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B. S. Raghavan

The flame lit 125 years ago by six intrepid youths still wet behind their ears will steadily grow and set aglow the path of generations yet to come.

Every newspaper has a life and a personality and, one may add, its own quirks and oddities. Similarly, the relationship between a newspaper and its reader is also symbiotic, and over time, the identity of views and attitudes between the two makes the one inseparable from the other. This applies with equal force to The Hindu and its readers. But there are two distinguishing characteristics in their case that make the relationship unique in the history of journalism.

The first is that in a desolate and depressing context in which all organs of opinion were owned and controlled by interests subservient to the colonial power, The Hindu made its advent with the declared aim of not only reflecting and giving expression to public opinion based on a fair and just exposition and analysis of issues, but also modifying and moulding it according to circumstances. The courage shown in this mission statement by six young men in their 20s just out of college simply takes one's breath away. In the course of nearly five generations, the paper has been more than a mere window to the outside world; as aptly summed up by one of its admirers at the time of its golden jubilee, "The part The Hindu played in the evolution of intellectual thought in the country is incalculable. With many, The Hindu is the main source of intellectual nourishment and it is no exaggeration to say that our thoughts and opinions on every subject today are as The Hindu has helped to form them".

Model of forceful writing

An example is the astoundingly provocative temerity it showed in highlighting the blemishes of bureaucracy. Writing as early as in 1883, it said: "The bane of Indian bureaucracy is to get the district officers to carry out (government policies) in their real spirit. They are ready with some flimsy excuses or other for not carrying out orders. They would say they are overworked and have no time to attend to this or that...the Indian Civil Servant of the present day is not after all an educated man, nor is he physically or mentally the man to whom the welfare of India can be entrusted...the Indian Civil Service has poured into this country a host of young men far inferior in general attainments to the occupants of lower forms in any European College... That the prestige of the service is gone is a matter beyond doubt..."

The somewhat intriguing choice of its name notwithstanding, right from the moment of its launch, The Hindu had taken care not to be bracketed with any particular religious denomination, and its persona had become synonymous with a people's institution, transcending compartmentalisation of any kind. It has scaled notable heights of excellence in content, coverage and clarity, and exemplified both breadth of vision and steadfast adherence to values and principles. As early as at the turn of the 19th century, when such topics were taboo, it wore the mantle of a fierce fighter for causes such as widow remarriage, abolition of child marriage, abolition of caste, raising the age of marriage and upliftment of the untouchables, even at the risk of hurting its commercial viability. And, this, in a language and style, which are so eloquent and trenchant as to be a model of forceful writing even today.

Bewildered kids and the Poona Pact

The second factor that makes for the unique stature of the paper is implicit in its 125-year-long innings itself. The life of each and everyone of its readers is intertwined with it right from childhood and it will be impossible for him or her to imagine a time without The Hindu. Coming to my own nostalgic recollections, I have no hesitation in holding The Hindu squarely responsible for my brush with the British Empire in 1932 when I was barely five years old, and had just joined as a pupil in the first class of the elementary school at Poonamallee. Varada Rao was the headmaster, who, unbeknownst to me at the time, was also a nationalist to his fingertips.

One fine morning, he came to the school in a highly agitated frame of mind, waving a newspaper (which I knew to be The Hindu, having seen it delivered to my father every day). He told us — a bunch of bewildered kids — that one Mahatma Gandhi (whose picture he pointed to us in the paper) had decided to die without taking food and, that, we were to go in a procession to show our sympathy. In recognition of my being the child of a prominent High Court advocate, he put me at the head, asking me to shout from time to time Mahatma Gandhi ki... with my faithful followers saying `jay' in a loud chorus. With a teacher to accompany us, we covered all the streets of what was nothing more than a small hamlet then, within an hour or so, and returned to our classes.

Looking back, I am happy to have played my part in facilitating the Poona Pact between Gandhi and B.R. Ambedkar against the Communal Award, although The Hindu took no notice of my role in its columns.

The earliest point in time, that I can recall, when something published in The Hindu left its indelible mark on me, was in the mid 1930s. My father, a Government Pleader and Public Prosecutor under the British dispensation, practised some sort of brinkmanship by keeping at home the full collection of the proscribed poems of Subramania Bharati. He frequently read out to me (or made me read aloud) a clipping from The Hindu that was his treasured possession for 20 years. That was a tribute to Bharati by the great patriot-cum-parliamentarian and incomparable orator, S. Satyamurthi: "Had he (Bharati) been born in England, he would have been the poet laureate and adored by his race. Had he been born in any free country, he would have risen to such heights of eminence that he would have lived longer and enriched the language and race more than he was able to do here. Had he been born even in Bengal, he would have been a Rabindranath Tagore. So long as the Tamil language lives and there is a spark of patriotism in Tamil India, Subramania Bharati's songs will live". Remember, it was the heyday (1921) of British imperialism and for Satyamurti to write those words and for The Hindu to publish them (and may I add, for my father to keep the cutting) called for national pride and courage of the highest order.

Curious Chief Justice

In the 1940s, I myself began appearing in the pages of The Hindu. My stepping into its columns for the first time in 1948 came about this way. It had published an article Penguins don't like banjo. I thought I knew why (despite not having set my eyes on either a penguin or a banjo) and shot off a jumbled up explanation which, to my surprise and delight, was specially featured under the caption: "Mr. So-and-so writes" — an honour reserved in those days only to a letter whose subject-matter or contributor was of considerable importance!

Until I joined the IAS in 1952 and left for Delhi, I was regularly conducting a series of symposia and public meetings, with a number of eminent personalities and Ministers taking part, on burning issues of the day under the auspices of an outfit I had named the Hind Kala Mandir. The fact that these meetings were extensively covered by The Hindu and attracted widespread attention brought me sufficient fame. So much so, when once I went to invite the then Chief Justice P.V. Rajamannar, he advanced towards me with outstretched arms, jocularly exclaiming how curious he was to meet the person whose activities got so much space in The Hindu!

I doubt whether there is another newspaper to which so many, who came to occupy high positions in government or private companies from the southern States, would have felt so heavily indebted for equipping them to make a mark during the selection process and subsequent career.

Reading The Hindu was some sort of distance education in itself in that its editorials were studiously researched with a full presentation of facts and arguments and its reports were self-contained in the sense of explaining references to legal and constitutional provisions and allusions to events and issues. The practice of "straight reporting" in full of speeches of leaders of national and world renown in various walks of life helped the younger generation become versed in the elements of the art of public speaking and getting one's ideas across persuasively.

It will be false modesty on my part not to acknowledge that in my case, too, The Hindu's profound influence was one reason for my being able to earn the appreciation of those I worked with in the State and Central Governments, as also the UN for what seemed to have struck them as good penmanship and effective communication. I also found that my emulation of the attributes of the paper in preparing policy documents and records of proceedings of discussions and conferences gave them an aura of their own.

I did not realise when I returned to Tamil Nadu after retirement in 1988, that the most fulfilling part of my life still lay ahead of me. This was when, thanks to the encouragement, I received from Mr G. Kasturi, the Editor, I became a frequent contributor to The Hindu. It is to him again that I owe my stint as its editorial adviser giving me entree into the exploits and mysteries of a glorious profession.

The fascinating saga of this vigilant sentinel and pre-eminent bastion of public weal has just begun. There are many more milestones to cross, promises to keep, jubilees to celebrate. But of one thing we can be sure: The flame lit 125 years ago by six intrepid youths still wet behind their ears will steadily grow and set aglow the path of generations yet to come!

Picture by Shaju John

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