Kasturi Ranga Iyengar
| S.Kasturi Ranga Iyengar | |
|---|---|
| Born |
15 December 1859 Kumbakonam, Madras Presidency |
| Died | 12 December 1923 (aged 63) Madras, British India |
| Occupation | lawyer, journalist |
| Known for | journalism, political activism |
| Children |
K. Srinivasan, K. Gopalan |
S. Kasturi Ranga Iyengar (15 December 1859 – 12 December 1923) was an Indian lawyer, Indian independence activist, politician and journalist who served as the managing director of The Hindu from 1 April 1905 till his death in December 1923.
His brother, Diwan Bahadur S. Srinivasa Raghavaiyangar, C. I. E, served as the Inspector General of Registration in the Madras Presidency. Srinivasa Raghavaiyangar was an Anglophile who, in 1893, wrote Memorandum of Progress of the Madras Presidency during the last forty years of British administration to refute the charges of economic exploitation made by nationalists.
Kasturi Ranga Iyengar was born on 15 December 1859 in a village Innambur in Kumbakonam. On completion of his education, he moved to Coimbatore to commence practice as a lawyer. He set up a prosperous vocation and moved to Madras to try his luck there. He was not as successful in Madras as he had been in Coimbatore. Eventually, in 1895, he became a legal correspondent with The Hindu which was run by G. Subramania Iyer. He wrote a well known column in the newspaper The Coimbatore Letters. During this period, he also got ample encouragement from C. Karunakara Menon. The rich and prosperous Kasturi Ranga Iyengar purchased the newspaper for a price of Rs. 75,000 on 1 April 1905. He became the editor of the The Hindu and became the powerful voice of people's aspiration.
In July 1905, Kasturi Ranga Iyengar appointed his nephew A. Rangaswami Iyengar as Assistant Editor. Kasturi Ranga Iyengar worked to rescue The Hindu by increasing advertisements and terminating subscriptions to customers who did not pay in advance. The tactic proved successful and Kasturi Ranga Iyengar was able to clear his debts by 1910. Kasturi Ranga Iyengar subscribed to the Reuter's news service and allotted space for weather reports, court cases, trade and commerce as well as sports. In 1905, The Hindu, in its editorial, demanded partial autonomy but not independence for India. It also strongly criticised Annie Besant and her Theosophical Society, including her lavish promotional campaign of J. Krishnamurti as the Maitreya Buddha. However, The Hindu offered its enthusiastic support to her Home Rule Movement and protested her internment at the orders of Lord Pentland. It also strongly condemned the protests and the resultant killings of Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
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