Miscellaneous - This Day That Age   

dated December 23, 1952: Early stalwarts of The Hindu

A portrait of late Mr. S. Rangaswami, a former Editor of The Hindu, was unveiled by Federal Court retired Judge Sir S. Varadachariar at the Southern India Journalists' Federation in Madras on the 21st. Done by Swadesamitran photographer, R. Krishnan, the picture was gifted by S. Sarangarathnam, a nephew of late Mr. Rangaswami. Requesting Sir Varadachariar to unveil the portrait, Federation President, N. Raghunatha Aiyar, said that very few of his generation knew Mr. Rangaswami personally, as he was a person of exceedingly retiring disposition, and had only a handful of close companions. However, he was known well enough through the paper he edited, his characteristic idiom, and the terrific impact he made on the public mind. Sir S. Varadachariar was among the few who knew Mr. Rangaswami well.

Sir Varadachariar said that he considered it a privilege, tinged with sadness, to be at the function. They needed to reflect more on the career of Mr. Rangaswami, who formally became Editor after Mr. Kasturiranga Iyengar's death, than his personal life. The best part of that career was with The Hindu during some of its most stirring days.

Talking of Mr. Rangaswami's activities would practically be like describing the early days of the paper, when it changed over from old management, to a new one under the late Mr. Kasturiranga Iyengar. He well remembered the days when the ownership changed from Mr. Viraraghavachariar and Mr. G. Subramania Aiyar to Mr. Kasturiranga Iyengar, who was entering a stage when one took a somewhat active, though detached, interest in matters of public life. Sir Varadachariar continued: "We lived in very stirring times. It was worthwhile living then and, happily for us, those stirring times have led to a culmination which all of us welcomed, even though we might be deeply conscious of a certain direction in which we wished things had been otherwise.

Some of us who had known the late Mr. Kasturiranga Iyengar only as a member of the bar, were struck by the great success he made as an Editor of The Hindu. The time and opportunity which that age afforded to an independent, cultured mind were as much responsible for the phenomenal success of the paper as Kasturiranga Iyengar's own contribution." Mr. Sarangarathnam said that most of those present had known Mr. Rangaswami only by repute. He was a man of few words but those words were decisive. He was an ideal journalist. Mr. Raghunatha Aiyar said, while accepting the portrait, that he had worked very briefly with Mr. Rangaswami whose style of writing had something immortal in it.

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