Ilankai Tamil Sangam 

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Association of Tamils of Sri Lanka in the USA

Remembering Kovai Mahesan (1940-1992)

My first mentor in journalism

by Sachi Sri Kantha, July 10, 2012

If memory serves me well, Kovai Mahesan was the first Tamil journalist to be harassed by the Sri Lankan police and law enforcement investigators in Colombo in 1970s. Why I solicited his profile? As a precautionary measure (knowing that he was one of the marked Tamil activists of that era) I wanted to collect his profile directly from his own hand... I began working at Sutantiran in 1962. Became associate editor in 1965. Elevated to the rank of editor in 1968. My public life began at the Federal Party. For the first time, I participated at the black flag demonstration to Sir John Kotelawala in 1954, when I was at 8th standard. Thereafter I also took part in Party’s anti-Sri campaign and 1961 Satyagraha campaign. I joined Sutantiran in 1962. Initially, I was involved with poetry. I also worked in Kalaichelvi andThamil Arasu papers. In 1971, for the cause of ‘Newspaper Freedom’, I was placed for 2 days in ‘lock-up’ at the Kollupitiya police station. For umpteen times, I have been investigated at the Fourth Floor of C.I.D. building for days.

Twenty years had passed since Kovai Mahesan (one of the colorful Eelam Tamil journalists in the last quarter of the 20th century) died on July 4, 1992 in Tamil Nadu, India. He was born Maheswara Sarma in Kopay, Jaffna, and was 52 at the time of his premature death. I consider him as my first mentor in journalism. With the exception of a few, not many remember him now. Whereas the Tamil journalists of his generation who were employed in news establishments owned by Sinhalese moguls lacked the will and spine to address the issues affecting the Tamil lives, Kovai Mahesan was an opposite for a 15 year period (1968 to 1993). Quite a section of Tamils, including the journalists, who lacked the courage for confrontational politics (or polemics, if his detractors termed it), found it difficult to taste Kovai Mahesan’s journalism. He was also one of the survivors of the infamous Welikade prison massacre in July 1983.

A scanned photograph I provide nearby was taken in 1972, when S.J.V. Chelvayakam (the leader of Federal Party) visited Tamil Nadu. We see Kovai Mahesan (at extreme right) in the company of Chelva. He would have been 32 then. Kovai Mahesan was the editor of Sutantiran, the weekly newspaper owned by Chelva’s family for almost 15 years. Other personalities seen in the photo are (from left): A. Amirthalingam, Mrs. M. Amirthalingam, Chelva, A.P. Janarthanam (student leader of DMK, and later affiliated with MGR’s Anna DMK) and A.S. Manavaithambi (Indian Tamil leader in Sri Lanka, who later returned to India). This was taken on the occasion when Chelva and Amirthalingams visited Anna’s (C.N.Annadurai, that is) house.

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