express.

Doubtless, Thakur’s journalistic home for much of his life was The Telegraph, where he rose to become chief of bureau in Delhi. The Telegraph gave him the freedom to experiment with language and style, and he repaid the trust with evocative storytelling rooted in reportage.

As a reporter, he was known for his tireless legwork, preferring the unswept village courthouse to the air-conditioned TV studio, and the wary, off-the-record chat to the shrill panel debate. In an era increasingly crowded with loud slogans and instant news cycles, Thakur stood apart with his patience and textured narratives.

His reporting spanned Kashmir's unrest, where he humanised the conflict's forgotten voices, to national politics, where he dissected power plays with surgical precision. In Kashmir, he wrote movingly of lives caught in crossfire, earning praise for his nuanced portrayal beyond headlines. “No one reported Bihar and Kashmir the way Sankarshan Thakur did," tweeted journalist Nasir Khuehami, echoing the sentiments of many.

He covered some of the most tumultuous years in Indian politics, from the rise of Mandal politics in the 1990s to the churn brought on by regional satraps in the Hindi heartland. But it was Bihar and its complex political theatre that remained his life’s central subject.

Few journalists captured Bihar’s transformation with the sensitivity and tenacity of Thakur. His eye was trained not on abstract data or sweeping judgments but lived experiences, conversations, and characters. For him, leaders like Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar were more than political archetypes; they embodied the ambitions and contradictions of Bihar’s people.

His celebrated books bear testimony to this: The Brothers Bihari traced the political journeys of Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar, mapping their rivalries and reconciliations. Single Man: The Life and Times of Nitish Kumar of Bihar was a profound political biography that dissected the enigma of Nitish, blending granular reportage with literary craft. Subaltern Saheb: Bihar and the Making of Laloo Yadav remains one of the most insightful accounts of Lalu’s rise and his brand of social justice politics.

Through these works, Thakur documented not just leaders but the undercurrents of social change in Bihar — the empowerment of backward classes, the fracturing of caste structures, and the anxieties of aspiration in one of India’s poorest states. His writing gave Bihar a dignity, rescuing it from patronising clichés that have long plagued mainstream narratives about the region.

Thakur’s writing was distinctive: dense with detail, rich in portraits, and laced with flashes of poetic flourish. His prose was his superpower — elegant, evocative, and often laced with irony. He was not afraid to slow down a piece with description, to let a story breathe in the texture of a dust-stormed highway or in the silence of a farmer waiting under a tree for leaders’ promises to materialise.

Colleagues often remarked on his sharp eye and sharper pen. Yet he wore his knowledge lightly, writing in a language that was both lyrical and accessible. Unlike many peers who gravitated toward television, Thakur remained wedded to print and longform, believing deeply that truth resided in context, not soundbytes. He was, at heart, a reporter of people rather than institutions.

Those who travelled with him recall how he made time to talk to drivers, shopkeepers, and tea-stall owners who, for Thakur, were repositories of truth often ignored by elites. He saw politics from the ground up, and in so doing, offered readers a humanised, layered view of power.

Although he is best remembered as a chronicler of Bihar’s politics, Thakur’s writings extended well beyond. He wrote with empathy about rural distress, about displacement, about how India’s development arcs often left millions behind. His dispatches from Kashmir carried the same depth of observation, probing the human cost behind headlines of insurgency and counter-insurgency.

He was painfully aware of the structural inequities in Indian society and believed journalism had a moral imperative — not merely to question the powerful, but to record the conditions of the marginalised. In his columns, one sensed not just analysis but also a conscience at work.

In the newsroom, Thakur was known as a generous mentor. Younger reporters looked up to him for his clarity of thought, his patience in editing, and his ability to find the kernel of a story. He was not the loudest voice at editorial meetings but often the most persuasive, because he spoke with the authority of deep reporting and lived experience.

Colleagues recall his wit and warmth. He could poke fun at the self-importance of politics and journalism alike, often laughing at the absurd theatre both entailed. Yet, when it came to matters of integrity, he was uncompromising.

Over his long career, Thakur received several accolades for his contributions to Indian journalism, including the Prem Bhatia Award for Political Reporting in 2001. In 2003, he won the Appan Menon Fellowship to work on a book on Kashmir. But more than awards, it was his reputation among peers and readers that cemented his stature.

His books remain essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand Bihar’s evolution in post-Mandal India. Academics studying caste politics and regionalism often cite his work, not simply as journalism but a form of social documentation. He managed the rare feat of combining scholarly rigor with narrative flair.

Despite his public persona, Thakur remained a private man. He valued his family deeply, often withdrawing from the frenetic pace of Delhi politics to spend time in quieter settings. His love for Bihar was not only professional but personal, as he felt tethered to its soil, its history, its struggles, and its beauty.

He leaves behind his wife, children, and countless colleagues, students, and readers who regarded him as a mentor and guide. In his passing, Indian journalism has lost not merely a reporter or an author, but a voice of conscience. Sankarshan Thakur represented a vanishing breed of journalists who valued depth over speed, substance over spectacle, and empathy over cynicism.

At a time when Indian politics has grown more polarised and journalism more fragmented, Thakur’s body of work stands as a reminder of what is possible when patience, honesty, and craft are brought to storytelling. His readers will remember him every time they return to The Brothers Bihari or Single Man, marvelling at his ability to distill the chaos of Bihar’s politics into prose that was both moving and profound.

More importantly, they will remember him for his unwavering belief that journalism, at its best, is a democratic service — to record, to question, and above all, to understand. Thakur will be remembered as the "poet-reporter of Bihar’s politics", a craftsman who stood unfashionably but firmly for the values that make journalism more than an occupation — an act of witness. His passing dims a light in Indian political journalism, but the flame he kindled through words will endure.

Hasnain Naqvi is a former member of the history faculty at St Xavier’s College, Mumbai