The Svadeshabhimani was an influential newspaper of the Kerala Renaissance that was banned. Thought to be lost, its archives have been partially recovered over a century later. Sajitha Bashir presents us with a glimpse into the recently digitised archives and the labour that went into making the archives accessible for all.
Sajitha Bashir
Editors’ Note: This article is part of an ongoing series examining the recently digitized archives of the short-lived yet formative early 20th-century Travancorean newspaper, The Svadeshabhimani.
On September 26, 1910, the Malayalam language newspaper The Svadesabhimani 1was banned by the Royal Proclamation of the princely government of Travancore in the first case of media suppression in the state. The Proclamation ordered all copies of the newspaper to be seized, the printing press confiscated, and the editor banished from Travancore. The Svadesabhimani was the first and only one of three newspapers suppressed by the governments in the Malayalam-speaking regions up to independence. The others were Malayala Manorama in 1938, also shuttered by the Travancore government, and the Communist newspaper Deshabhimani, banned by the British government in 1942 when the national movement against colonialism and political independence had gathered force.
The maiden venture of a hitherto unknown young man of 31 years, Vakkom Mohamed Abdul Khader Moulavi (1973-1932), The Svadesabimani began publication in 1905 in the small village of Anjengo. Vakkom Moulavi, as he subsequently became known, imported a modern printing press for this purpose and the newspaper was the first Malayalam journal to subscribe to Reuters. In its first issue, it announced its intention to ‘raise the grievances of the people’. The newspaper printing press moved one year later to Trivandrum when Ramakrishna Pillai took over as the second editor. Shunned for his critique of the government in his former positions as editor for various publications, Ramakrishna Pillai was recruited and given full editorial freedom by Vakkom Maulavi, even when the newspaper came under pressure from the government.
This early instance of suppression and confiscation is particularly striking because it occurred during a period of relative political calm in the Malayalam-speaking regions, consisting of the princely states of Travancore and Cochin and British Malabar. Although the movements for social reform, in particular for caste equality, education, and representation in government jobs, were broadening in Travancore in the early 20th century (the period of the ‘Kerala Renaissance’), the movement for political rights was relatively muted. Vakkom Moulavi was also a part of the pantheon of social reformers, being a contemporary of Sri Narayana Guru, Ayyankali, and others, and indeed devoted much of his life to Muslim social reform. His contribution is distinct in that his first journalistic venture was not specifically about the reforms in the community, but mainly about issues that concerned the entire society and raised the fundamental question of the relationship between rulers and their subjects.
The Svadesabhimani, helmed by Vakkom Moulavi and Ramakrishna Pillai, were well ahead of the time in this regard. Writing about the link between print and politics in Kerala, Robin Jeffrey quoted in full the Dewan of Travancore’s own justification for this ban: ‘ …the most serious thing against the Swadeshabhimani … has always been the remarkable persistency [sic] with which it preached the gospel of government by the people, and the exhortation which it held out to the people of Travancore to unite and demand self-government’ (Jeffrey 2009, quoting from the Dewan’s note of 1912). It is worth recalling that Gandhi’s influential weekly journal, Young India, was 14 years away when The Svadesabhimani began publication in 1905. As with other commentators and academics, Jeffrey does not highlight the role of Vakkom Moulavi as the person who conceived of the paper and established it, investing his own funds in it. Ramakrishna Pillai has been rightly celebrated in the annals of Kerala journalism, earning the title of ‘Swadeshabhimani Ramakrishna Pillai’, but ‘Swadeshabhimani Vakkom Moulavi’ and the remarkable partnership between the publisher/owner and editor was all but forgotten until recently.
The Digital Archive: www.svadesabhimani.com
While The Svadesabhimani became legendary in subsequent years as a symbol of the aspirations of the common man, with the expropriation of the press and seizure of copies of the newspaper by the princely government, it was actually not available in Kerala until the late 1980s. The Vakkom Moulavi Foundation Trust (VMFT), established in 1986, which works on contemporary issues but is also a memorial to Vakkom Moulavi, launched a systematic effort to collect materials related to Vakkom Moulavi by contacting all possible sources. The VMFT was referred by a descendent of the editor, Ramakrishna Pillai, to the Library of the Jawarharlal Nehru University (JNU), to which issues of The Svadesabhimani had been contributed by the family of the editor. These issues represent roughly half of the published issues; the remaining have so far not been traced, and may be entirely lost. A copy of these issues were gifted to the VMFT by JNU and preserved there.
The available issues of The Svadesabhimani have now been digitized in Malayalam and translated into English by VMFT. This is the first time that a historical Malayalam language newspaper has been digitised in a fully searchable format and translated into English in order to make it available to a wider audience. The digitisation work was launched in early 2022, in the context of the 150th birth anniversary of Vakkom Moulavi in 2023.
Historical newspapers are invaluable repositories of information and evidence about the growth of ideas and opinions as well as being a record of historical events, from the perspective of the editors/owners of these publications. The role of the press in shaping public opinion is an important arena of historical investigation. In the United States and Europe, digitising local newspapers of every kind has become the norm as part of the project to preserve the cultural record of the nation. Such efforts are few and far between in developing countries, including India. Where records exist, they belong often in Western repositories. For instance, the comprehensive collection of Herman Gundert in Malayalam and Tamil is hosted by the University of Tübingen in Germany.
Having embarked on the journey of digitising and translating the newspaper and overseeing this effort in the VMFT, I fully understand the difficulties of creating digital archives. The process is not simple even when an organisation has ample financial resources, equipment and technical expertise. But we hope that the example of digitising The Svadesabhimani shows that it can be done, even with limited resources, but with adequate attention to ensuring quality and integrity. Before launching the digitisation project, the VMFT consulted many other archives to study good practices. An advisory group including experts with different backgrounds was formed to provide guidance on both the priorities for digitisation as well as the translation.
Starting with editorials, all articles (as well as classifieds) have been fully digitised in Malayalam, and most have been translated. Because the newspaper used the old script for Malayalam and language usage has changed substantially, great care had to be taken both in typing up the articles and proofreading them. The scan of the original newspaper article is attached to the backend of the website to allow for proofreading and checking the translation. Each translated article/item can be viewed in the original Malayalam as well as in English. The website is fully searchable. In particular, the arduous task of translation from old Malayalam to modern English, without changing the original meaning or intent, should not be underestimated. Nevertheless, the translation has enabled the archive of this celebrated newspaper to be read by a global audience.
This is the first phase of the digitisation project. In the next phase, we hope to pull the articles into the original newspaper issue so that the viewer can see the original issue as it was laid out, and add the ability to navigate to similar articles in the repository. We also plan to add references and links to other historical websites. This would enhance its value to researchers. For instance, an article on the partition of Bengal or the arrest and trial of Tilak could be linked to other historical newspapers or archives, if available. This could also be done through help from readers and researchers.
Another project in the works is the digitisation of the other works of Vakkom Moulavi, including his other newspapers Al Islam, The Muslim, and Deepika. Articles and essays about Vakkom Moulavi are also being digitised. The cataloguing of the materials will follow the guidelines of the Endangered Archives Program of the British Library to allow readers to search the materials.
The World through The Prism of The Svadesabhimani
With its strong focus on accountability of government officials and exposing corruption in government departments, the newspaper carried many reports ranging from factual incidents of nepotism, bribery or failure to perform duties, to strong editorial analyses and opinions. These often put forward nascent ideas of the people having rights to question those in authority, without either openly challenging royal authority (or British rule for that matter). The range of departments covered in these articles is astonishing: from general administration, to the irrigation department, the forest department, the education department, and many others. Special attention is paid to the corruption in the royal entourage, including the misuse of authority and the pilfering of public funds for private gain.
Of special interest is the coverage of and the debates over public education in Travancore, which is a pervasive theme in the newspaper. Exposing the dilapidated state of the public schools, the paltry salaries of the teachers and the nature of exams and other matters, The Svadesabhimani highlights the limited implementation of the ‘enlightened’ policy of public education formally adopted by the rulers almost a century earlier (and spoken of highly in some of the literature on development). For example, an article entitled ‘Expensive Education’, published on 25 July 1906, argues very strongly against the imposition of fees in schools. Fairly complex arguments are advanced across a series of articles about the need for free education, particularly for girls. In another article on ‘Mohamedan education’, published on 19 February 1908, the backward state of Muslims in education is highlighted, using census statistics. It notes that the rich amongst the Muslims are ‘religiously well-educated’, but ‘a majority of them, being casual labourers, have to face many obstacles to get quality ordinary education’. Among these obstacles are the traditions of the people themselves that preclude their participation in education. The article further posits that the government must take action to overcome these barriers, including encouraging appointment of people in government jobs to demonstrate the value of jobs, the provision of educational facilities, including the full payment of teachers’ salaries in schools established to promote education amongst Muslims, etc.
Through the pages of The Svadesabhimani, the issues of the time spring to life, though of course from the perspective of the writers and under the constraints of the epoch, including the watchful eyes of the British and local government censors. The coverage of debates in the Legislative Council, the discussions in Marumakkathayam Commission, important court judgements, the appeals for journalist ethics and freedom of the press, the diatribes against more politically conciliatory newspapers, the publication of a women’s journal, the advertisements of new products—through all these, we see the evolution of ideas, new social mores, and indeed the power of the press to shape public opinion and perceptions. Apart from capturing a regional milieu, and developments in other parts of India, The Svadesabhimani also brought to its readers a picture of a world undergoing cataclysmic changes—with its reports on the events after the partition of Bengal, in Maharashtra and other parts of India; the speeches of the British labour leader Keir Hardie in Sheffield; the Russo-Japanese war; the political upheavals in Iran and Turkey, and so on.
For the interested reader as well as for the scholar, the digital archive provides a ringside view of a formative period in Kerala history and perceptions of global developments from a regional standpoint.
References
- Jeffrey, Robin. 2009. T’esting Concepts about Print, Newspapers, and Politics: Kerala, India, 1800–2009′. The Journal of Asian Studies 68, no. 2 (May) 2009: 465–489.
- Svadeshabhimani, The. ‘തിരുവിതാംകൂറിലെ മഹമ്മദീയ വിദ്യാഭ്യാസം’ [Mahommedan Education in Travancore], The Svadeshabhimani, February 19, 1908. Accessed from https://www.svadesabhimani.com/news/7wiaccqz2021-07-29-065812
- Svadeshabhimani, The. ‘വ്യയസാദ്ധ്യമായ വിദ്യാഭ്യാസം’ [Expensive Education], The Svadeshabhimani, July 25, 1906. Accessed from https://www.svadesabhimani.com/news/swadeshabhimani-expensive-educat-FqQE
About the Author: Dr. Sajitha Bashir is currently Executive Vice-Chairperson of the Vakkom Moulavi Foundation Trust. She was formerly Education Practice Manager for Africa in the World Bank and Senior Adviser in the Office of Global Director for Education. Her work spans research and project management in human development in India, South Asia, Latin America, Middle East, and Africa. She holds a PhD in Economics from the London School of Economics.
