his is the first and the only daily Indian newspaper which was published in Tamil which was the chief language of South India and it had the largest and most widespread circulation of any Tamil publication of Madras Presidency, circulating not only in south India, but also in Upper and Lower Burma, Ceylon, Penang, Singapore, the Federated Malay States, Sumatra, Borneo, Cochin China and South and East Africa. It penetrated into the interior parts of South India, being read in the villages and in the cities by landlords, merchants, officials, and Students who never see-even if they are able to understand-an English paper. It was a high class newspaper, it’s general policy being a progressive one upon Western lines and it was devoted to the creation of a strong and loyal public opinion among the educated masses, and represented almost the entire Tamil reading public. It stands to the credit of the Swadesamitran that its editor was the only representative of vernacular publication in this Presidency to receive an invitation to attend the Imperial Durbar held at Delhi by their Imperial Majesties King George and Queen Mary in 1911.

The newspaper was founded in 1882 and was being conducted by Mr. G. Subramania Iyer, the veteran journalist of South India, who was formerly editor and proprietor of a leading English daily and he was ably assisted by his son, Mr. T.S. Viswanathan as a medium for advertisement it had few equals, and it was resorted to by all the largest advertisers in England and America.

A general printing business was also conducted upon a small scale in Madras, and the plant includes four Wharfedale machines, which were driven by electric motor-power. Employment was found for about 80 hands. Seriously ill in 1915, Subramania Aiyer the owner persuaded A. Rangaswami Iyengar, Kasturi Ranga Iyengar's nephew and right-hand man at The Hindu, to take over the paper and he made the Swadesmitran "a new force, potent and pervasive... (changing) the placid atmosphere of Tamil Journalism". Rangaswami Iyengar brought in his kin C.R. Srinivasan to manage the business end of the paper and Bharati, back from Pondicherry, rejoined the paper in 1920.

The three made the Swadesamitran " a literary masterpiece of political analysis." Interestingly, Swadesamitran meant ‘friend of self rule’. Swadesamitran was started by G Subramania Aiyer who was then owning The Hindu. From 1904 to 1906, Subramanya Bharati worked as a sub-editor of this newspaper and was writing radical opinions against the British Raj. He left Swadesamitran to start another newsdaily, India. Later he re-joined Swadesamitran in 1920 and continued to work for them until his death in 1921. The piece of ‘Swadesamitran’ exhibited at INDeco Hotels Swamimalai, india’s only winner of the Global Eco Tourism Award, is sheer homage to a paper that gave British the fear, like the slogan ‘Vande Mataram’. Incidentally there exists to be a site under construction ‘swadesamitran.com’.