Robert Govender passed away
Robert Govender, also known as Gonnie Govender, the veteran journalist, author, Broadcaster and ex- news and features editor of the Asian Times, World Times and New World passed away at Royal Free Hospital, North West London, in the early hours of 31st May 2016. He became a champion of the obscure, the neglected, the modern, the foreign, the difficult and the downright unpopular; yet he somehow managed to keep his head above water and maintain his independence when all about him were losing theirs. He introduced British readers to voices from South Africa, Caribbean to Japan and China, held the torch for fading reputations. Robert Govender born to South Indian parents in South Africa. According to Independent newspaper he explained that the first immigrants in the 1950s came from rural areas and that ‘their work ethic was more developed than the pleasure ethic.’
Once here, their children were told to concentrate on school work to the detriment of sport, the games that they were interested in were the colonial ones of cricket, hockey, and tennis, and in addition, they tended to shy away from contact sports like football. ‘The old saying still goes: the hungry fighter is the best fighter. Young Asians are going to look for more alternatives and take up football more out of an economic necessity than a love of the game. They are very practical people and will acquire a physical and mental toughness in the inner cities. All that is required is one or two getting a break and shining on television and you will get others following suit.’
As an Editor, Robert’s favourite word was “immediately” which is a word perhaps familiar to those who work to deadlines on publications large and small – if it is not, it should be as publications run to fine tuned timings. He was most often a friendly industrious and highly intellectual asset to any team he worked for thoroughly embedded in, and enjoying the fast-paced and fascinating genre of news and debate. Robert’s sitting room at his home was more like a library. Robert liked to read, digest and review numerous books on topics far ranging in subject matter embracing politics, leadership, philosophy, autobiography and the rest. He will be both well remembered and sorely missed by all who were lucky enough to know him. Rest in peace, Robert and thanks for your great example in hard work, hard play, hard thinking, sensible politics, and friendship.
Gonaseelan Dorasamy Govender was born in South Africa in August 1930 and began working as a journalist at the age of 18, shortly after leaving college. He joined the Leader, a weekly Indian newspaper in South Africa and progressed to Indian Mirror as their Editor, making journalistic history as South Africa’s youngest editor. He was invited by the DRUM magazine to join its staff as the only Indian journalist and transformed the magazine to a multicultural medium with sensational crime stories involving powerful Indian criminal extortion gangs. His stories for the Drum included the exposure of the mistreatment of Indian sugarcane workers by their white and Indian bosses and the paper was eventually banned due to its fierce anti-apartheid policies. In 1950s Govender arrived in England and applied for a sub-editor post with a well known South London Weekly, who turned him down on the grounds that he was too highly qualified for the job. He was an inspiration to journalists both young and old to focus on the wider struggle to achieve a New Moral Economic International order, based not on greed and theft but on justice.
While reviewing The Smile of Murugan: A South Indian Journey by Michael Woods published by Viking, Robert Govender quoted “For most Westerners, India is India. They cannot tell the difference between north or south, east and west. Thankfully most Western writers on India no longer bore us with stale, vulgar and ignorant cliches like the ‘mystery’ the ‘magic’ or the ‘exoticism’ of India. Many of the younger generation of white writers, free from squalid superior airs of their elders, contaminated by colonial presentations, view India with a refreshing maturity and a genuine respect for the people and the country. One of the best representatives of this responsible emancipated generation of writers is the young Briton, Michael Wood, author of The Smile of the Murugan: A South Indian Journey, one of the finest books ever written on this historically vibrant part of India. Curiosity, for a man who did postgraduate research in Anglo-Saxon history, Michael Wood has a knowledge of South Indian history and traditions and the contemporary human condition of the South with many South Indian scholars will respect Indian religion and tradition are not often easily understood by foreigners, but with a sympathetic and intelligently inquisitive Wood, seem to have a fairly good grasp of the philosophy and beliefs of Siva and Muruga, the caste system the rituals of Brahmins and priests and the complexities of South Indian temple architecture and sculpture.”
- Books written by Govender, Robert,
- Détente and Disarmament:The Romanian View. London: Unified Printers & Publishers Ltd, 1982a.
- Govender, Robert, Nicolae Ceausescu (and the Romanian Road to Socialism). London: Unified Printers and Publishers Ltd, 1982b.
- Govender, Robert, Nicolae Ceausescu (Statesman and Fighter for Detente, Disarmament, and Peace). London: Unified Printers and Publishers Ltd, 1988.
- Govender, Robert, Nicolae Ceausescu’s Vision of the New International Economic Order. London: Unified Printers and Publishers Ltd, 1987.