Veteran journalist Chandra Kumar Arora, known to all as "CK," died Nov. 24 at an Arlington, Va., hospital after a prolonged battle with liver cancer. He was 72.

He is survived by his wife, Vasantha Arora, also a journalist in Washington, D.C. The funeral took place Nov. 28 at Everly Funeral Home in Fairfax, Va. His remains will be taken to India 10 days after the funeral to perform religious rites, Vasantha Arora told News India Times.

A Punjabi brought up in Lucknow, CK is remembered by colleagues as an erudite, cultured and patient man, a lover of music and books, and a keen political observer who could predict the fate of politicians with uncanny accuracy. 

He began his career with United News of India (UNI) in 1967, covering politics for many years and then becoming the agency’s foreign correspondent, traveling widely around the world with then-Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, UNI said in its obituary. He married Vasantha, his UNI colleague, in 1984. 

"CK mentored me and many journalists in covering tumultuous Indian politics. He knew the entire spectrum of politicians and they respected him for his integrity even if they feared his objectivity,” Arul Louis, who worked with CK in India, told News India Times. “He was totally committed to the freedom of press as being essential to a democracy and his finest hour was in the battle against the Congress Party dictatorship during the Emergency in the mid-1970s." 

CK was among the few reporters on the scene as anti-corruption and anti-authoritarian activists were being rounded by the Indira Gandhi regime when the Emergency crackdown began. 

He courageously continued reporting till the Congress administration censors began their operations censoring news reports, his former colleagues recall. 

CK continued to stay in touch, often at personal risk, with the opponents of the Emergency, relaying news to them and from them.

On the night Jayaprakash Narayan, the moral and political leader of an opposition in disarray, was arrested, CK, along with two colleagues, rushed to the nearby Parliament Street police station to see him being brought in. Those were the times when the government was cracking down not just on political opponents but also the press. 

“And the words JP uttered – 'Vinashkale viparit buddhi'  (When the end is near, the brain takes a beating) – an unmistakable allusion to Indira Gandhi - not only became a mantra of the time, but found its way into history books that chronicled those tumultuous years that Indian democracy, even 37 years later, finds it difficult to live down,” said Tarun Basu who heads the Indo Asian News Service in New Delhi and worked with CK at UNI.

“CK was the political pundit of our time,” Basu said. “ He seemed to have his finger right on the political pulse and could predict with a fair degree of accuracy the drift of national polity” in those tumultuous years. 

“He could predict the fall of Indira Gandhi Government soon after the parliamentary elections were announced in January 1977. With his deep knowledge of politics and politicians, he would chart out the wins and losses in a fearless manner that would strike terror in the hearts of the high-ups in the organization and of the timid,” says Mahendra Ved who also worked with CK in India. 

“He was, perhaps, the most consistent reporter of the late Indira Gandhi, and the only one who disapproved of her.” 

After retiring from UNI while in Washington, D.C., CK began freelancing and did a stint with Voice of America’s Hindi Service. At the time of his death, he was working with the U.S. Foreign Service Institute as a language and culture instructor, UNI reported. 

Journalists around the world remember him as a quintessential gentleman, kind, courteous and patient, but also of unyielding integrity in his reporting.

“It was to him I would turn for political insight even after leaving UNI. And I was one among the many,” Ved said.