Amrita Bazar Patrika - History

History

Amrita Bazaar Patrika is the oldest Indian-owned English daily. It played a major role in the evolution and growth of Indian journalism and made a striking contribution to creating and nurturing the Indian freedom struggle. In 1920, Lenin described ABP as the best nationalist paper in India.

ABP was born as a Bengali weekly in February 1868 in the village of Amrita Bazaar in Jessore district (now in Bangladesh). It was started by the Ghosh brothers to fight the cause of peasants who were being exploited by indigo planters. Sisir Kumar Ghosh was the first editor. The Patrika operated out of a battered wooden press purchased for Rs 32.

In 1871, the Patrika moved to Calcutta (now Kolkata), due to the outbreak of plague in Amrita Bazaar. Here it functioned as a bilingual weekly, publishing news and views in English and Bengali. Its anti-government views and vast influence among the people was a thorn in the flesh of the government. Lord Lytton, the Viceroy of India promulgated the Vernacular Press Act on 1878 mainly against ABP.The Patrika became an English overnight.

The Patrika became a daily in 1891. It was the first Indian-owned English daily to go into investigative journalism. During the tenure of Lord Lansdowne, a Patrika journalist rummaged through the waste paper basket of the Viceroy's office and pieced together a torn up letter detailing the Viceroy's plans to annexe Kashmir. ABP published the letter on its front page, where it was read by the Maharaja of Kashmir, who immediately went to London and lobbied for his independence.

Sisir Kumar Ghosh also launched vigorous campaigns against restrictions on civil liberties and economic exploitation. He wanted Indians to be given important posts in the administration. Both he and his brother Motilal were deeply attached to Bal Gangadhar Tilak. When Tilak was prosecuted for sedition in 1897, they raised funds in Calcutta for his defence. They also published a scathing editorial against the judge who sentenced Tilak to 6 years of imprisonment, for 'presuming to teach true patriotism to a proved and unparalleled patriot.'

The Patrika had many brushes with Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India at the time of the Partition of Bengal (1905). It referred to him as 'Young and a little foppish, and without previous training but invested with unlimited powers.' Because of such editorials, the Press Act of 1910 was passed and a security of Rs 5,000 was demanded from ABP. Motilal Ghosh was also charged with sedition but his eloquence won the case.

After this, the Patrika started prefacing articles criticising the British government with ridiculously exuberant professions of loyalty to the British crown. When Subhas Chandra Bose and other students were expelled from Calcutta Presidency College, the Patrika took up their case and succeeded in having them re-admitted.

Even after Motilal Ghosh's death in 1922, the Patrika kept up its nationalist spirit. Higher securities of Rs 10,000 were demanded from it during the Salt Satyagraha. Its editor Tushar Kanti Ghosh (son of Sisir Kumar Ghosh) was imprisoned. The Patrika contributed its share to the success of its freedom movement under the leadership of Gandhi and suffered for its views and actions at the hands of the British rulers.

The Patrika espoused the cause of communal harmony during the Partition of India. During the great Calcutta killings of 1946, the Patrika left its editorial columns blank for three days. When freedom dawned on August 15, 1947, the Patrika published in an editorial:

It is dawn, cloudy though it is. Presently sunshine will break.