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Raj Kanwar (1930 – 31 October 2022) was an Indian journalist, writer and entrepreneur based in Dehradun.
Raj Kanwar was born in Lahore, British Raj, on 8 October 1930.[1][2] In June 1947 his family shifted to Dehradun with the intention of waiting out the riots of that year. What was meant to be a short stay, turned permanent.[1][3] In college in Dehradun, Kanwar started writing, becoming a student editor of a fortnightly publication. He also became a stringer for The Tribune, The Indian Express and The Statesman in the 1950s.[1][3] In 1953 he started an English weekly called 'Vanguard'.[1] Here he started writing about government organisations such as the Ordnance Factory in Dehradun and the Survey of India.[4] His stories would go on to attract the attention of The Indian Express and was hired by the paper as a reporter in Delhi.[5]
Kanwar left his job in New Delhi and in 1959 he joined the government of Himachal Pradesh as an editor in its public relations department.[1] He went on to become the first public relations officer for the state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC).[3] Kanwar recalled that about a hundred Russians had come to Dehradun to set up ONGC, and as such the city was influenced by their presence; vegetable sellers would learn Russian words; "desi vodka was invented".[3] Kanwar was then sent to Gujarat to help with ONGC operations followed by a posting in Sibsagar in Assam.[5]
After three years he resigned from his post in ONGC and went to Calcutta for an advertising job. He left in a year and returned to Dehradun.[1] In Dehradun he started "Witness - Newsweekly with a Difference".[1] Inspired by American author Erle Stanley Gardner's titles such as "The case of the defective registers", he would choose similar titles for his investigative exposes.[1]
In 1970 he founded SK Oilfield Equipment Co which is now run by his son.[1] As a freelancer he has written columns for numerous newspapers. As of 2020, Kanwar was 90; as he was not able to write himself he took the assistance of a secretary.[6] He was a regular writer of obituaries for Doonites.[7] He initiated Writers' Combine, a group focusing on young writers and readers in the valley.[8][9]
Kanwar died on 31 October 2022, at the age of 92.[10] He had been working on his fourth book titled "Writer of Obituaries".[7]
- Upstream India: Fifty Golden Years of ONGC (2006). ISBN 9788190390309
- ONGC: The Untold Story (2018). Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-9388271394[11]
- Dateline Dehradun (2020) Self published/ Saraswati Press.[12] Foreword by Navtej Sarna.[13] ISBN 978-9353968793
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