– Muhammed Ashraf T
Introduction
The study of print culture and literature in India has been mostly concerned with immediate and overt political implications, like the Hindi-Urdu controversy over Hindustani in upper India during the nineteenth century, or the formation of regional identities based on a commonly shared language. Francesca Orsini has studied the Hindi public sphere in 1920-40. She demonstrates how educated Indians advanced their political, social and literary agendas through creating institutional spaces. Ulrike Stark analyses the hitherto untold story of the social, cultural and material aspects of book production in nineteenth century North India. It concerns commercial publishing of the Naval Kishore Press in the second half of the nineteenth century. Stark applies Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory and the theory of cultural production in her study.
Masood Ali Khan had conducted a chronological study about the Urdu press in Hyderabad. When Kavita Saraswathi Datla looks at the establishment and intellectual history of Osmania University and Urdu language in Hyderabad she explores translation, book production and print activities. Her work is basically an attempt to look at the intellectual history of Hyderabad concerned with Urdu language, education and nationalism in a Muslim space. There are no analytical or descriptive studies available which discuss the print culture in Hyderabad.
In a more theoretical register, Veena Naregal has argued convincingly that linguistic hierarchies, literate audiences and political structure are interrelated.
Given this context, it becomes inevitable to look at the print culture of Hyderabad focus on Urdu popular press, political spectrum and public sphere in Hyderabad.
Hyderabad: power, culture and public sphere
The princely state of Hyderabad had been reputed for its composite multiculturalism and social diversity. The social body of this place comprises avariety of religious and linguistic communities. Muslims from Iran, Yemen, and Turkey, Africa, Armenia and many other countries and native Hindus with their various streams and groups came together as the population of this part of Deccan plateau. Hyderabad was the largest princely state which could be seen as a site of migration, diaspora, diversity, universalism and multiculturalism. As Benjamin Cohen’s work, Kingship and colonialism in India’s Deccan has demonstrated, princely states such as Hyderabad have to be studied on multiple levels, since they were ‘multitiered, multiethnic’ states, unique in their combination of state forms drawn from earlier Hindu empires ‘embedded within the Muslim regimes’.
Osmania University, the first Urdu university in South Asia was established in 1918 in the reign of Mir Osman Ali Khan. It contributed towards the intellectual development of Hyderabad in general and the immense growth and standardization of Urdu language in particular. English was the compulsory second language in Osmania University.
The political arena and public sphere of Hyderabad had been constituted influenced by various socio-political, linguistic and cultural collectives like Andhra Jana Sangham, Andhra Maha Sabha, Hyderabad State congress, Arya Samaj, Hindu Maha Sabha, communist party, Indian National Congress and Muslim League from outside. Telugu, Kannada, and Marathi were the prominent native languages of the state. In Hyderabad, until the 1940s, Muslims dominated the public sphere not only because they owned most of the land and had government jobs, but also because Urdu was the official language.
Civil societal institutions and movements took lead in providing space for public discussion and debate over social and political issues to cultivate public life. The decades leading up to Indian independence saw in Hyderabad a surge of civil societal activism despite many constraints placed by the state’s administration.
Rama Sundari Mantena suggests that the modernization schemes implemented by Salar Jang along with calls for constitutional reforms starting in the second decade of the twentieth century nurtured the conditions for the emergence of a thriving public sphere in Hyderabad, a public that eventually not only posed a challenge to the monarchial power of the Nizam, but also the dominance of Muslims in the bureaucracy.
The theme politics was very crucial in all arenas of the princely state of Hyderabad. Religion, caste, language, geography and any other categorical, group or identity measurements were deeply shaped by political ideas and perspectives.
Language and Hyderabad Princely State
With the coming of Muslim rulers from North India into Deccan, Persian and Urdu languages gained currency in administrative and educational spheres. Thus Dakhni language was also developed in Hyderabad. Kavita Datla in her study about Urdu nationalism in colonial India in the context of Hyderabad suggests that the Urdu language in the early twentieth century became a means not only of asserting difference but also of imagining a common secular future. She argues that intellectuals in Hyderabad used Urdu not against Hindi but to rival English language and Western education and the language was put above religion. Persian and Urdu were considered also as the symbols or contributions of Muslim rule in Hyderabad state.
With the rest of Muslim India, the elite of Hyderabad considered Persian as an essential part of their cultural heritage and a marker of their elitist identity and political domination. The Paigah nobility of Hyderabad studied Persian as part of their socialization. Elite groups paid more attention to Persian in the beginning and then moved to English and Urdu, as those languages gained currency in the domains of power. Persian was a symbol of Muslim cultural and political domination until it was replaced by Urdu in 1884.
The transition from Persian to Urdu was connected with state politics: specifically the tension between the locals (Mulkis) of Hyderabad and the outsiders (Ghaer-Mulkis), mostly the Urdu speaking elite of North India.The Hindustanis who had come from British India where they had been using Urdu rather than Persian in their youth (the language of schooling and the courts being Urdu since the 1840s) were in favor of using Urdu in the affairs of the state.
Hindustani officials created a lobby which promoted Urdu in the state. Syed Husain Bilgrami was the Indian tutor of Osman Ali Khan and the chief executive of education for thirty two years. He was a great supporter of Urdu as a medium of instruction.The pro-Urdu group was active even after the replacement of Persian by Urdu,-however, now their focus was to counter the influx of English. Thus, the pro-Urdu campaign which was originally against Persian now opposed local languages and English. Salar Jang 1 who had resisted the transition from Persian to Urdu at last gave some concessions to Urdu language. The official shift happened in 1884. Local languages were tolerated, but not in urban areas such as Hyderabad where only Urdu was to be used.
Urdu had a royal and symbolic currency even when Persian was the official language of the state. The common people, and especially the middle classes, learned it in order to find employment in the state services.There were many institutions and individuals to promote the learning of Urdu. One of the personalities associated with Urdu was Maulvi Abdul Haq. He was known as ‘Babae Urdu’ (Father of Urdu). He was also one of the pioneers of Osmania University. He presided over the Daru Tarjuma (Translation Bureau) and invited eminent scholars from North India to Hyderabad. Maulvi Abdul Haq was of opinion that one characteristic of a Muslim was the ‘love of Urdu’. When upper classes were shifting to English, the middle classes were fully given to the education in Urdu.
Urdu language was conceptualized in multiple ways in Hyderabad state.It was imagined as a symbol of Islam and Muslims, as a rival to English language and English education and as a common language to engage with other languages in the Deccan. However, in North India, a movement had started by the end of the nineteenth century, identifying Urdu (Persian script) with Muslims and Hindi (Sanskrit script) with Hindus.
Urdu press in Hyderabad
In Hyderabad, when Captain Sydenham first displayed the model of a man-of-war, an air pump and a printing press to the Nizam as specimens of the ‘appliances of European science’, the ruler showed ‘so little interest in the press, that he had not even made a present to the compositors who had come round form Madras to exhibit the application to practical purposes of the implements of their craft’. And yet by 1886 there were 1094 presses in India of which 200 were in the South.
The printing press in Hyderabad is deeply connected with the Paigah family which was part of the nobility in the Asaf Jahi period. Abdul Fateh Khan was the first Paigah noble. Fakhrudin Khan, son of Abdul Fateh Khan was appointed as ‘Madarul Maham’ (Prime Minister), he resigned later and engaged in educational and intellectual activities. He acquired and disseminated knowledge. He established an academy and a printing press, where books mainly on science and mathematics were written (or translated from foreign languages) by scholars, and published. Sajida Adeeb opines that “incidentally, this was the first printing press in Hyderabad state”. Fakhrudin Khan was conscious of the scientific and technological developments in Europe. He brought books on subjects like science, mathematics and technology from England, France and elsewhere and got them translated in the court languages of that period like Urdu and Persian, printed them in his press and made them available for people.
The print culture in Hyderabad started with modern and scientific educational activities. The first Urdu magazine on medicine entitled Risala-i-Tababat was published in 1857 in Asaf Jahi period. It was edited by John Smith.The history of Urdu journalism began not only as a political, social and literacy urge but primarily a need to get acquainted with Western science and medicine.The foundation of Urdu journalism was thus laid first on Medicine and Science.
Dr. Masood Ali Khan presents a chronological history in his study ‘The history of Urdu press (A case study of Hyderabad)’. According to Qasim Ali Sajjanlal, the Aftab-e-Deccan was the first Urdu paper published in 1860 from Hyderabad. Anwarul Haq Jafari writes that Urdu journalism in the Deccan had developed in the last quarter of 19th century. According to him the Khursheed-e-Deccan was the first newspaper of Hyderabad which started its publication in 1883 under the editorship Sultan Mohd Dehlavi.
Kursheed-e-Deccan, Hazere Dastan, Afsarul Akhaber, Akbar-e-Asafi, Musheer-e-Deccan were the newspapers belong to the early phase of Urdu journalism. The Ilm-vo-Amal was the third daily started by Mohib-e-Hussain in 1902. Before the publication of this daily there were 14 newspapers and magazines which were being published till 1901. Out of these 12 were in Urdu and 2 were in Marathi. Out of 12 Urdu papers seven were dailies.
From the beginning of the publication of newspapers in Hyderabad till 1918 and before the formation of the state propagating Congress of Hyderabad and Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen all newspapers were projecting a reformative attitude. The national movement in British India came into Hyderabad and changed the political face of the state. Subha-e-Deccan and Nizam Gazette were important newspapers in the state. Hakim Gufaran Ahmed Ansari was always associated with press. He published nearly 17 newspapers with different names. Because of his strong criticism of government he could not be granted permission mostly for publishing newspapers. He published Majlis, Al-Azan, and Charminar under the editorship of Syed Nooral Haq Jafari.
M.N. Narasinga Rao was a politician and journalist. He started publishing a newspaper Raiyyat in 1928 to popularize his views. Government took serious action against this newspaper and he stopped the publication of this newspaper. Abdul Rahman Rayis published Manshoor in 1929 and later, Waqat. Many writers cooperated with him and his newspapers became very popular. He was regarded as a nationalist; he also took part in the Khilafat movement. Rayis and his companions were always under the watch of the government. In 1930, Ahmedulla Qadri started publishing Saltanat which kept away from politics. It used to publish firmans and poetry composed by the Nizam.
Quazi Abdul Gaffar started Payam in 1935. The Urdu journalism had attained high quality by the publication of Payam. It showed literary taste and dealt with local, regional, national and international affairs. It supported progressive ideas. The establishment of State Reforms Association and the state Congress on one hand and the political activities of Majlis under the leadership of Bahadur Yar Jung on the other had their political and cultural impact on the journalistic trends in Hyderabad. The newspapers were naturally divided into conflicting groups. Mohib-i-Hussain started earlier reformative movements which were taken up by State Congress in later period of 1938-40. This was supported as organized movements through newspapers like Rayyat, Payam and Imroze.
Ittehad was the product of political crisis in 1947. Abdul Qader Hashmi and Sultan Bin Omer were the editors of Ittehad which was the official organ of Majlis. Mazhar Ali Kamil in the beginning was its chief patron. Later it came to be published under the patronage of Qasim Razvi who started Razakar movement in Hyderabad. They used to publish Al-Balag weekly also. Sultan Bin Omer became its editor after Hashmi. Imroze was a nationalist newspaper, it was published in 1948. Shoebullah was its editor who was enjoying the strong support of the Congress party. When Shoebullah was murdered, Imroze was closed.
In the initial period of Musheer-e-Deccan and Ilm-vo-Amal some healthy literary trends developed among the masses. It is in the fitness of things to name this period both as formative as well as reformative, and the press was slowly establishing its credibility. The growth of Urdu press can be conveniently divided into two phases. The first phase began from 1850 to 1925 and the second phase begins from 1925 to 1948 till the merger of Hyderabad into Indian Union.”
The most intellectual journalists who started their carrier in the second phase of Urdu journalism were all the products of Osmania.Between 1945-1948 some of the journalists were for Nizam’s paramountcy, some of them were pro-Majlis, a few of them were progressive and the rest were nationalists. The press and journalism were very active during the period of 1935-48. The newspapers of this period can be divided into three different schools of thought.
The first group of newspapers which were strongly supporting the existing rule was Nizam Gazette and Subha-e-Deccan. Though every newspaper was supposed to publish the ‘Farman/Firman’ (Royal order) of the Nizam, these two newspapers were considered as authentic channels of the royal orders. There was a second group of newspapers such as Rahbara-e-Deccan, Majlis, Ittehad and Aghaz. These were the strong supporters of Majlis. The policies of these newspapers declared that the Nizam of Deccan was the representative and protector of Muslim’s interest and pleaded for independent Hyderabad whereas the third group of newspapers as like Raiyyat, Payam, Waqt and Imroze were arguing for constitutional and responsible government and they were nationalists as well. Payam promoted modern ideas and created basis for communists in the state.
To sum up the discussion, the Urdu press in Hyderabad emerged and passed through various stages by engaging with socio-political, cultural and educational domains. Modern education, Western science, social reform, political mobilization and literary and cultural development had shaped and configured the contents and agendas of Urdu popular press in Hyderabad. This press was not started as commercial venture. It was connected with intellectual, educational and political projects. In the first phase it targeted social reform and modernization of the society. In the second phase Urdu press aimed at educational and political development of the state. From 1920 as a period of high political activism up to the integration of Hyderabad into India, the Urdu press was immensely political. Nationalism, Communism, Islam, Hinduism and other ideologies were incorporated to the political projects of the state. Language, religion, caste, region and other elements were overlapped and interconnected and they played crucial role in shaping the body of the state. They had vital implication in the emergence and development of Urdu popular press.
Ashraf T is a PhD student in Communication, University Hyderabad
alqalam001@gmail.com
Eds: Please contact author for references