DYAL SINGH MAJITHIA PERSONALITY PROFILE

Dyal singh Majithia

The establishment of The Tribune was a noteworthy contribution by him. The aim of the newspaper was to spread the doctrine of Indian nationalism and to bring about unity in a society that was afflicted by differences on questions of religion, caste, language and region. 

How The Tribune was launched
SEVERAL people have claimed the credit for giving Dyal Singh the idea of starting a newspaper in English from Lahore. The foremost among them was Surendranath Banerjea, who wrote that he persuaded Dyal Singh to start the paper. Rai Bahadur Mul Raj wrote that he and Jogendra Chandra Bose requested Dyal Singh to start a newspaper to carry on the crusade for education in Punjab on Western lines through the medium of English. This, he says, was in 1877 or 1878.

Bipin Chandra Pal, a member of the famous Lal-Bal-Pal trio, who was on the staff of Dyal Singh’s paper for a few months, says that the Sardar started the paper at the suggestion of his Bengali friends in Lahore. One issue of The Tribune said that the idea was the Sardar’s own. This could well be so.

During his sojourn abroad for two years, Dyal Singh had seen the importance of the role played by an independent Press. Within months of his return from Europe, he came into contact with Surendranath Banerjea and discussed his ideas in regard to starting an English language newspaper from Lahore. Soon he was involved in the controversy over the Vernacular Press Act.

The Indian Association’s meeting in the Town Hall in Calcutta had nominated him to be a member of the steering committee set up to oversee the implementation of the Press Act. This was in 1878. Surendranath Banerjea was certainly the person who encouraged him. So also were his close Brahmo Bengali friends in Lahore, particularly P.C. Chatterjee, a senior member of the  Lahore Bar, who later rose to be a Judge of the Chief Court; and Jogendra Chandra Bose, another member of the Lahore Bar.

The launching of a newspaper in Punjab was not an easy task at that time. Printing machinery had to be procured and the staff had to be recruited. Dyal Singh solicited the help of Surendranath Banerjea. The latter promised all help. Banerjea arranged the printing Press. He also recommended the name of Sitalakanta Chatterjee for appointment on the editorial staff. Being young, he was appointed Sub-Editor, because the newspaper must have some maturer person for the Editor’s job. Thanks to Dyal Singh’s Brahmo Bengali friends’ help, he was able to get the services of Seetalchandra Mookerjee of Bhowanipore in Calcutta, who lived in Upper India and was editing his own paper, The Indian People, from Allahabad. He promised to edit the proposed Lahore paper from Allahabad itself.

Trained journalists being scarce in those days, Dyal Singh agreed to the arrangement. Seetalchandra Mookerjee sent the editorials and special articles from Allahabad, Sitalakanta Chatterjee looking after the work at Lahore. Dyal Singh himself made the other appointments. He recruited P.K.Chatterjee who had done some scissoring and pasting job at The Pioneer’s sister publication in Lahore, The Civil and Military Gazette. For the job of the printer he fixed up with R. Williams, who had worked for The Indian Chronicle.

The first issue of The Tribune, which came out on February 2, 1881, took up the cause of modern education in Punjab through the medium of English. Week after week it carried as many as 25 articles in addition to editorials demolishing the arguments of the "orientalists" — Dr Leitner and his supporters. The other members of the Panjab University College Senate asked how Dyal Singh could continue to be a member of the Senate when his paper was opposing the policies of Panjab University College, which supported Dr Leitner. Dyal Singh resigned his membership of the Senate, and The Tribune continued its crusade. As the President of the Lahore branch of the Indian Association, he involved the headquarters of the organisation in Calcutta to take up the issue with the Secretary of State for India in London. The crusade was crowned with success when the British government agreed in 1882 to the establishment of Panjab University on the lines of the universities in Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. The battle was won.

Dyal Singh’s Bengali Brahmo friends played an important role in making The Tribune more than a mere provincial paper. Modelled on The Bengalee, it was a paper which claimed to represent the whole of Upper India. It took up not only all-India issues but also international issues, such as they were in the last century. The number of the copies of The Tribune sold outside Punjab was more than the number of the copies sold inside the province.

Significantly, the first issue championed the cause of The Statesman Defence Fund, being raised to fight for The Statesman’s pro-India Editor, Robert Knight, who had been sued by a Hyderabad nobleman at the instance of diehard British bureaucrats in India, who had been upset at the exposure by The Statesman (through its London edition) of the working of British bureaucrats here. Dyal Singh himself was a member of The Statesman Defence Committee. The Tribune took up all the public causes, and its voice was taken note of. It is said that one Lieut-Governor of Punjab advised a delegation meeting him to ventilate their grievances through the columns of The Tribune. British civilians of Punjab felt so unhappy as to tell their compatriots that the province was being ruled by the Lieut-Governor and The Tribune, and the civil servants were nowhere.

The exposure of public wrongs once led to a famous defamation case, filed in 1890, by a Superintendent of Police against Dyal Singh and the Editor of The Tribune. One of the factors mentioned by the Superintendent of Police was that Dyal Singh was a nationalist and had allowed the compound of his baronial mansion in Amritsar to be used for a lecture by a Congress agitator named Allah Ram.