COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s premier Tamil daily Virakesari, also the oldest surviving Tamil periodical in the country, celebrated its 80th anniversary with much fanfare on Friday. A peep into the eventful history of the paper shows that Mahatma Gandhi had played a seminal role in its creation.
It was the failure of the Ceylonese press to give adequate coverage to Gandhi’s highly successful visit to the island in 1927, which prompted P Subramaniya Chettiyar, a Colombo-based businessman of Indian origin, to start Virakesari to give unbiased and honest news coverage aimed at the island’s substantial Tamil-knowing population.
Wedded to Indian nationalism, the Nattukottai Chettiyars from Avanipatti in Sivaganga district of Tamil Nadu began publishing an eight-page daily priced at five cents from an office in Chetty Street, north Colombo, in 1930. Chettiyar himself was the editor, but most of the journalistic work was done by a close friend — bank employee and popular novelist H Nelliah. The administration was in the hands of well-connected lawyer Easwara Iyer. But, the first editor to give punch to news coverage was K V S Vas.
To make up for the failure of the media in the case of Gandhiji’s visit in 1927, Virakesari went to town over Jawaharlal Nehru’s visit in 1939. This, as well as the coverage of World War II, made it a profitable venture by 1943. K P Haran, who had cut his teeth in journalism at The Indian Express, Dinamani and Hindustan Times took Virakesari to new heights as editor between 1939 and 1959.
END OF INDIAN DOMINATION: From the day it was founded till the mid 1960s, Virakesari was comprehensively dominated by Indian nationals, both in the journalistic and management cadre. But a post-independence anti-Indian wave in Ceylon in the 1960s resulted in many editorial and reporting staff being forced to return to India. The government refused to renew their visas. But, the Indian nationals passed on the baton to Ceylon Tamil journalist S D Sivanayagam, who went on to discover loads of local talent. Be that as it may, even to this day, the management of Virakesari is in the hands of Tamils of Indian origin.
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