Doreswamy: A fighter till the very end

A man who never rested on his laurels, he continued to see a role for himself in public life

Two weeks before he passed away, H.S. Doreswamy had sent in his hand-written weekly column Noorara Nota, to Nyaya Patha, a Kannada weekly. It was a sharp analysis of the results of the five States Assembly polls. That sums up how Mr. Doreswamy, the Gandhian freedom fighter, worked till the very end. A man who never rested on his laurels, he continued to see a role for himself in public life and fought for “freedom”, as he continuously redefined it. He saw it in his fight for civil liberties, land rights, environmental justice, freedom of expression or against corruption and communalism. He never contested elections or held posts, but remained a citizen-activist till the last. “Gandhiji wanted the Congress to abjure political power and remain a social movement, convert itself into a permanent opposition party against misrule by any party or government,” he wrote in his column in April 2018. Mr. Doreswamy followed that path. He spared none and was critical of all governments about what he saw as “anti-people policies”. He was one of the most vocal public intellectuals of the State, whom historian Ramachandra Guha describes as “conscience of the State”.