Veteran journalist, diplomat HK Dua passes away

NEw new delhi: Hari Krishan (HK) Dua, former editor-in-chief of the Hindustan Times, died on wed after a legal brief malady. He headed the newsprint from 1987 to 1994, and held senior editorial positions at Times of India, Indian Express, and Tribune. He also served as media adviser to former Prime Ministers HD Deve Gowda and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha, and served as India’s Ambassador to Denmark.From the lanes of Sargodha (in present day Pakistan), Dua – who was 10 years old at the time – migrated to India like lakhs of other people in 1947. His brother-in-law, General Pramod Saighal told HT, “His family reached India with just the clothes on their back. They had lost so much. They moved to Gurgaon when they migrated, and he used to study under a lamp post and worked very hard to make it in life.”His last rites were performed on Thursday at the Lodhi Road crematorium.After finishing school, Dua enrolled into Delhi University’s Hindu College but left midway to pursue a degree in journalism from Panjab University. “At the time, the department was based in Delhi. He wanted to do something for the country, and journalism was the route he wanted to take. He faced many rejections in the beginning and then got his job at UNI, whose office was above Bahrisons Booksellers in Khan Market,” recalled Prashant.Growing up, Prashant said that he witnessed his father take it all in his stride – the pressures, the late nights, the competition. “He always said that his first duty was always towards his readers. He remained a wonderful father till the end. I still remember that no matter what time he returned home from work, he always dropped me to school. That was our time and nothing came in the way of that… He was distraught when my mother passed away in 1992 and took many years to heal. Much later he married again,” said Prashant.Congress leader Shashi Tharoor took to Twitter to express his grief and said, “A journalistic giant has left us,” while Manish Tewari wrote, “A very warm human being and totally unpretentious – he knew how to call a spade a spade.”Prashant recalled how even till a day before he was admitted to a hospital in Delhi three weeks ago, Dua showed up at the “Saturday group lunch” at the India International Centre – his second home – where each week a guest is invited to discuss one issue or the other informally over lunch. “He was still very active. He suffered a stroke in 2024 and his left side was paralysed but his mind was as sharp as ever. He never missed these Saturday lunches,” he said.Satish Kumar Bahl, 84, who was Dua’s secretary at HT for seven years, remembers him as a “kind man, only interested in facts, and with a subtle sense of humour.” The two reconnected years later when Dua was nominated for the Rajya Sabha by the Manmohan Singh government. “He asked around about me all those years later only to find out that I had retired. He asked me to come meet him and the next day I was back to being his secretary and I remained one till the day he passed away. He was truly one of a kind,” said Bahl.For Saighal’s it’s Dua’s favourite story of all times that remains with him – of when Dua, a young reporter gave a lift to a young Opposition MP, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, on his scooter, in Lutyen’s Delhi. “I believe he wrote about it too – ‘When Dua took Atal for a Ride’. He was a funny man,” said Saighal.