GA Natesan (1874-1949): Liberal Scholar and Publisher

I have a new piece on Indian economic thoughts, this piece is about life and works of G A Natesan (1874-1949). He was doyen of publisher of all kinds of works in Tamil languages and English during the British India. Moreover, he was liberal scholar and wrote several books and edited many besides editing the The Indian Review journal for five decades.

Here is a slice from the piece:

"In 1917, Natesan wrote a book on “What India Wants: Autonomy Within the Empire” presenting the case for liberty, freedom, self-government through constitutional reform and urged for providing opportunities to educated Indians in all branches of the British government. Gandhi, PS Sivasamy Aiyer, and VS Srinivasa Sastri wrote forewords to the book which presented with historical views of various Indian and British intellectuals who voiced for advancing the complete freedom from British for various countries including India. In the preface, GA Natesan noted that – “I have also endeavoured to show that the constitutional reforms now urged by the Indian people through their leading political organisations are in the line of continuous growth of the Indian polity and involve no violent departure from the principles or methods hitherto recognised by authority”. He believed that maintaining law and order, by all means, is a must for any government in society. Therefore he strongly opposed Gandhi for provoking the country towards civil disobedience movement."