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26 February 1917: the newspaper that gave a party its name

Justice, edited without pay by Dr T. M. Nair, became so identified with the movement that the South Indian Liberal Federation came to be called the Justice Party. Its pages show both the movement's courage and its blind spots.

By The Justice History Desk

· Updated · 2 min read

Madras from the sea in the early nineteenth century, by William Daniell. A century later Justice would be printed in the city for a Presidency-wide readership.
Madras from the sea in the early nineteenth century, by William Daniell. A century later Justice would be printed in the city for a Presidency-wide readership. Photo: William Daniell / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

Few political parties are named after a newspaper. The South Indian Liberal Federation was. Its English daily, Justice, became so closely identified with the movement that people simply called the federation the Justice Party.

How it began

Explainer

The founders' first decision in November 1916 was to create a company, the South Indian People's Association, to publish newspapers in English, Tamil and Telugu. By February 1917 it had raised funds by selling 640 shares of one hundred rupees each and bought a printing press. Talks with C. Karunakara Menon, the journalist first approached to edit the paper, broke down. Dr T. M. Nair, a physician and Corporation councillor, took over as honorary editor, with P. N. Raman Pillai and M. S. Purnalingam Pillai as sub-editors.

The first issue appeared on 26 February 1917. A Tamil paper, Dravidan, edited by Bhaktavatsalam Pillai, followed in June 1917, and the party bought the Telugu paper Andhra Prakasika. Both were turned into weeklies in 1919 because money was short.

A combative voice

The papers were relentlessly polemical. They ran daily attacks on the Home Rule movement and nicknamed Annie Besant the "Irish Brahmini"; Dravidan carried headlines such as "Home rule is Brahmin's rule". Justice was equally hostile to Gandhi's non-cooperation movement. After Gandhi's visit to Madras in April 1921, it wrote:

Justice, April 1921, on Gandhi's Madras meeting (as quoted in Wikipedia)

The meeting was presided over by local Brahmin politicians of Gandhi persuasion, and Mr. Gandhi himself was surrounded by Brahmins of both sexes. A band of them came to the meeting singing hymns. They broke coconut in front of Gandhi, burnt camphor and presented him with holy water in silver basin. There were other marks of deification and, naturally, the vanity of the man was flattered beyond measure.

And a blind spot

The paper did not speak for all the oppressed. During the 1921 strike at the Buckingham and Carnatic mills in Pulianthope, when Adi Dravida workers returned to work while caste Hindu workers stayed out, Justice blamed officials for favouring the Adi Dravidas:

Justice, 1921, on the Pulianthope mill dispute (as quoted in Wikipedia)

Public opinion...holds the present deplorable state of affairs has been brought about partly at all events by the undue pampering of the Adi-Dravidas by the officials of the Labour department, and partly by the, perhaps, unconscious encouragement given to them by some police officers.

What this tells us

M. C. Rajah, the leading representative of the Scheduled Castes in the Council, sided with the Government's view that caste prejudice had inflamed the dispute, and he and many Adi Dravida supporters soon left the party. A revival of the name Justice today has to carry this history honestly: the paper fought for representation, and it also failed some of the people who most needed it.

This publication takes its name in tribute to the original Justice and has no legal or corporate connection with it.

Sources

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