A Nation in Making/Chapter 16

​16

1900—1901

I cannot pass away from the year 1900 without referring to the further expansion of the scope of my journalistic work. I took up the Bengalee, as Editor and Proprietor, in 1879. It continued to be a weekly newspaper from 1879 to February, 1900, when it was converted into a daily. The proposal to make it a daily paper had been suggested to me more than once, but I thought it would interfere with my other public activities. I soon discovered, however, that a weekly English paper in Bengal advocating Indian interests was fast becoming an obsolete institution. Public life was growing, and the demand for early news was increasing. The weekly newspaper was rapidly falling into disfavour, losing influence and popularity. I had to yield to the great law of adaptation and the pressure of circumstances.

The proposal was pressed upon me by the late Raja Benoy Krishna Deb, who always took a friendly and even an affectionate interest in all my undertakings, public or private. Babu Upendranath Sen, of Messrs. C. K. Sen & Co. and part proprietor of the Hitabadi newspaper, and myself entered into a partnership agreement for ten years, and the Bengalee became, and now is, a daily paper. Ours was the first Indian newspaper to subscribe to Reuter's Agency, and we never regretted having done so.

What measure of success the Bengalee achieved while it was under my control, it is not for me to say. But whatever position it attained was largely due to the rare devotion and businesslike capacity of Taraprosanna Mitter, its late Manager. Taraprosanna Mitter was the life and soul of the paper. He trained himself to the work that he was called upon to perform, and by a combination of tact, devotion and organizing power he built up the paper. He worked hard, worked incessantly—he literally sacrificed himself in the service of the Bengalee; and, now that he is gone, his memory is a cherished possession with those who had the privilege of working with him and under him.

​I have learnt one great lesson from his life and that of the Superintendent of the Ripon College, the late Amrita Chunder Ghose, and that is, that the one quality which, more than any other, ensures the success of an institution or of a business concern is absolute and unstinted devotion, combined with honesty and a moderate fund of common sense.

I was connected with journalism for over forty years, and I may say as the result of a somewhat long experience, that the success of a newspaper depends much more upon the manager than upon the editor. The personality of the editor counts for much; it is an asset that is not to be despised. But even more important to the newspaper is the efficiency of its management. Indeed, the two functions sometimes overlap; at any rate the editor and the manager must be in the closest correspondence and touch with one another. The editor must indeed guide and lead public opinion, though he cannot go violently against it and incur the risk of unpopularity, which would mean loss of subscribers, loss of advertisements and loss of revenue.

In my work as a journalist I tried to avoid sedition and libel and personal recriminations. I was never charged with sedition formally, or informally, though I fear some of my writings in the Bengalee were considered as making a very near approach to it; and when the question regarding my disqualification for election to the Imperial Legislative Council was under consideration by the Government of India, the files of the Bengalee were sent for in order to discover whether any allegation of sedition could be substantiated against me. I presume that it was found to be a hopeless task, and the files were sent back to the Imperial Library, from where they had been borrowed. I confess that I wrote strongly, very strongly when the necessities of the situation and the demands of public feeling required it—I confess that in the days of the anti- Partition controversy, when the public mind was thrown into a state of unusual excitement, by the adoption of a policy that no British Government had followed before, it was difficult to write with reserve or restraint.

Our rulers often complain of strong writing in the Press, but they sometimes conveniently forget the provocation that they give for such writing. As for libels, no newspaper writer can always avoid them. Sometimes in the public interest he has deliberately to take the risk of uttering libellous matter and to face the conse- quences. Sometimes it is a reporter who lets him down and he has ​to pay the penalty. Nominally, the editor is responsible for the whole of what appears in his paper; in reality his true responsibility does not extend beyond a few columns of editorial matter, which he can personally supervise, or what his subordinates who work under his general instructions may bring to his notice. But in the eyes of the law he is responsible for the whole publication.

Let me explain what I mean by reference to a case in which I was personally concerned. In May, 1911, I was charged with contempt of court upon a writ issued by Mr. Justice Fletcher upon a motion of the Advocate-General. This was the second case of contempt in which I was involved. Some comments had appeared in the Bengalee upon evidence given in a pending case by Mr. Weston, who was Magistrate of Midnapore at the time of the Midnapore Conspiracy Case. The leaderette containing the comments was written by Babu Kalinath Roy, sub-editor of the Bengalee, and now editor-in-chief of the Tribune newspaper. In my written statement I took upon myself the entire responsibility for the publication. Babu Kalinath Roy was too high-minded to permit this. He wrote me an official letter, absolving me of all responsibility, and urging that, if anybody were to blame, it was he. I had no desire to take advantage of his avowal, for I had already definitely assumed all responsibility for the leaderette, but at his request I showed his letter to my counsel, Mr. A. Chaudhuri, who afterwards became a Judge of the High Court. We made no use of it for the purpose of the case, but he showed it to the Advocate-General, who was the counsel on the opposite side. I do not know what impression it made upon his mind or what influence it had with him. The Judge, I presume, knew nothing at all about it. The case was dismissed upon another and a wholly technical ground.

As a public man and as editor of the Bengalee I was often ex- posed to personal attacks. Every one taking part in public affairs must be prepared for them. They are an incident of his position, and he must submit to them with all the patience that he can muster in the hope, which is not always realized, that the game of personal recrimination is not even profitable to those who start it.

In India the atmosphere is sometimes leavened with racial bitterness or personal rancour. Kristo Das Pal was described by Sir Rivers Thompson, Lieutenant-Governor, as dishonest and dishonourable. I was told by a leading newspapers after my failure at the Imperial Council elections that I had ceased to be a ​representative man on July 31, the date of my failure, though I imagine I was one the day before. Such puerilities are beneath contempt. I never took any notice of personal attacks unless there were misconceptions that needed explanation, or unless public issues were involved.

After the expiration of ten years, I became the sole proprietor of the Bengalee. I continued to be so till January, 1919, when I entered into an agreement with the Maharaja of Cossimbazar, by which he became joint proprietor with me under conditions which were to convert the concern into a limited liability company within a specified period of time. Events happened which compelled me to withdraw from the Bengalee altogether, with which I have now no concern, nor does it represent me or my policy in regard to public affairs.

In 1902 I was again invited to accept the Presidentship of the Congress to be held at Ahmedabad in the Bombay Presidency. I was at Simultolla in October, 1902, when the invitation came. My friend, Sir Dinshaw Wacha, wrote to me unofficially on the subject. I replied begging to be excused and urging the claims of Mr. Kali Churn Banerjee. Sir Dinshaw wrote back to say that there was the great Delhi Durbar of 1902; a counter-attraction, and a counter-influence had to be set up; and Sir Pherozshah Mehta and the Reception Committee were of opinion that I should preside. In declining the honour I had said in my letter, 'If the worst comes to the worst I am your man'. I was pinned fast to this conditional promise. For me there was no escape and I accepted the office, though I should have greatly preferred Mr. Kali Churn Bannerjee to occupy my place.

The session of the Congress at Ahmedabad was a great success. The reception that was accorded to me by the people of Ahmeda- bad was right royal in its proportions and in its enthusiasm. I said in my closing speech that a victorious prince returning to his capital from the field of his triumphs could not have been more enthu- siastically welcomed than I had been as President of the Congress, and I added that it was not a tribute paid to me or to my personal worth, but to the great cause which I had the honour to represent. The presidential speech took me about six weeks to prepare. I began it at Simultolla on October 7, and finished it on November 27. The beautiful scenery, the fine climate, the delightful weather, the all-pervading sense of restfulness prevailing over the place, all had their share in helping my work. The speech took me two hours to ​deliver. The physical effort was great, seeing that I had to address an audience of over five thousand people. I followed my usual practice and spoke without notes.

The Coronation Durbar was to take place within a few days of the meeting of the Congress. Educated India had protested against this expensive show; but all in vain. I echoed in my speech the sense of my educated countrymen, but, as the Durbar was bound to be held, I urged that, like the previous Durbars of 1858, 1877 and 1887, it should be commemorated by a suitable boon. The Durbar was held, but no boon was announced. The memory of it lingers, if at all, in the flashy rhetoric of the hour, and in the wasteful expenditure, which might have been avoided.

The most important topic of the day, which necessarily found a large place in the presidential speech, was the question of University Education. I had been an educationist all my life, and I naturally felt a deep interest in the educational problem. Of the many disservices which Lord Curzon had done to India, his so- called reform of the universities was the most far-reaching in its consequences. Under the plea of efficiency he had officialized the Calcutta Municipality; under the same plea he now proceeded to officialize the universities, and to bring the entire system of higher education under the control of Government. Efficiency was his watchword; popular sentiment counted for nothing, and in his mad worship of this fetish Lord Curzon set popular opinion at open defiance.

In 1901 Lord Curzon held an Educational Conference at Simla, to which only European educationists were invited. It was a secret conclave, its proceedings have not yet been published, and yet at this very conference Lord Curzon declared, 'Concealment has been no part of my policy since I have been in India, and the education of the people is assuredly the last subject to which I should think of applying such a canon'. Never was there a greater divergence between profession and practice. And the effrontery of it lay in the emphatic denunciation of secrecy at the very time, and in connexion with the very subject, in regard to which the speaker had deliberately made up his mind to violate the canon that he had so eloquently proclaimed. But that was Lord Curzon's method, and we Orientals regarded it with a feeling of amusement, as coming from one who had extolled the ethics of the West above the baser morality of the East.

The Educational Conference was followed by the appointment ​of a Universities Commission, which, when its personnel was first announced, did not include a single Hindu member. Yet the Hindus had the largest interest in the educational problems that were to be considered. I raised a vigorous protest in the columns of the Bengalee against this ostracism of the Hindu element. The organs of Indian public opinion were unanimous in this view, and as the result Mr. Justice Gurudas Banerjee was subsequently added as a member of the Commission.

The report was submitted in less than five months' time, whereas the Education Commission of 1882 had taken eighteen months to make their recommendations; and the report itself was a startling performance. It would be no exaggeration to say that it convulsed educated India from one end of the country to the other. The report was felt as a menace to the whole system of higher education in India. It reversed the policy of the Education Commission of 1882. It recommended: (1) The abolition of the second-grade colleges (and they formed the bulk of the colleges in Bengal); (2) the abolition of the law classes; and (3) the fixing of a minimum rate of college fees by the Syndicate, which really meant the raising of the fees. In order to raise the standard of efficiency the area of high education was sought to be restricted.

The feeling against Indian lawyers, which the report of the majority disclosed, was open and undisguised. To do away with the law classes' said the report, will in many cases increase the expense of the law students' education; but the central school will have the scholarships; and, even if the net result should be to diminish the number of lawyers in India, we are not certain that this would be an unmixed evil.' The aversion to law and lawyers is a permanent feature of the official mind in India, and found expression on an important occasion in the columns of the Pioneer, which commented unfavourably on the fact that the legal element predominated among the nineteen signatories to the scheme of post-war reforms submitted by nineteen elected members of the Imperial Legislative Council. It is worthy of remark that the Commissioners themselves admitted that the effect of their proposals would be to narrow the popular basis of high education, and to restrict its area.

It need hardly be said that Mr. Justice Gurudas Banerjee recorded a strong dissent, traversing the points to which I have referred. A vigorous agitation was set up against the recommendations contained in the report. A Town Hall meeting was organized; ​and a memorial, which I had a large hand in drawing up, was submitted to Government.

The agitation was not without its results. The Government of India partially accepted the popular view. In a letter issued by the Home Department, in October, 1902, the Government declared that the second-grade colleges occupy a definite place in the educational machinery of the country and fulfil a useful function'. As regards the abolition of the law classes, the Government of India were of opinion that a central Law College should be established in each province, but that it should be a model, and there should be no monopoly'. Whatever the spirit of the Government declaration may have been, the law classes in all the Calcutta colleges were abolished, excepting those of the Ripon College. The Government was silent with regard to the question of the minimum college fees.

Upon the basis of the recommendations of the Universities Commission, a Universities Act was passed. The Universities (I speak specially of the Calcutta University) have assumed in a large measure the function of teaching in the higher branches of Arts and Science, with results that are commendable. An impetus to higher learning and culture has also been imparted by regular lectures delivered by University Readers and Lecturers. But, all the same, the expense of higher education has increased with no sensible increase in the resources of the middle class, from whom the bulk of our college students come.