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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2019
The expansion of the colonial public sphere in India during the 1930s and 1940s saw the nation's English-language press increasingly serve as a key site in the struggle for freedom despite British censorship. This article examines the journalistic career of T. G. Narayanan, the first Indian war correspondent and investigative reporter, to understand the role of English-language newspapers in India's quest for independence. Narayanan reported on two major events leading to independence: the Bengal famine of 1943 and the Second World War. Drawing on Michael Walzer's concept of the ‘connected critic’, this research demonstrates that Narayanan's journalism fuelled the Indian nationalist movement by manoeuvring around British censors to publicize and expand Mahatma Gandhi's criticism of British rule, especially in light of the famine and war. His one departure from the pacifist leader, however, was his support of Indian soldiers serving in the Indian National Army and British Army.
The authors are grateful to Ranga Narayanan, Paul Greenough, and Sashi Kumar for their support and encouragement in this project.
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47 Narayanan, Famine, p. 102.
48 Instances of hoarding were common during the famine; Narayanan, Famine, p. 110.
49 Although Narayanan's coverage of the Bengal famine has an imprint of Gandhi's voice in Indian Opinion, there is a lack of archival evidence on whether Narayanan had read that newspaper.
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61 Parthasarathy, A Hundred Years, p. 603.
62 Ibid.
63 T. G. Narayanan, ‘Maj.-Gen. Lentaigne—new commander of the Chindits’, The Hindu, 20 April 1944. From the Papers of T.G. Narayanan, courtesy of Ranga Narayanan. T. G. Narayanan's articles from The Hindu were previously available in microfilm at the Center for Research Libraries, Chicago. The microfilm, however, is damaged and is no longer accessible.
64 T. G. Narayanan, ‘Activity in Bishenpore area’, The Hindu, 4 May 1944. From the Papers of T.G. Narayanan, courtesy of Ranga Narayanan.
65 T. G. Narayanan, ‘Jap objectives in India fail’, The Hindu, 12 June 1944. From the Papers of T.G. Narayanan, courtesy of Ranga Narayanan.
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81 ‘“Government” formed by Indian quisling’, The Times, 22 October 1943.
82 Goodall, ‘Writing conflicted loyalties’, p. 2.
83 Ibid.
84 Ibid., p. 4.
85 The preliminary search was conducted by a librarian at the India Office upon the authors’ request.
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87 T. G. Narayanan, ‘Indian National Army in Burma’, The Hindu, 29 May 1945. From the Papers of T.G. Narayanan, courtesy of Ranga Narayanan.
88 Ibid.
89 He also notes that ‘In its ranks it also counts a small regiment completely composed and officered by women, the Rani of Jhansi Regiment’, named after the queen of Jhansi in Central India who was one of the leading fighters against the British during the Indian Rebellion of 1857; Narayanan, ‘Indian National Army in Burma’. For more on Rani of Jhansi Regiment, see Hildebrand, V., Women at War: Subhas Chandra Bose and the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, New Delhi, Harper Collins, 2016Google Scholar; Lebra, J. C., Women against the Raj: The Rani of Jhansi Regiment, Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hills, C. and Silverman, D. C., ‘Nationalism and feminism in late colonial India: the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, 1943–1945’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 27, no. 4, 1993, pp. 741–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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