Just a few months ago, with the last phase of the seven-phase-long Lok Sabha election just over, preparations for the long-awaited results were underway. News channels were displaying exit polls, heated panel discussions were taking place, major party leaders were busy giving key instructions to their comrades.
The exit polls published on almost all the channels made it fairly clear that the NDA government was coming back to the centre for a consecutive third time, that too, with an overwhelming majority (350+ seats for BJP, 400+ for the NDA). Given the fact that the BJP was dealing with a decade of anti-incumbency, these poll statistics came as a shock to many expecting a positive turnaround this time.
In the midst of all these, a statement by a senior anchor of a national news channel did reflect the extent to which the mainstream media has become pliant to autocratic power and corporate capitalists over the past decade.
During the on-air panel discussion, Anjana Om Kashyap stated, pretty bluntly – “Chaliye, unki chinta wo khud kare, unki chinta hume karne ki jarurat nahin hai. Aur, na mein manti hu ki hume unko itna space dena chahiye, Aaj Tak jaise channel mein…” Translated to English, it reads: “Come on, let them (the opposition) think about themselves, we don’t need to think about them. And, I don’t believe we should give them much space, on a channel like Aaj Tak…”
Eventually, what happened on June 4, 2024 led to the complete exposing of this sensationalist lapdog media, popularly referred to as ‘Godi Media’ (a term coined by journalist Ravish Kumar), who had made it a habit to shamelessly praise the government and deliberately suppress the opposition voice, thus being instrumental in championing Hindutva fascism and politics of hatred.
Exit polls went horribly wrong, stock market crashed, a popular psephologist broke down in tears during a live telecast – a clear defeat for the corrupt media, at least for the day.
Despite considerable reduction in power, the picture has not changed much. The NDA government keeps on introducing anti-people laws, while biased media professionals continue with their blatant devotion to the spreading of false government propaganda.
Unfortunately, all these happened in a year that marks the 200th birth anniversary of Harish Chandra Mukherjee – the man who set the benchmark of political journalism in India.
Harish Chandra Mukherjee in Sunil Gangopadhyay’s novel Shei Somoy
A largely forgotten ‘Bengal Renaissance’ figure from the 19th century, Harish Chandra Mukherjee rose to fame as the formidable editor of a Calcutta-based English weekly, ‘The Hindoo Patriot’. His lifelong struggle against injustice, especially his staunch support for the oppressed farmers during the ‘Indigo Rebellion’ left a great legacy.
For many of us, the Sahitya Akademi Award-winning novel by Sunil Gangopadhyay, ‘Shei Somoy’, (translated to English as ‘Those Days’), set against the backdrop of heyday of Bengal Renaissance, acted as a primary access of information to a large number of historical figures from that period, including Mukherjee.
Based on meticulous research and compassionate detailing, Gangopadhyay’s portrayal of Mukherjee introduces us to a straightforward personality who works day and night to keep his newspaper running, outspokenly criticises the north Calcutta-centric ‘Babu culture’ and stands by the oppressed at the same time, and yet, cannot help himself consuming alcohol or going to courtesans’ houses to seek mental peace.
A few months younger to iconoclast poet Michael Madhusudan Dutta, Mukherjee was born in the summer of 1824, as the second child of Ramdhan Mukherjee and his third wife, Rukmini Debi. Though his family was originally from Shridharpur, Burdwan, Mukherjee was born and raised at the home of his maternal grandfather, Thakurdas Chatterjee, in Bhowanipore (present-day Bhabanipur), which, at that time, was a suburb beyond the limits of the ‘Maratha Ditch’ (a deep entrenchment constructed by the British East India Company around Fort William to protect surrounding villages and fortifications from Maratha Bargi raiders), and thus not a part of urban Calcutta. Ramdhan Mukherjee died when Harish was only six months old.
His maternal grandfather’s financial hardships did not allow Mukherjee and his elder brother Haran Chandra Mukherjee to continue their studies for long. A hard-working student with a promising future, Mukherjee had to drop out of Bhowanipore Union School, a missionary-run institution, after studying there for just six to seven years to fend for his family.
In his initial days of struggling, he would write bills, letters, petitions, and translate Bengali documents to English for livelihoods. His first full-time job was of a bill-writer at Messrs. Tulluh and Company. Mukherjee worked there for almost ten years at a monthly salary of Rs. 10.
Then, in 1847 or 1848, he landed a clerical job at the Military Auditor General’s office. Auditor General Colonel Champneys and his deputy, Colonel Goldie, both were fond of Mukherjee, thanks to his commitment and work ethics. He enjoyed frequent promotions, with his monthly salary having been raised from Rs. 25 to Rs. 400 – a pretty hefty sum for the time.
But it was his short yet eventful stint as a journalist that made him a household name in Bengal – not only in the circle of British bureaucrats and administrators or pro-British Bengali intellectuals but also among deprived masses facing the worst consequences of colonial exploitation over generations.
Editor of The Hindoo Patriot
There is some debate as to who started ‘The Hindoo Patriot’ (HP). While it is historically true that the weekly gained immense popularity during Mukherjee’s tenure, he was never its founder. As most researchers claimed, a certain Madhusudan Roy, a businessman of Burra Bazar, founded HP in early 1853 and approached three brothers, Girish Chandra Ghosh (not to be confused with the famous dramatist), Srinath Ghosh and Kshetranath Ghosh, to run the weekly.
At first, the newspaper’s office was in north Calcutta, with Girish Chandra Ghosh being the editor. It is not known when exactly Mukherjee got associated with HP, but according to several sources, he eventually acquired the proprietorship in 1855. By then, he had proved his mettle by getting some of his articles published in leading English weeklies and dailies, including ‘Hindu Intelligencer’ (edited by Derozian Kashi Prasad Ghosh) and ‘The Englishman’, and even drawing huge praise from editors like Cobb Hurry (editor of ‘The Englishman’).
Around the same time, he also became a member of the ‘British Indian Association’, one of the first political organisations in the country with a pan-Indian outlook. Even though it was a gathering of zamindars and aristocrats, Mukherjee was one of its most active members and his political grooming was largely attributed to his association with the BIA.
After the takeover of HP, the office was shifted to Bhowanipore. Mukherjee used to spend almost all of his monthly salary to run the paper. Because he was a government employee, his brother Haran was made the official proprietor, while Mukherjee remained the sole editor of HP for six consecutive years until his untimely death at the age of 37, in 1861.
Published every Thursday morning until 12 May 1859 (from 21 May 1859, it started getting published every Saturday evening; in 1892, the newspaper became a daily), HP was an 8-page newspaper that housed a variety of news, articles, letters to the editor, book reviews, and advertisements.
While going through the limited number of micro-filmed copies available at the National Library of India, Kolkata, one striking feature that has caught my eye is the absence of bylines. With other prominent thinkers such as Ram Gopal Ghose, Kisori Chand Mitra, Rajendra Lal Mitra, Dwarka Nath Mitter, etc. having also contributed to the newspaper, Naresh Chandra Sengupta, who, in 1910, edited and compiled the ‘Selections From the Writings of Hurrish Chunder Mookerji Compiled from The Hindoo Patriot’, had to depend entirely on the writing style to distinguish Harish’s writings from that of others, as he mentioned in his foreword.
Assuming Sengupta’s compilation to be true, the articles give a clear picture of what Mukherjee was able to achieve in such a brief space of time. From genuine courage to deep insights, from direct addressing of the issues to compactness of writing –Harish’s essays had everything to give a new direction to political reporting in India.
Support for Widow Remarriage Act
Remarkably, his six-year editorial tenure coincided with some unprecedented events that would shape the political scenario of future India – the Santhal Revolt (1855), annexation of Awadh (1856), passing of the Widow Remarriage Act (1856), the Revolt of 1857 and the subsequent transfer of power to the British Crown in 1858, and the Indigo Rebellion (1859-1862).
News of the Passing of Widow Remarriage Act published (July 24, 1856). Photo: Reproduced from micro-films available at the National Library of India.
Like most urban newspapers of that period, The Hindoo Patriot provided wholehearted support to the passing of Widow Remarriage Act, education for women, and other social reforms. It was also among the first that expressed strong and emphatic protest against the ‘doctrine of lapse’ policy, initiated by Lord Dalhousie. Mukherjee, in his insightful article ‘Annexation of Oude’, pretty ruthlessly exposed the inequity and cruelty of such totalitarian attitude. The Lord was reported to have felt agonisingly disturbed by his writings.
Then, it was the outbreak of the 1857 Revolt in the form of Sepoy Mutiny that marked a fresh departure in the career of The Hindoo Patriot. Like a true journalist loyal to his principles, Mukherjee, with proper reasoning and explanations, tried to find out ‘The Causes of the Mutiny’, in response to what Subadar Hadayut Ali had written in his paper.
According to Mukherjee, Ali’s version, “naturally overlooks one cause of the extension of the extension of the mutiny into a general rebellion” – the decision to send Indian soldiers to the Afghan War, the annexation of Awadh, the cartridges alleged to be greased with cow and swine fat, and deposition of landed aristocracy.
His understanding of the last cause made him realise that the mutiny had become an ‘Indian rebellion’. Throughout the revolt, he condemned the violence and atrocities committed by both the rebels and British army officials, supported Lord Canning, the then Governor-General of India, for his ‘clemency’ policy, and even welcomed the ‘Charter of 1858’.
But, among that English-educated native class of that period (who chiefly deplored the uprising), Mukherjee was perhaps the only one who could understand the far-reaching mark that the rebellion had just left: “History will, we conceive, take a very different view of the facts of the great Indian revolt of 1857 from what contemporaries have taken of them.”
Highlighting atrocities against Indigo farmers
However, Mukherjee’s biggest contribution as a journalist, without any doubts, was his role during the Indigo Rebellion that took place just after the transfer of power.
Having started in 1777, indigo plantation gradually became a highly lucrative business among the whites because of high demand for blue dye in post-Industrial Revolution Europe. Within the next fifty years, the number of indigo factories across Bengal would grow to over 1,000. Bengal Indigo Company was the biggest indigo planting enterprise at that time, under which there were more than fifty villages.
Dwarkanath Tagore’s Carr, Tagore & Company and Prasanna Kumar Tagore also invested in this business. As a saying went, “Nilkar sahib hoy bhari khushi / Bochor seshe mukhe jetar hasi / Niler baksho, lakh takar rashi.” (Loosely translated, it would read: The indigo planter feels very happy / The year ends with a triumphant smile / A box of indigo, a chest of million rupees.)
Supported by a handful of zamindars and backed by local magistrates, the planters forced the ryots (local term for cultivators who owned agricultural lands) to sign fraudulent deals, thereby leaving them with no choice but to grow indigo instead of their regular crops. If refused, planters would cross all limits of oppression – kidnapping, sending henchmen to suppress rebels, setting fire to the houses and crop fields, raping young women became everyday issues in villages of eastern Bengal.
In the 1850s, ryots finally began to unite to end this ‘reign of terror’. The Hindoo Patriot had provided them the necessary platform to express their situation. Long before the rebellion started, Mukherjee published letters written to the editor.
A Letter Written by the Ryots to the Editor Published in HP (November 18, 1856). Photo: Reproduced from micro-films available at the National Library of India.
He took the struggle personally, and indulged in collecting as much detailed information as he could. Marked by many as a pro-British liberal, Mukherjee declared war against this ‘organised fraud and oppression’. He expressed his disgust over the deliberate ignorance and inactivity of the local administration: “This fact, though well-known throughout the country, has not been admitted in those quarters from which relief is to be expected. The legislature has not admitted it. Officials ignore it. The British public do not know it. Parliament does not know it. The civilised world has not an idea of it.”
In another essay, entitled ‘Planters’ Portraits’, he shared horrifying accounts of prison set-ups constructed in ‘Nilkuthis’ (Planters’ Mansions) and levels of corporal punishments villagers were subject to. He even exposed the illegal dealings between planters and corrupt magistrates, which had kept the culprits safe all those years.
His tireless commitment to the causes of farmers made him their closest friend. His English-language newspaper became the mouthpiece of farmers, who never knew a second language other than Bengali. Over the course of the revolution, many peasants would come to his Bhowanipore house for shelter and advice. The doors were always open to them.
After much persuasion, the British government decided to establish an investigation commission, where Mukherjee was summoned to provide his testimony. His detailed reporting of the incidents turned out to be not only a matter of discomfort for the administration but also fatal for himself.
Persecution by British and death in penury
In 1860, Archibald Hills, the wicked manager of Kacheekata (now in Pirojpur District, Bangladesh) plantation, filed defamation suit against Mukherjee. Hills had abducted and raped Haromoni Dasi, a village woman, and the whole incident was published in the Hindoo Patriot. Harish lost the court case and eventually died penniless.
Hills succeeded in obtaining a decree after Mukherjee’s death, and did not even spare his bereaved mother and widow. Thanks to efforts by Kali Prasanna Singha, Girish Chandra Ghose and others, their Bhowanipore house narrowly escaped confiscation. Tragic to note is that the British Indian Association, for which Mukherjee worked so hard, did not bother to stand by the distressed women.
A folk poet and lyricist, Bidya Bhuni, composed a rhyme afterward: “Nil banore sonar Bangla / Korlo ebar charkhar / Osomoye Harish mo’lo, / Long er holo karagar. / Projar ar pran banchano bhar.” Loosely translated, it reads: “Indigo monkeys had now / Devastated the golden Bengal / Harish died prematurely, / While Long has been sent to jail.” (Long is Reverend James Long, an Irish priest who faced imprisonment after publishing the ‘Indigo Planting Mirror’, an English translation of Dinabandhu Mitra’s play, ‘Nil Darpan’.)
But, even after doing so much for Bengal’s peasants in his best capacity, Mukherjee has been criticised, at least in some quarters, when it comes to supporting tribal rebellions during the Company rule. As researcher Ashok Chattopadhyay noted, despite the fact that the newspaper recognised oppression to be the cause of the Santhal Revolt, it advocated for highest level of punishments for the ‘ring leaders’ of the revolt.
Chattopadhyay even claimed that Mukherjee felt relieved when the British deployed the military to suppress the disturbances. While this attitude sounds unpleasantly pro-government, it represents the general psyche of urban elite of Renaissance period, who did not have any connection to the rural misery at all. Chattopadhyay’s comments greatly reflect the disparagement of the politics of this intelligentsia by post-colonial theorists and subaltern historiographers.
It is to be noted that Harish Mukherjee, by all means, was a government servant, and like others, he was also overwhelmed by the modern elements and glamour of the West introduced to the Indian subcontinent. Naturally, it was impossible for him to demand a British-free India, and that too, in the middle of the 19th century.
He was, rather, more interested in pushing the British to establish a ‘good governance’. Also noteworthy is that whatever he said about the Santhal Revolt was during his first year as a full-time journalist. Over time, his stance changed. He penned down lines like: “What we want is not the introduction of a small independent element in the existing council, but an Indian Parliament.”
If his love for the peasants had not been truly genuine, their lament would never have resonated in Bidya Bhuni’s composition.
What put Mukherjee apart from his contemporaries was his own synthesis of time. Being an avid reader, he would spend around 2-3 hours every day after office at the Calcutta Public Library, housed at Metcalfe Hall, reading magazines and books imported from Britain.
As his half-brother Raj Kishore Mukherjee once claimed, he completed reading 75 volumes of ‘Edinburgh Review’ in just five months. These study sessions exposed him to the pluses and minuses of western civilisation, social infrastructure and administrative system. Added to this practice were his own observations of contemporaneity.
As Dilip Kumar Majumdar, a senior Kolkata-based teacher and researcher who had written a few books on Harish Mukherjee, pointed out, “He neither had aristocracy like those Hindu College alumni nor the gifted academic excellence of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, and that’s the reason perhaps he has been deliberately omitted from discussions, not only by future historians but also by his contemporaries. You cannot even find a portrait of him. Even though a Parsi professor wrote an English biography in 1863, the first ever Bengali biography came out in 1888, twenty seven years after his death! And, who was the biographer? Certain Ram Gopal Sanyal. Still, one cannot deny the mark he left, can they?”
“Yes, he too had his limitations. He failed to understand the real reason behind ‘clemency’ of Canning, and kept on supporting him. But, what others couldn’t see, he could see easily. Take indigo plantation for example. Tagores saw it as a lucrative business venture, while Harish simply called it an ‘organised fraud and oppression’. So, it will be unfair to tag him as a pro-colonialist. And, considering what extent the Indian mainstream media has reduced to in these years, revisiting Harish’s life and works sounds more relevant than ever,” Majumdar added.
Soham Das is a Kolkata-based independent researcher and bilingual author who takes special interest in history, politics and culture.