Ved Pratap Vaidik

Some Lesser Known Facts About Ved Pratap Vaidik

• Ved Pratap Vaidik (1944-2023) was an Indian journalist, orator, lecturer, political analyst and freelance columnist. He left the world at the age of 78 on 14 March 2023, after suffering from a heart attack.

• Dr Vaidik is known for his literary movement ‘Satyagraha for Hindi’ that he started for making all Indian languages to be a medium of education in India. He was only 13 years old when he went to jail for the first time in 1957 for participating in the literary movement.

• He began his career in the field of Journalism in 1958 as a proofreader at the age of 16.

• He had a keen interest in oratory. He started addressing public gatherings when he was a teenager. Later, he represented India in international seminars several times.

• While doing research on Afghan Foreign Policy for his PhD thesis, he studied at several universities including Columbia University in New York, the School of Oriental and African Studies, the University of London, and the Institute of the People of Asia in Moscow. For the extensive fieldwork of the research, he went to Afghanistan.

• He wrote his PhD thesis ‘A Comparative Study of Afghanistan’s Relations with the US and the Soviet Union’ in the Hindi language, which was not accepted by JNU. He was even expelled from the university for not writing his thesis in the English language.

• His expulsion from the university stirred the Indian Parliament, and the matter was kept in discussion for almost two years (1966-67). Many famous politicians like Dr Rammanohar Lohia, Madhu Limaye, Acharya Kriplani, Hiren Mukherjee, Prakashveer Shastri, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Chandrashekhar, Hem Barua stood in support of him. However, later Mrs Indira Gandhi, Dr Zakir Hussain, Dr Sampurnanand, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay, Dr Trigun Sen, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Dr Harivansh Rai Bachchan also cooperated and along with Hindi, all other Indian languages also got recognition for the first time to become the medium of PhD thesis. 

• He was acquainted with various foreign languages such as Russian, Persian, German, and French. He took formal training to learn the Russian language in 1967 and the French language in 1968 from the School of International Studies, JNU, Delhi.

• He worked for more than 12 years at the ‘Navbharat Time.’ He was the first co-editor there. Later, he was promoted to the editor of the Thought Department of the newspaper.

• Dr Vaidik was the founder of the Hindi news agency of Press Trust of India named “Bhasha.” He worked there as an editor for more than a decade.

• He was an editorial director of the multilingual portal ‘netjall.com.’

• He also worked as a freelance columnist and wrote columns for various news portals including Prabhasakshi.

• He wrote more than 1000 articles, 2000 editorials, 50 research papers, and hundreds of reviews for various newspapers and magazines including ‘Nai Duniya,’ ‘Dharmyug,’ ‘The Times of India,’ ‘Weekly Hindustan,’ ‘Strategic Analysis,’ and ‘World Focus’ in a career span of more than 40 years. 

• Dr Vaidik was a travelled scholar-journalist and has travelled to almost 80 countries.

• In 1962, he joined the Indian All India Radio and Doordarshan and recorded more than a hundred programs while working there.

• Not only on the Indian news channels but Dr Vaidik also worked as an interview host at various foreign news channels such as BBC, Voice of America and many European and Asian radio and TV stations. 

• Apart from journalism, he also tried his hand at teaching. He worked as a lecturer of Political Science at Hastinapur College (now Motilal Nehru College), Delhi University for four years (1970-1974). Many Indian and foreign universities used to invite him as a ‘Visiting Professor’ to deliver special lectures on International Politics and Journalism. 

• From 1981 to 1983, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Indian Council of Social Science Research. He has also been a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses and the School of International Studies (JNU).

• In 1999, Dr Vaidik joined the Indian Delegation to the United Nation and delivered three lectures as a member.

• He delivered the inaugural speech at the South Asian World Conference organized by Wisconsin University in 1999.

• In 2014, Dr Vaidik met the terror mastermind Hafiz Saeed who attacked Mumbai in 2008 in which more than 160 people died and hundreds got injured. His meeting with the terrorist was heavily criticised by the Indian politician and even considered a sedition act. 

• In an interview, Dr Vaidik said that he went to Pakistan with a group of journalists, foreign policy experts, and politicians to attend a Track-II conference on the Indo-Pakistani relationship which was organized by the Regional Peace Institute. He said that he was interviewed there by various news channels, and during one of his interviews, he was asked to meet Hafiz Saeed to which he agreed.

• The opposition parties at that time questioned the motive behind his meeting with the terrorist and asked for his arrest. They took the matter to the Indian Parliament, claiming the ‘direct involvement’ of the government in it. The opposition parties asserted that meeting a terrorist was not possible without the permission of government authorities. However, Dr Vaidik denied their claims by saying that the meeting was merely an interview and he also has the script of it to present as evidence.

  

• On the meeting of Dr Vaidik and Hafiz Saeed, the then Vice-President of Congress Rahul Gandhi claimed Dr Vaidik to be an RSS member and also called him the ‘envoy’ of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In an interview, Dr Vaidik replied to claims made by Rahul Gandhi, and said,
  

  I have never been a special envoy for any PM; I am my own envoy. I have been meeting presidents and PMs of many countries and rebel forces. I wasn’t envoy of any PM.”

• Ved Pratap Vaidik wrote many books including ‘Indian Foreign Policy: New Pointers’ (1971), ‘Afghanistan: Kal, Aaj Aur Kal’ (2002), ‘Mahshakti Bharat’ (2005), ‘Ethnic Crisis in Sri Lanka: India’s Options’ (1986) and ‘Modi ki Videshniti’ (2017).

• His book ‘Soviet-American Rivalry in Afghanistan’ (National Publishing House, 1973), was the first book on International Politics that was written in the Hindi language. The book was his PhD thesis.

• His book ‘Hindi Journalism: Various Dimensions’ (1976) is called ‘The Encyclopedia of Hindi Journalism’ by critics.

• He wrote many books to promote Hindi and other Indian languages and boycott the English language. Some of these books include ‘Bhartiya Bhashayen Lao: Kyon Aur Kaise,’ ‘Hindi ka Sampurna Samachar Patra Kaisa ho ?’ (1994), and ‘Angrezi Hatao: Kyon Aur Kaise?’ (1973).

• Dr Vaidik argued in his short booklet titled ‘English in Abroad’ that there should not be any imposition on self-respecting and developed nations to work in the English language. He believed that every nation should have the freedom to work in their mother tongue.

• Dr Vaidik served as a member of various Advisory Committees of the Indian government.

• He was the chairman of ‘Bhartiya Bhasha Sammelan,’ an organisation made to protect the rights of Indian languages, and fought against the imposition of the English language in academic institutions.

• On 14 March 2023, Dr Ved Pratap Vaidik died of a heart attack at the age of 78. According to some reports, before his death, he fainted in his bathroom at his residence in Gurugram after which he was taken to the Fortis hospital, where he was declared dead by the doctors.