(Adopted from Sabitri Prasanna Chattopadhyay - Subhas Chandra o Netaji Subhas Chandra) Deshbandhu was extremely peeved that the Congress's daily Servant, was abusing him and his party day in and day out. Servant was under a group of Congress party that was against Deshbandhu and his activities, possibly being jealous of his success. Deshbandhu felt the need of a periodical of his own that would promote the view points of Swaraj party. This was because his ideas and ideals were never discussed in the Congress periodicals. They opposed his decision to enter the Legislative council. Subhas was initially editing Banglar Katha, a Bengali weekly. But it stopped when Subhas was jailed. After getting released, Subhas started Banglar Katha again as a daily. Deshbandhu decided to publish an English daily as well. In November 1922, Forward Publishing co. was registered with help from Monmohan Bhattacharjee, a Congress leader who was the erstwhile secretary of the Servant. Sarat Chandra Bose became the managing director. After Gaya Congress Deshbandhu faced tremendous hostility from the Congress members and politicians in Bengal. Nobody was ready to even publish his opinions. Deshbandhu and Subhas worked very hard to gather funds for starting the Forward in October 1923. When Monmohan was arrested under regulation 3 act, Subhas became the secretary of the Forward publishing. On 23rd October, 1923, the first edition of Forward came out, its editor in chief was Chittaranjan himself, assistant editors were Mrinalkanti Bose and Kishorilal Ghosh.
On the eve of the legislative assembly elections, Forward had published a damaging report regarding a rail accident in Dankuni. East India Railways brought a defamation suite against the paper and the court awarded a compensation of Rs 150,000 to be paid by Forward to Railways. Many in the Government were relieved by thinking that it was the end of Forward publications. But with a barrister like Sarat Bose at the helm, to circumvent the payment, Forward was transformed first into New Forward and then into Liberty and continued its tirades against the Government. Satya Ranjan Bakshi was the editor of Forward at that time.
Comments