Munshi Nawal Kishore

He was among a handful of those who commercialised printing and was

responsible for the dissemination of the printed text at affordable prices,
thereby democratising access to knowledge, literature and science.

The history of printing in India dates back to 1556 when Jesuit missionaries from
Portugal set up the first printing press in Goa. In 1577, Doctrina Christam, a Tamil
translation of a Portuguese text was published – the first for an Indian language.
But for the next two centuries, even as Europe gravitated towards the printed text,
the press as a modern scientific invention found few takers in India.

Scholars opine that in Mughal times, the production of beautifully calligraphed and
illustrated manuscripts held sway and was preferred to the arguably unattractive
printed text. And hence, the inability of this machine to make any headway.

The press, therefore, only began to gain popularity towards the end of the 18th
century, when missionaries began to produce texts for proselytisation and
instruction. Soon, Indians came to realise the power of print, and by the second
half of the 19th century, the medium took on a mass form with many Indians
operating presses.

This commercialisation of print revolutionised reading, publishing, and the

availability of printed matter to a public that was becoming more literate. In time,
the print medium would assist in the creation of a national consciousness that
would eventually come in handy to overthrow British rule.

Munshi Nawal Kishore

Munshi Nawal Kishore (1836–1895) was not a pioneer of the print medium. He
wasn’t a famous author who inspired many to read, nor was he an early Indian
nationalist who mobilised the medium for resistance against British rule. Still, his
name deserves to be remembered for his role in helping writers, readers, and the
broader public realise the potential of print, and thereby ignite something of a
revolution.

He was among a handful of those who commercialised printing and was

responsible for the dissemination of the printed text at affordable prices, thereby
democratising access to knowledge, literature and science. That much of his
printing output was in Hindi and Urdu also contributed to this process, which is
among the 19th century’s most significant developments but often glossed over.

What could have prompted this early publishing pioneer to gravitate to this career?
How did his firm – Nawal Kishore Press – come to dominate the North Indian
printing scene for decades?

While Munshi Nawal Kishore’s story is a peek into how northern India’s social
and political dynamics were altered under British administration, his is also a story
of individual enterprise—an early example of entrepreneurial zeal and ambition.

Nawal Kishore’s ancestors, whom he could trace back to the 14th century,
were Sarkari babus. Many of them served the Mughals, (briefly, even the
Marathas) in various positions and were endowed with jagirs for their exemplary
service. It was at the site of one such jagir – in Sasni, near Aligarh – that Nawal
Kishore was born in 1836.

There was a tradition of Sanskrit scholarship in the family, and the young Nawal
Kishore showed early promise in this direction. The family’s Mughal connections
meant that Persian was also within their ambit, and so, Nawal Kishore was reared
in this shared cultural tradition. He was enrolled in the Agra College in 1852 and
records indicate that he learnt English in addition to Persian at this renowned
institution.

But for reasons unknown, he never graduated.

Instead, in 1854, he left for Lahore and became an employee of the Koh-e-Nur
Press, which, among other things, also published Koh-e-Nur, Punjab’s first Urdu
newspaper. This apprenticeship which lasted till 1857 (with a break in between)
was the beginning of something momentous, as it taught him the ropes of what
would become his future career.
In early 1856, Kishore returned to Agra and briefly ran a newspaper of his own
– Safir-e-Agra. Later that year, he returned to Lahore and stayed there till the end
of 1857, when he went to Agra.

It appears that he managed to win favour with the British by approving of colonial
rule at this time. Given that he was associated with a press, this piece of
information was bound to have reached British ears.

It is tempting, at this juncture, to dismiss him as a British crony, but his attitude
wasn’t any different from those of many in the professional classes who feared the
instability that the British exit might bring. In any case, he used this to his
advantage. With most old presses shut and his loyalty beyond doubt, Kishore was
the right person in the right place at the right time.

A few months later, in 1858, he proceeded to Lucknow, which was a city in

ferment at the time. The British had taken over, and this had upset the economic
organisation of the city. But in the cultural sphere, the city retained its preeminent
position.

In November 1858, Kishore set up his printing press with the official approval of
the British. Awadh Akhbar, North India’s first Urdu newspaper, was launched.
While the newspaper was one visible aspect of the press’s work, soon, the
administration was sending considerable official printing work his way. In 1860,
he was handed over the contract for printing the Indian Penal Code in Urdu.
A steady stream of textbook contracts soon followed, and in 1861, he was
authorised to print and sell Jami al-favaid, a compilation of conversion tables and
tables of weight measures.

Kishore’s association with many Muslim officials in high government positions

meant that he was never short of advice when he looked to diversify from mere
printing to publishing. Popular religious tracts and extracts from the Quran
constituted Kishore’s foray into commercial publishing.
Around this time, Kishore also approached Mirza Ghalib, intending to publish his
poetry. After some initial hiccups, the Nawal Kishore Press soon became Ghalib’s
publisher. By 1869, the press also published Mirat al-Urus by Nazir Ahmed,
acclaimed as the first novel in Urdu.
But the decade’s most sensational event in the world of printing and publishing
was the press’s decision to publish a moderately priced version of the Quran—
priced at a rupee and a half—which brought the holy book within reach of ordinary
Muslims.
Hand-coloured lithograph of ‘Aja’ib al-makhluqat, Lucknow 1866. Source: BL
Asian and African/Twitter

Parallelly, even as it had established itself as the pre-eminent Urdu publisher of the
region, the press also made considerable contributions to Hindi publishing. Hindi
then was a language in the process of becoming concretised. Its progress was
impeded by several tussles: Hindi-Urdu at one level, Hindi-Braj at another level,
and disagreement about the script—Nagari, Kaithi or Persian. Still, the press saw
merit in entering this murky arena.

Among the Hindi books the press produced in the 1860s, were
Tulsidas’ Ramacharitmanas (which by 1873 had sold 50,000 copies), Surdas’ Sur
Sagar, and Lalluji Lal’s Premsagar (among the earliest works in what is
recognisably modern Hindi).

In 1880, the press published an English work – a translation of Tulsidas.

As the press added more titles to its ever-growing list, it had close to 3,000 titles by
the late 1870s in its catalogue–in Urdu, Hindi, Persian and Sanskrit, mainly with a
smattering in Arabic, Pashto, Marathi and Bengali. Many of these titles were, of
course, works of literature. Still, many of them were translations from English,
books on science, medicine and history–indicative of Nawal Kishore’s world-view
which chose to embrace modernity and not resist it.

In 1877, Awadh Akhbar became a daily newspaper. The Nawal Kishore Press

opened several branches – in Kanpur, Gorakhpur, Patiala and Kapurthala – and
even maintained an agency in London. In addition to publishing and bookselling,
his Press was an early marketing and advertising pioneer.

Across North India right up to then Calcutta, the press operated several bookstores.
It advertised these bookstores in its books and newspaper. Then, it used the books
it published to advertise its catalogue as well as encouraging other publishers to
advertise their offerings in its newspaper which also was a natural outlet for
publicising the press’ books.
Apart from running a business, Munshi Nawal Kishore also found the time to serve
on the municipal committee of Agra College, the board of his alma mater, and
patronised many caste organisations as well as educational institutions, both Hindu
and Muslim.

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Bookstore

By 1895, when Nawal Kishore passed away due to heart failure, the press he had
established was a highly profitable business venture with considerable influence in
the cultural sphere. By then, it had influenced a taste in reading and writing which
was to change the first half of the 20th century when opposition to British rule was
fostered through the press and the actions of the reading public, with many of
whom probably having their first taste of the printed text in a Nawal Kishore Press
publication.