For editor Vajpayee death of S P Mukherjee became turning point in life
New Delhi, Aug 17: As a journalist, former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee started his career with a Hindi monthly news magazine called Rashtradharma in1947 but his last assignment as journalist was with Veer Arjun a Hindi daily newspaper published from Delhi after which he quit active journalism to join politics.
Vajpayee is generally known for his politics and administrative skills but he was an author, poet and a journalist of a caliber as well. He had gone to Kashmir as an assistant to Shyama Prashad Mukherjee while still working with Veer Arjun. Present editor in chief of Veer Arjun Anil Nalin told One India, "After Arya Samaj leader Vachaspati Mishra recommended Vajpayee's name for Veer Arjum which was being brougt out from Khari Bawli area of old Delhi. And when Vajpayee decided to go to join Mukherjee in his protest against the permit system in Jammu and Kashmir, the then editor in chief Mahashay Krishna (my grandfather) asked Vajpayee that on what capacity he was planning to visit Kashmir, he said as an assistant to Shyama Prashad Mukherjee and he had gone to Kashmir."
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Nalin said that Vajpayee too was arrested and confined into a small room with Mukherjee but he was later released but Mukherjee died there only. Veer Arjun and Dainik Pratap (Urdu Daily) was shifted to Delhi from Lahore after partition. Moreover, Vajpayee worked as pracharaak while being editor of Panchajanya and Veer Arjun. But arrest and demise has been the turning point of his life as after that he never looked back and became active in politics.
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He had worked with four newspaper/periodical before calling it a quite to join active politics. But he remained committed to the cause of nation and the cause of people. Vajpayee started the Hindi monthly news magazine Rashtradharma in1947 along with Deen Dayal Upadhyay but when it did not work, Swadesh daily newspaper and later to weekly Panchajanya in 1951 after that he joined Veer Arjun.