4 - The Bombay Chronicle: a case study

Summary

As was the case in every region and locality in the sub-continent, there was a particular Bombay debate and perspective, the product of the concentration of industrial and commercial interests, local communal issues, and the perceived tradition of a Maharashtrian response to challenge, tested by the British since 1818, and more recently by the nationalist movement itself. From its founding in 1907, and particularly in the 1920s, the Bombay Chronicle provided a platform on which many of the contending parties fought for influence and support. There were approximately 250 papers published in the Bombay Presidency in 1925, and the Chronicle was among the 8 or 10 with a circulation above 10,000. It was also among another elite grouping on an All-India level, read and quoted beyond its metropolitan and provincial borders and a deliberate participant in the work of a nation building as well as nationalist-Raj confrontation. It was, in this context, an important focus for the exchange of information and viewpoints within the Presidency, and between Bombay and the rest of India. The Chronicle, like the Tribune, Hindu, Amrita Bazar Patrika, and other papers with a national perspective, attempted to play a mediating role by advocating and describing a coalescence of viewpoint and interest between the All-India and provincial leadership, and the constituencies they sought to mobilize.

Throughout the 1920s, the Chronicle's, attempt to remain loyal to Gandhi and the mainstream Congress programme made it the principal English-language nationalist paper in the Presidency. It also placed it in competition with other local nationalist papers representing conflicting views and constituencies – such as the Liberal Indian Daily Mail and the Responsivist Kesari.