Pothan Joseph

Who was Pothan Joseph?

Pothan Joseph was a journalist in 20th-century India whose career spanned the twenty years before and twenty years after India's independence. He worked with notable people of the time such as Annie Besant, Mahatma Gandhi, Sarojini Naidu, and Motilal Nehru. He was the first to write a daily political column for five decades, called “Over A Cup of Tea”, sprinkled with Biblical and Dickensian quotes. He also discovered and nurtured the Indian cartoonist Shankar, helping to make political cartoons a staple of newspaper diet.

“PJ” started or developed 26 newspapers. These included The Hindustan Times, the Indian Express, and the Deccan Herald. He also edited Dawn while it was based in New Delhi, but resigned as soon as he realized that Jinnah was pressing for the partition of India and Pakistan.

Pothan Joseph guarded editorial freedom and demanded that editors support those who worked in the editorial wing and never encroach on their freedom. Even before unionization, Pothan also pleaded for proper payment to deserving journalists. His motto during his working life was “courage, vigilance and fidelity”.