Politics, Public Issues and the Promotion of Urdu Literature: Avadh ...

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ULRIKE STARK • 77Contents and PolicyAA was a product of the colonial experience in that it aimed at being amodern, professional news magazine. It emulated British models, its coverageincluding local, national and international news. In the name ofspreading information and enlightenment among the Urdu reading public,AA aimed high, aspiring to be nothing less than the North Indianequivalent of The Times of London (AA of 1 January 1879). The newssection made up the largest portion of the paper which prided itself inbeing able to cover “the whole world.”How was efficient news coverage achieved and what were the channelsof information transfer? It was only three years prior to the inceptionof AA that the opening of the first telegraph lines in India had inducedradical changes in the dissemination of news on the Subcontinent. 27 Nomodern news agencies, however, were operating in India before the year1866 when Reuters started extending its services there. 28 Reuters, at allevents, was too expensive at first for the majority of Indian editors tomake use of its services. To ensure a rapid and steady flow of information,Munshi Naval Kishore therefore relied on a more traditional system ofinformation distribution and built up his own network of correspondentsposted in the major urban centers in India. Apparently their number waslegendary, as suggested by a contemporary saying to the effect that inevery district and every princely state could be found correspondents ofthe colonial government and of Munshi Naval Kishore. 29 A substantial27 The rapid development of the telegraph system has been summed up byDavid Arnold: “From a few miles of line in 1851, telegraphs had been extendedover 4,250 miles of India and linked forty-six receiving stations by the end of1856; they ran from Calcutta to Agra and the northwest as well as connectingBombay, Madras and Ootacamund. By 1865 there were 17,500 miles of telegraphlines, rising to 52,900 miles by the end of the century.” Science, Technology andMedicine in Colonial India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p.113.28 Reuters set up its first office in Bombay in 1866. Further offices in Calcutta,Madras and Karachi followed, supplying the Indian press not only withforeign but also domestic information. The opening of the London-Bombaysubmarine telegraph cable in June 1870 greatly speeded up the transmission ofnews from England. Details in Graham Storey, Reuters’ Century 1851–1951 (London:Max Parrish, 1951), pp. 62–8.29¿≥birµ, p. 112.
78 • THE ANNUAL OF URDU STUDIESportion of the domestic and foreign news was also reprinted from Englishnewspapers, particularly The Times of London, The Pioneer of Allahabadand the Friend of India. For news items regarding the Islamic world AAfrequently made use of Persian and Arabic newspapers. At the same time,generating news and information was turned into a public, collective concernin which the participation of the readership was explicitly invited:Those who would regularly supply the paper with “important, recent,reliable and interesting news items” 30 were promised free copies of AA inreturn.While introducing new concepts of modern informational culture,AA retained some features of the traditional newsletter as described byMichael H. Fisher. 31 For one, there was the physical appearance of thehandwritten and lithographed sheets. The paper retained the term“akhb≥r≥t” for various categories of news; it adopted a Persianizedvocabulary and cultivated a fairly ornate style. Published in two parts, onWednesday and Friday, a typical issue of the paper in 1871 combined elementsof traditional and modern newswriting in its standard departments.In the following overview of its contents the original Urdu has beenretained to show how this intermingling of the traditional and themodern was reflected in the vocabulary used to label the various headings:Avadh Akhbar in 1871Part One ([issued] on Wednesday) Part Two ([issued] on Friday)1) General advertisements1) Lucknow(ishtih≥r≥t ma‘m∑lµ)2) Poetry (na m) 2) Telegraph news (akhb≥r≥t tar-barqµ)3) Letters to the Editor (khaπ-kit≥bat) 3) Editorial (a≈µªåriyal)4) Proceedings of the Committee, 324) Correspondent (k≥rasp≥n≈anª)etc. (ma¤≥mµn kamiªµ vaghairah)5) Telegraph news (akhb≥r≥t t≥r-barqµ) 5) Translations from the English(tarjuma angr®zµ)6) Editorial (a≈µªåriyal) 6) Reprints from other papers (manq∑l≥t)7) Correspondent (k≥rasp≥n≈anª) 7) Letters to the Editor (khaπ-kit≥bat)30 Fihrist-e Kutub 1879, p. 4.31 Michael H. Fisher, “The Office of Akhb≥r Nawµs: The Transition fromMughal to British Forms,” Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 27, No. 1 (1993), pp.79–81.32 I.e., the Lucknow Municipal Committee.
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