Bombay is known to be a melting
pot of cultures the world over; right from the the British Raj till today. Life
in the city was brought to life through the apt and efficient reporting of many
a prominent newspaper including the Bombay Samachar and the Times of India.
Freedom Fighters would often quote many a line from the Bombay Samachar, in
particular, due to its unbiased views during the end times of the
Raj.
But unlike the popular papers
that have survived today here is a small peek into a paper that was not so
lucky but none the less created a legacy worth remembering!
In April 1913, Congress
leader Pherozeshah Mehta started The Bombay Chronicle, a newspaper which was an important Nationalist newspaper of its
time, and an important chronicler of the political upheavals of a volatile
pre-independent India. It was during this time that Benjamin Guy Horniman, an
English journalist, who held the position of News Editor and Assistant
Editor at the Calcutta Statesman in 1906, made a name for himself in India with his
articles on the investigation of the Hindu-Muslim riots in Eastern Bengal, was
invited by Mehta to start the Bombay Chronicle.
After
the massacre of innocents at the now infamous Jallianwalla Baugh in the
Punjab in 1919 and the subsequent glorification of General Dyer by the
then British Authorities, it was Benjamin Guy Horniman, a British National and
the then editor of the Bombay Chronicle [1913 - 1919] who decided
to vociferously pursue the truth much to the dislike of the British
Government.
They repatriated him under
the Defense of India Act. Undeterred, he returned to
Bombay in 1926 to the hearty welcome of the Bombay public. Upon his return, he
reentered the ranks of the Bombay Chronicle as its
editor but resigned in March 1926. After
Independence, as a mark of gratitude to his integrity and work for the Indian
people that they renamed the then Elphinstone Circle located opposite the Town
Hall to today's Horniman Circle.
The newspaper came to a close in 1959 A.D.
An advert during the Independence struggle featured in the Bombay Chronicle
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