The Hindu : National : This day, a century ago

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 01, 2005

National

National

This day, a century ago

By Our Special Correspondent

(from The Hindu Photo Archive)

S. Kasturiranga Iyengar, who became The Hindu's new owner-Editor on April 1, 1905.

CHENNAI, MARCH 31. On April 1, 1905, The Hindu went through the only complete ownership change of its 126-year-old history. S. Kasturiranga Iyengar, legal adviser to the newspaper, freedom fighter, and a strong supporter of Bal Gangadhar Tilak, became the new proprietor and Editor. An announcement published in the newspaper revealed that he had bought it over from M. Veeraghavachariar, one of the original owners.

At that time, the 26-year-old newspaper founded by a group of six young men led by G. Subramania Iyer as part of the freedom struggle was held in high public esteem but was in financial trouble. Kasturiranga Iyengar, who had shifted his law practice from Coimbatore and become legal adviser to The Hindu in 1895, when Subramania Iyer was still in charge, decided (with the help of a few friends) to buy a newspaper that seemed on the verge of financial collapse after a plan to float a public limited company had flopped.

As Kasturiranga Iyengar's biographer, V.K. Narasimhan, tells the story: "[His] decision to purchase and conduct a newspaper did not have the immediate approval of many of his relatives and friends... In the words of [a contemporary], `In this...he acted much against the advice of many of his relations and friends, and would not be persuaded to reconsider his decision. Apart from the fact that the profession of a journalist was highly hazardous in a country under foreign domination, the financial position of the paper was not encouraging. The previous administration during the last years of its tenancy was not able to command the services of an adequate and well-paid staff; its financial difficulties were overwhelming, its news service was antiquated, but it somehow muddled through and kept floating.' ''

The biographer quotes P.S. Sivaswami Iyer as offering this retrospective in 1935: "One would have thought that the conduct of a daily newspaper was a somewhat hazardous enterprise on the part of one who had turned forty and who had not previously worked in the profession of journalism. But journalism had its attractions for Mr. Kasturiranga Iyengar. It supplied him with opportunities for serving the interests of the country in a manner which was most congenial to him. It was in the profession of journalism that he found his true metier."

Through several editorial improvements and working out a sound business strategy, the new owner-Editor turned The Hindu round within a year.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National