Ganapathy Dikshitar Subramania Iyer (Tamil: கணபதி தீக்ஷிதர் சுப்பிரமணிய ஐயர்) (19 January 1855 – 18 April 1916) was a leading Indian journalist, social reformer and freedom fighter who led the Triplicane Six in launching The Hindu, an English newspaper on 20 September 1878.
The Hindu welcomed the birth of the Indian National Congress in a 12 December 1885 editorial: The objective of the Congress... is to bring to a focus to our scattered political energy and to give solidity and organisation to native opinion... [on such] topics in which... all parts of the country are interested...In May 1889, at Subramania Iyer's invitation, the Anglo-Indian barrister Eardley Norton began to write a regular column Olla Podrida for the newspaper.
He was one of the 72 delegates present at the Bombay Conference at Tejpal Sanskrit College on 12 December 1885, which resulted in the founding of the Indian National Congress.
During the 1894 Madras session, he was selected as a part of the delegation which presented the case of Indian nationalists before the Secretary of State for India in London.
When he conducted his widowed daughter's remarriage in 1889, Subramania Iyer was socially boycotted by his own relatives apart from the conservative Mylapore society.
Subramania Iyer lost the support of conservative elements who formed a powerful lobby in the Indian National Congress.
Subramania Iyer arranged for the remarriage of his eldest daughter, Sivapriyammal, who had been widowed at the age of 13, to a boy in Bombay during the 1889 Congress session.
It seemed hopeless, he commented, for Dalits "to expect redemption from anything that The Hindu might do" and "no amount of admiration for our religion will bring social salvation to these poor people.He realised the importance of speaking in the local language and addressed the masses in Tamil in his public lectures.
In 1898, Subramania Iyer relinquished his claims over 'The Hindu' and concentrated his energies on Swadesamitran, the Tamil language newspaper which he had started in 1882.