Gandhi's journals: How the Mahatma shaped a nation's ideas through Young India, Navjivan and Harijan

Many, before Gandhi, had employed the press to further their cause. Gandhi’s early trysts with the printed word In February 1891, Gandhi contributed an article entitled ‘Indian Vegetarian’ to the journal of the London Vegetarian Society, the Vegetarian. In its inaugural issue, he wrote: “… the Indian community in South Africa is a recognised factor in the body politic, and a newspaper, voicing its feelings, and specially devoted to its cause, would hardly be considered out of place; indeed, we think, it would supply a long felt want.’ As the editor, Gandhi’s influence on the journal’s tone and tenor was huge and over the next decade, the publication, despite its creaky infrastructure — its press frequently broke down — did much to serve as the voice of the Indian community and relay its views to the powers-that-be. Young India and Navjivan In 1919, amidst the nationwide disillusionment that instead of ‘Home Rule’, something that the British had vaguely promised the Indians in exchange for support in World War I, the British government had foisted the draconian Rowlatt Act on the Indian public, two young associates of Gandhi — Umar Sobani and Shankarlal Banker — offered him the editorship of Young India. Young India was also made a weekly from a bi-weekly since Gandhi now had the onerous responsibility of editing two journals.