Urdu Journalism in Bengal (1901-1970): A Historical Study

Abstract

During the reign or the Pathans and the Mughals, the oficial language of India was Persian but with the downfall of the Mughal Empire and with the annexation of India to the British Empire, the Persian language was gradually discouraged by the new rulers and ultimately it wane its glamour. But at this juncture it was still popular among the nobles or subcontinent. The English looked for a native language to run the administration smoothly and to understand the local people thoroughly. They picked up Urdu which was the lingua franca of the 18th century in lndia and agreeably spoken among both the Hindus and the Muslims of India. A noted linguistic of Bengal Tara Chand writes, "During the eighteenth century Urdu spread to all corners of India and Urdu was the lingua franca, employed by polite society of Muslim and Hindus as the medium of culture and social intercourse."' So Urdu was declared the court and official language of India in 1832. Ram Babu Saksena an authentic writer or Urdu literature, applauds Urdu in these words "The substitution or Urdu for Persian as an official language in 1832 A.D. raised the status or the vernacular and considerably enriched its vocabulary as all the terms of judiciary were appropriated by Urdu.'' An eminent writer of the discipline, Md. Sadeque Husain mentions "Persian which had begun to lose the ground with the coming or the English into power, received its death blow with the establishment or Urdu as the court language in 1836” The English not only favoured Urdu, they also did a lot for its promotion and development. Fort William College which was established in 1800 in Calcutta, played a vital role in the development or Urdu. Hundreds of books were written, translated and compiled in Urdu in this college.' Urdu Prose and grammar were given much emphasis. Much talked about classical literature specially prose was produced in this college under different scholars called Munshis and till the first decade or the twentieth century, Calcutta was the capital or India and it was also a hub or arts, literature and or other cultural activities of India. Journalism started off in this Indian city for the first time with the publication of the very first newspaper Hicky's Gazette in 1780. It was an English language newspaper. The first periodical of a native language was the publication of 'Dig Darshan a Bengali jouranl that appeared in Apirl 1818. In reference to the A.F. Salahuddin Ahmed writes 'Dig Darshan was the first periodical journal in Bengali or any Indian language''.7 He further says that it was a monthly and edited by john Clark Marshman. But the •Samachar Darpan the first vernacular newspaper appeared on 23 May, 18I8. This paper had the distinction of being the first vernacular newspaper published in lndin.8 The full fledged Indian newspaper was 'Sangbad Koummdi,, hich appeared in Novemmber 1821 and was printed both in English and Bengali.'9 Then followed the newspapers or other languages including Urdu, Hindi, Tamil, Telgu and Punjabi etc. I chose the topic Urdu journalism in Bengal (1901-1970) for my dissertation only because untiI now no serious, attempt has been made to record the facts and figures on Urdu journalism or this part or the subcontinent. Although much• has been writen on Urdu journalism but Bengal had always been neglected specially (East Bengal, now Bangladesh) even though the inception or Urdu journalism was from this city of Bengal,............