December 30, 2006

The history of the modern press is closely linked with the invention of the printing press. However, the subcontinent as the cradle of one of the very old civilisations of the world had long had a news gathering mechanism in place through the ages. But even in recorded history, there existed a well-organised system for the collection of news. At various periods the subcontinent came up with a variety of well-knitted news-gathering systems.

The institution of newsletters came much later. Dr Abdus Salam Khurshid’s pioneering work on “Newsletters in the Orient” throw light on the origin of newsletters in the subcontinent. It was the Ghaznavid Muslim rulers who are said to have introduced the system in India towards the end of 10th century. The system soon gained ground with the Sultanate at Delhi and the institution of news gathering was streamlined and made highly efficient. During the Mughal rule, the system became highly mature. It was, however, during Aurangzeb’s reign that newsletters were at their peak and the news-writers or “waqai-nawees” as they were called, earned the epithet of the “eyes and ears of the emperor” Newsletters existed in the Mughal courts in India till as late as 1857, when the great war of independence was waged.

Bengal, a part of which is now Bangladesh, was the forerunner in modern journalism in the whole of the subcontinent. It was in Bengal that the first newspapers in India made their appearance and then the seeds of awakening were spread over the length and breadth of the rest of the country, beginning of course, with some pockets of British colonies such as Madras and Bombay. Almost from its birth, the all absorbing interest of the Indian press had been politics. James Augustus Hickey started The Bengal Gazette in 1780, some eighty years after the first daily newspaper in England had commenced publication. Perhaps it would be stretching the analogy too far to term Hickey’s “loads of abuse” as purely political but he did write this; “Mr Hickey considers the liberty of the press to be the very existence of an Englishman and free government” and he did set a precedent, followed devotedly by many editors after him. He went to prison rather than abandon that belief.

Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, by sponsoring and running the Tahzibul Akhlaq and the bilingual Scientific Society Magazine laid the foundations of the press as an institution of Muslim Indian society as he had a message to deliver and had no motive to make profit. Politics was significantly tabooed as Sir Syed had persistently asked Muslims not to participate in politics till they were properly educated. The salient feature of the Muslim press during this period included education of Muslims on western lines, reform of Muslim society, modern interpretation of religion, promotion of a purposeful literature, demand for the due share of Muslims in public service and an informed interest in the affairs of the Muslim world.

Muslim interest in politics began from the partition of Bengal (1905) when a new province of dominant Muslim majority (Eastern Bengal and Assam) emerged. Next year, a deputation of Muslim leaders met the governor-general and obtained the promise of introducing separate electorate. In December 1906, the All India Muslim League was established and in 1909, the Morley-Minto Reforms included the principle of separate electorate. It seemed that Muslims were having a smooth sailing in politics, and that there was a close understanding between them and the rulers.

The British government announced the undoing of the partition of Bengal, in 1911, that caused deep resentment among Muslims. Then followed the kanpur mosque agitation. A Muslim procession was fired upon ruthlessly and as a result hundreds of people died and received injuries. That added a lot to Muslim resentment,. As Muslims were deeply interested in the Muslim world, the loss of Libya as a consequence of the Italo-Turkish war and the secession of large slices of European territories from the Turkish empire as result of the two Balkan wars, caused humiliation. Muslims felt that they were beaten both at home and abroad. That gave birth to a new and vociferous Muslim Press.

During this phase of disillusionment and convulsion, four political personalities entered the domain of journalism. They were Hasrat Mohani, Muhammad Ali Jauhar, Abul Kalam Azad and Zafar Ali Khan. While Azad was a master of oriental learning, the others were graduates of the Aligarh College, while Muhammad Ali was, in addition, a graduate of Oxford University as well. All were poets and writers of repute but none was a professional journalist. They adopted the profession of journalism in order to promote political objectives. All were pan-Islamists and anti-Imperialists.

With the promulgation of the Government of India Act of 1935, elections to provincial assemblies were held in 1937. Congress won in six Hindu majority provinces and in the NWFP while Muslim League held sway over Bengal and Sindh; in Punjab the Unionist Party won the election. The power-drunk Congress did not include representative Muslims in its majority provinces, and depended on puppets with no respect in the community and trampled upon Muslim rights in such a ruthless manner that there was no course left for Muslims except to demand and a separate state of their own. The result was the Lahore Resolution of the All India Muslim League aiming at the establishment of independent sovereign states in the North-West and North-East of the subcontinent comprising Muslim majority areas. Later a single state was envisaged.

The closing years of the movement gave birth to a number of newspapers. The independent ventures included Nawa-i-Waqt of Lahore and Jang and Anjam at Delhi and The Pakistan Times of Lahore that appeared six months before partition. In addition the Quaid-i-Azam collected a “Create a Muslim Press Fund” and established Dawn at Delhi under the auspices of a trust, with himself as the managing trustee and also sponsored an Urdu daily named Manshoor from the same city as an official organ of the All India Muslim League. Of these Nawa-i-Waqt of Hameed Nizami and Dawn, later edited by Altaf Hussain were the most important and influential. Together with the old newspapers, they struggled hard in mobilising Muslim public opinion in support of the Pakistan Movement until Pakistan appeared on the map of the world as a sovereign state.

During this phase, starting from 1937 to 1947, the Muslim press grew rather rapidly. A number of English language newspapers sprang up while the Urdu press, too, had new additions. Together with the old newspapers, they voiced Muslim political aspirations with still greater force and played a major role in the mobilising public opinion in support of the Pakistan Movement. From Lahore also appeared Eastern Times, originally sponsored by Feroze Sons under the temporary editorship of Allama Abdullah Yusuf Ali. He was followed by Mr. FK Khan Durrani who had written a number of books on Muslim politics. Though shabby in appearance and deficient in equipment, it did play a role in the projection of Muslim view point. For a couple of years there existed in Lahore and New Times a weekly started by Malik Barkat Ali. This paper, too, acted as the spokesman of the Muslim League. Muslims were greatly handicapped by the fact that API and the UPI, two Indian news agencies, were both controlled by Hindus. Muslims’ news was blacked out and distorted; therefore, a news agency named the orient Press of India was sponsored. Though financially weak and under-equipped, it did help in circulating news about Muslim politics.

After the Lahore Resolution was passed the Quaid-i-Azam sponsored the “Create a Muslim Press” campaign and collected funds for the purpose. Dawn came about in October 1942. The paper’s broad policy was to support the league but it was allowed to make independent criticism within the framework of its policy. Its first editor was Pothan Joseph but after a couple of years Altaf Hussain replaced him. Altaf Hussain wielded a trenchant pen and his editorials were widely appreciated. The paper’s entry was banned by the Khizr Ministry into Punjab during the League’s civil disobedience movement in Punjab, but thousands of its copies were smuggled and sold at a high price in several cities of the province.

The Quaid-i-Azam also stared Manshoor as an Urdu daily from Delhi which was the official organ of All India Muslim League. This bright and fancy daily was edited by Syed Hasan Riaz. However, this could not succeed and had to close down after a couple of years. Lahore had been an important newspaper centre from the late 19th century. From 1939 to 1947 Muslim press here, too, grew rapidly. A number of English newspapers appeared while the Urdu press also had new additions. Together with the old newspapers they voiced Muslim political aspirations with greater force and played a major role in mobilising public opinion. Lahore witnessed new trends for a couple of years. A weekly was started by Malik Barkat Ali which also acted as an organ of the All India Muslim League.

Some underground papers were also taken out from Lahore when the Khizar government banned publication of the news of civil disobedience movement in Punjab. These papers were cyclostyled and distributed on a large scale. Thus Muslim press became a power to be reckoned with side by side the old Lahore newspapers like Zamindar of Maulana Zafar Ali Khan and Inqilab of Maulana Abdul Majid Salik. It is an interesting historical fact that after the adoption of the Lahore Resolution the name Pakistan was used for the first time by two Hindu newspapers of Lahore namely daily Milap and Partab.

Till 1942 the All India Muslim League leadership had not used the term Pakistan. But when these two Hindu communal newspapers sarcastically mentioned that the Lahore Resolution was a resolution for the creation of Pakistan and the movement by the All India Muslim League was a movement for Pakistan; the Quaid-i-Azam accepted. He declared that if they called it a Pakistan movement, then let it be so.

Zamindar, Inqilab and Nawa-i-Waqt from Lahore and Dawn from Delhi played a yeomen’s role in advancing the Pakistan movement. The Pakistan Times came in the months of the struggle for independence but still it played its innings in whatever little time it had. In the 1947 riots Hindu mobs burnt the offices and the printing press of Dawn in Delhi. As a result it close down temporarily, only to reappear from Karachi at the inception of Pakistan. The trust later ceased to exist and it was owned by the Pakistan Herald Publications with a majority of shares possessed by the late Muslim League stalwart Haji Sir Abdullah Haroon. It can easily be summed up about the performance of the press during the independence movement that the press owned by Muslims contributed to furthering Muslim politics even as what political institutions and leaders were later to fail to achieve. Although the press owned by Muslims lacked financial and technical facilities on the days of its inception, the enthusiasm of the owners and workers of these newspapers compensated for the lack of resources.

—The writer is a former head of Journalism Department Punjab University

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