Address
to Conference on the Alternate Media to Commemorate the
Centenary of the Founding of Indian Opinion, 4 June 2003,
Durban
On 4 June 1903 a very tired but fired up young man worked
till 3am in the morning in the central business district
of Durban. He then walked to his home in Sydenham as the
last tramcar had long departed. On 5 June again he worked
till 11pm - there was an urgency with which he worked. His
goal was to get a new newspaper before the public. The first
issue of Indian Opinion was dated 4 June but it was only
on 6 June that it could be released. The young man was relieved
but he could not relax. He had the next issue to think about
and it was due in five days time. He wrote `I am now anxious
about the second number. With a small staff, and lack of
materials - types, etc., and facilities, we have to keep
the paper up to the mark!'
This man was M.H. Nazar, a secretary of the Natal Indian
Congress. His letters for this early period indicate that
there were two other key individuals involved in the production
of this new journal. Madanjit Viyavaharik, the owner of
the International Printing Press and Mohandas Gandhi, the
Johannesburg lawyer. Nazar and Madanjit saw to the practicalities
of producing the newspaper - this was no mean task for the
paper was to be produced in four languages - English, Hindi,
Gujarati and Tamil. The translation of the articles was
difficult as individuals proficient in two languages were
required. Nazar would report `The translators are not particularly
clever, and they will not work at day time'. Some translations
were simply `shocking'. Then there was a shortage of types.
Virji Damodar Mehta (who would one day found his own printing
press, Universal Printing Press) asked Nazar not to use
too many of the Gujarati letter `a'. The editor himself
did not know Tamil and had to explain the spirit of articles
to translators whose English was not too good. Madanjit
in the meanwhile had been running around getting the licence,
advertisers and subscribers. The first issue which was some
two months in the planning was finally out.
