The Independent was started on 5 February 1919 with the primary aim of countering the moderate political line adopted by the then leading Allahabad daily The Leader.
[1] Motilal Nehru was assisted in the paper's establishment by B G Horniman and Syud Hossain who became the Independent's editor.
[3] Syud Hossain resigned his editorship a few months later, after a discord with the Nehrus over his love affair with Vijayalakshmi Pandit, and left the country and George Joseph was appointed as his successor.
[4] With Joseph were three others on the editorial staff- Venkatraman, a lawyer, Sadanand who later became the manager of the Free Press group of newspapers and Mahadev Desai, Gandhi's associate and personal secretary.
[5] On 6 December 1921, George Joseph was arrested and in a trial held the next day sentenced to three years in prison.