First Urdu Newspaper

Non-Muslims started on in 1822 at Kolkata

First Urdu Newspaper

by K Vishwadev Rao, (Printed in The Working Journalist May 2007)

Like some other language newspapers (English, Hindi, Bengali, Persian and even Chinese), Kolkata was the home of India's first Urdu newspaper. It was 185 years ago on 22 March 1822. This interesting media fact, well-researched by Mohammad Zafar Iqbal, is focused in the Maulana Azad Academy Journal, Lucknow, by Parvez Hafeez. Iqbal's book, the Origin and growth of Urdu journalism in Kolkata, was released at the Kolkata Press Club's diamond jubilee celebrations by President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. Veteran Urdu journalist Amanullah Mohammad wrote its foreword. Forty-two years before this Urdu journal, the first English newspaper was started in Kolkata by James Augustus Hicky, captioned the Bengal Gazetteer.

What author Parvez Hafeez points out is that no Muslim was behind the effort to start the first Urdu newspaper. Secondly, instead of Lucknow and Delhi, citadels of Urdu language, Bengali-speaking Kolkata saw the birth of the Urdu journal.

Titled Jaam-e-Jaha Numa, the weekly hit the stands on March 28, 1822, only a few years after the publication of the first Bengali newspaper. The owner-publisher of the weekly was a Bengali bhadralok Harihar Dutta, who was the son of an eminent journalist and founder editor of the Bengali weekly Sambad Kaumudi, Tara Chand Dutta. The editor of the Urdu newspaper was a Punjabi, Sada Sukhlal. The Urdu weekly's printer was an English company, William Hopkins Peters & Company.

There were certain important social, historical and political factors which contributed to the growth of Urdu newspaper and magazines. Although Persian was still the court language, its gradual decline coincided with the rise of the Urdu language. The setting up of Fort Williams College was a major milestone. Governor-General Lord Welesly set up this Orientalist training center in Kolkata in 1800 within the Fort William complex. The objective was to train young British civil servants in local history, languages, cultures and in the art of administration. A separate department for each major language and culture was established in the college under the supervision of an expert. Along with Arabic and Persian, a department of Hindustani was also opened, which was headed by John B. Gilchrist, a noted Indologist of his time.

String of periodicals

To teach British officials the language, Urdu texts were developed, first in the form of translations from Arabic and Persian texts.

Twenty years later, the first Urdu weekly Jaam-e-Janah Numa was published and gradually Urdu began gaining popularity and importance. This resulted in the publication of a string of Urdu periodicals. The British officials used them as a means of communication with the "natives". In 1835, the government formally changed the official language from Persian to Urdu and the decision led to the growth of Urdu press with several new publications appearing in the market. The most popular Urdu newspaper of the early days was Darul Sultanat, which was brought out by Shaikh Ahsanullah Dehalwi and was edited by Mathura Prasad. It was published as a weekly in 1881, but was soon turned out to be a bi-weekly and eventually a triweekly. In the 19th and early 20th century, the Hindus not only read and wrote Urdu, but they were also an integral part of the Urdu press.

Nationalist fervor

A string of Urdu newspapers were published in the 19th century, but they folded up for one reason or another in a very short span of time. Some of them were Gayan Deepak, Martand Akhbar, Barkati, Mohammadi, Bashiri, Khair Khaw Akhlaaq, llmul Akhbar, Noor-e-Basirat and Mirat-ul-Akhbar et al. Incidentally, only a year after the publication of the first Urdu weekly, the great Bengali reformer Raja Ram Mohan Ray brought out a Persian weekly called Mirat-ul-Akhbar in 1823. But he closed it down only after a few issues in protest against the government's authoritarian policy towards the Indian press.

The first war of independence in 1857 also triggered a string of Urdu newspapers: Rafiq-ul-Hind, Doorbeen, Gohar, Amir-ul-Akhbar, Jarida-e-Watan, Bahar-e-Hind, Hubbul Watan. These papers, in a subtle way, aroused nationalist fervour. In the first half of the 20th century, a large number of Urdu newspapers were published from Kolkata. Some of the popular ones were Ashaan-ul-Akhbar, Al Ghalibi, Mazdoor, Paigham, Masawaat, Naqqara, Sarfraosh, Awaaz.

The Asr-e-Jadeed was perhaps the longest surviving Urdu daily which came out in 1918 and was published till 1992. It changed hands many times during its long life. In Kolkata, this was the first Urdu paper which installed a teleprinter in its office. Proving the prophets of doom wrong, Urdu press is still live and doing well in Bengal. In 1980, Akhbar-e-Mashriq brought out by Wasim-ul-Haque gave a new dimension to Urdu journalism in eastern India. This was the first Urdu daily in the region which took Urdu press from "the stone age" of printing to offset printing. It was the first Urdu daily in the city that went for complete computerize printing. Today, nearly a dozen Urdu dailies are published form Kolkata, which are popular not only in West Bengal but in neighboring states of Jharkhand, Bihar and Orissa.