Page:Twelve men of Bengal in the nineteenth century (1910).djvu/183

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KESHUB CHANDRA SEN
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minds of the day and with his loyalty to the British Government greatly intensified. So deeply was he touched by the universal kindness he met with from all classes, from Her Majesty the Queen to the poorest peasant that, as he himself said, his loyalty to the great nation which had done so much for India became a part henceforward of his religion.

One of the first acts of Keshub on his return to India was the establishment of the Indian Reform Association on the lines of the most modern associations with which he had become acquainted in England. Its object was 'the social and moral reformation of the natives of India,' and it was divided into five branches, each with its special work. One branch occupied itself with the supply of cheap and good literature which was to be made easily accessible to all: a second was entrusted with charitable relief: a third with all matters concerning education: a fourth with the improvement of the position of Indian women, and a fifth with temperance work. Impressed with the immense power wielded by the press in England, especially by the daily papers headed by 'The Times,' Keshub endeavoured to improve upon the newspapers he had formerly published, bringing out a weekly pice paper, under the management of the new association, called the Sulav Samachar. Being the first paper of its kind published in India it achieved immediate popularity. Its influence in its first days of prosperity was