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    15 views616 pages

    An Empire of Books - Ulrike Stark

    Uploaded by

    Sanchita Paul

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    (Nea ei alia stt OME——— The Naval Kishore Press and the Diffusio™ OY the Printed Word in Colonial India Ulrike || 'Stark| (sk gate (a= The Naval Kishore Press and the Diffusion of the Printed Word in Colomal India |Ulnike il 5 { i \ Wi NH} ) <== Sip us Re 2 NS SS = : Gs (Wams = iL) / N 7 fi x Y —— mene arma emneeeeemencensn deter Seniticoinss th ontentabmentnne- abt a An Empire of Books ie history of the book and the commercialization of print in the nineteenth century remain largely uncharted areas in South Asia. ‘This major monograph on the legendary Naval Kishore Press of Lucknow (est. 1858)—then the foremost publishing house 4h the subcontinent—represehts something of a preakthrough. It analyses an Indian publisher's engagement in the field of cultural production with a detail and rigour hitherto unknown. Describing early centres and pioncers of print in North India, the author traces the coming of the book in Hindi and Urdu. The career of Munshi Naval Kishore (1836-95) is viewed as exemplifying the publisher’s rise to prominence in the colonial public sphere. Ulrike Stark examines the publishing house in its roles as commercial enterprise and intellectual centre. Against a backdrop of cultural, social, and economic developments, she analyses the production of scholarly and popular books in religion, medicine, historiography, and literature, identifying the contributions of individual scholars, literati, and translators associated with the press. The business relationship between publisher and colonial government receives special © attention as an example of the transactional character of the colonial encounter. Aspects of patronage, competition, and contested agency in textbook production are foregrounded. Concluding with an analysis of patterns of Hindi and Urdu publishing, the book portrays the Naval Kishore Press as an intellectual microcosm reflecting a still vibrant composite culture. This book is invaluable for anyone interested in print culture, intellectual networks, and the cultural history of modern India. An Empire of Books An Empire of Books The Naval Kishore Press and the Diffusion of the Printed Word in Colonial India ULRIKE STARK a PKK tke ee 9 Published by PERMANENT BLACK Himalayana’, Mall Road, Ranikhet Cantt, Ranikhet 263645 perblack@gmail.com Distributed by ORIENT LONGMAN PRIVATE LTD Bangalore Bhopal Bhubaneshwar Chandigarh Chennai Ernakulam Guwahati Hyderabad Jaipur Kolkata Lucknow Mumbai New Delhi Patna www.orientlongman.com Copyright © 2007 Unrikr Stark ISBN 81-7824-196-X Typeset in Naurang by Guru Typograph Technology, Dwarka, New Delhi 110075 Printed and bound by Pauls Press, New Delhi 110020 For Jana, Nina, Durvy anp Nikuit Contents Acknowledgements Note on Transliteration and Conventions Tables Mlustrations Glossary Abbreviations INTRODUCTION Preparing the Ground: Towards a History of the Book in India The Publishing House and the Literary System Literacy, Readership, and Consumption Indigenous Responses to Print Publishers and the Colonial State THE COMING OF THE BOOK IN HINDI AND URDU 1.1. Early Printing in Hindi and Urdu 1.2. The Impact of Lithography 1.3. Printing in the NWP & Oudh Before 1857: Three Centres 1.4 The Age of Commercialization 1.5 Control versus Encouragement: Publishing under Colonial Legislation A LIFE IN PRINT: MUNSHI NAVAL KISHORE (1836-1895) 2.1 Family Background, Education, and Apprenticeship 2.2. Setting up Business in Lucknow 2.3. The Public Life of an Indian Publisher 29 35 45 49 83 107 110 124 129 viii Contents 2.4 The Publisher as Politician: Naval Kishore and the Anti-Congress Movement AN INDIAN SUCC! NAVAL KISHORE 3.1 The Early Years (1858-1865) 3.2. The Phase of Expansion (1865-1892) 3.3. Printing Books: Traditional Craftsmanship and Modern Technology 3.4 Marketing Books: Strategies of Advertising and Diffusion 3.5 Author-Publisher Relations 3.6 The Naval Kishore Press After 1895 SS STORY: THE HOUSE OF THE COLONIAL FACTOR: PATRONAGE, COLLABORATION, AND MONEY MAT RS 4.1. Textualizing Mass Education: The Textbook Venture 4.2. Copyright Controversies 4.3. Money Matters CALLIGRAPHERS, SCHOLARS, AND TRANSLATO THE PUBLISHING HOUS AN INTELLECTUAL, SPACE 5.1 The Department of Copying and Calligraphy 5.2. The Department of Composition and Translation 5.3 Medicine and History for Lay and Scholarly Readers 5.4 A Transition in Print: From Persian to Urdu 5.5. Sanskrit Shastric Texts for the Modern Reader 5.6 Selective Encounters with the West: Translating English Works Coping with Multilinguality: Dictionaries and Vocabularies a AVADH AKHBAR: POLITICS, PUBLIC OPINION, AND THE PROMOTION OF URDU LITERATURE 6.1 From Weekly to Daily: The Making of an Urdu Newspaper 6.2 Contents and Policy 6.3 Promoting Urdu Literature: Editors and Contributors 6.4 Other Journalistic Ventures 164 165 170 184 194 205 220 240, 250 266 268 280 291 306, 314 332 341 351 354 371 381 Contents HINDI PUBLISHING IN A STRONGHOLD OF URDU 7.1 Popularizing the Classics of Hindu Devotional Literature 7.2. Expandi 7.3 Commercializing Hindu Science 7.4 New Genres 75 nst the Divide: Patterns of Hindi and Urdu Publishing 2 the Horizons of Poetry nd a New Historical Perspective CONCLUSION Appendices Bibliography Index 453. 391 402 406 Acknowledgements encounter with books printed by Naval Kishore in nineteenth. century Lucknow took place in the mid-1990s. I had recently joined the South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University and was looking for a suitable topic for a postdoctoral research project when. one day, a librar- ian asked me to inspect a box of old, dusty, and brittle Hindi and Urdu books stacked away in the basement of the Institute Library. The con- tents of the box turned out to be nothing less than a treasure. Instead of being discarded, the books moved several floors up into my office. They formed the starting point of a fascinating journey into the history of the book in South Asia and became the subject of a Habilitationsschrift submitted in 2004. During the years I spent in researching and writing this book, I have received much invaluable advice and support from a great many people Iam deeply indebted to Professor Monika Boehm-Tettelbach for years of mentorship, constructive advice, and inspiration. She was always there to guide and support me with formidable scholarship and critical insights. | owe her more than words can express. A large number of colleagues and friends have provided critical com- ments, advice, and assistance. In particular, | would like to thank Dr Ravi Ahuja, Mala Al-Faroog, Dr Georg Berkemer, Dr Christoph Emmrich, Dr Harald Fischer-Tiné, Lila Hiittemann, Dr Jorg Gengnagel, Dr Anindita Ghosh, Dr Christina Oesterheld, Dr Thomas Lehmann, Amtul Manan Tahir, Professor Fateh Muhammad Malik, Professor Jamal Malik, Dr Margrit Pernau, and Dr Srilata Raman. I owe special thanks to Professor Vasudha Dalmia for support and encouragement over the years and for inviting me to Berkeley ata criti cal time. In Benares, the late Dr Dhirendranath S ingh readily shared his formidable knowledge of Hindi print culture with me. In Lucknow I have to thank many people for their outstanding support and hospitality. Many families spontaneously welcomed me irtto their homes and provided me with an unforgettable experience of Lakhnavi T he right books always seem to find me at the right time. My first Acknowledgements xi food and Lakhnavi tahzib. Lam deeply grateful to the family and descen- dants of Munshi Naval Kishore. particularly Rani Ram Kumar Bhargava, Dr Ranjit Bhargava, and his wite Shrruti Bhargava for their interest in and support of my work. Dr Ranjit Bhargava not only wholeheartedly supported my project and gave me permission to work on the premises of the Naval Kishore Estate (Raja Ram Kumar Book Depot), but also put some rare private papers at my disposal and shared family memories with me. Shrruti Bhargava welcomed me into the family and fed me dur- ing long hours of archival research I would like to thank Nasir Abid for first introducing me to his beau- tiful city and giving me a glimpse of Sarshar’s Lucknow: he helped establish contacts and opened many doors. Archival doors were also miraculously opened by the late Ashok Priyadarshi. Mrs Nirmala Sharma provided hospitality and made me feel at home in her guesthouse. Very special thanks are due to Ram and Dee Advani for their support, affection, and encouragement since my first visit to Lucknow in 1996 As for so many scholars who come to Lucknow, Ram Advani's book- shop has been a refuge and a haven for me. I consider myself fortunate to have found a brother and very dear friend in him. Tam deeply grateful to my friends who gave me shelter, food, and en- couragement during my research trips to India and England: Anshu and Sanjiv Narayan and their family provided me with a second home in Delhi: Kathleen Lawless, the late Burhan Tufail, Henie Lustgarten, and Phil Weitzman have been wonderful hosts during many visits to the Bri- tish Library Tam greatly indebted to the librarians and staff of various libraries and archives for their courtesy and efficiency in handling all manner of enquiries: the South Asia Institute Library (Heidelberg), the British Library (London), the Indian Institute Library (Oxtord), the National Archives (New Delhi), the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (New Delhi), the Uttar Pradesh State Archives (Lucknow), the Amiruddaula Public Library (Lucknow), and the Library of the Nadwat al-Culama (Luck- now). Dr Graham Shaw at the British Library, Elizabeth Krishna at the [Indian Institute, and Nusrat Naheed at the Amiruddaula Public Library were especially generous with their time and knowledge. Lila Hiittemann, Dr Indra Sengupta-Frey, Dr Guriqbal Sahota, and Rajeev Kinra read parts of this book in draft and offered valuable advice and suggestions. I owe special thanks to Kate Sullivan and Arnab Dey for their careful and perceptive reading of the entire manuscript and to Michaela Dimmers for helping me with illustrations, layout and much xii Acknowledgements more. Bao Do with his enormous expertise in computing and layout worked miracles in transforming my manuscript into a publishable book ata critical time. Professor Clinton Seely provided valuable assistance in getting the manuscript ready for publication. Jason Grunebaum has been very generous with his time, patiently helping me with finishing touches. Dwaipayan Sen did a great job helping me compile the index. Jam grateful to the Humanities Division of the University of Chicago and especially Dean Danielle Allen for their generous finance o in getting this book published. Lastly, Lowe very special thanks to my wonderful family and friends who provided encouragement and emotional support over the years. You kept me grounded and in remembrance of the things that are really important in life. I support Note on Transliteration and Conventions or the sake of readability, no diacritical marks have been used for personal and geographical names, nor for Indian terms that have become part of the English language. Indian language names and scripts also appear without diacritics. For personal names, modern transliteration has been used, except in the case of some famous figures. who are still better known by contemporary forms (e.g. Rammohan Roy). The English forms of some Indian place-names (e.g. Lucknow. Benares. Delhi, Calcutta) have been retained. The state of Avadh also often appears in its old British spelling, ‘Oudh’, especially when colonial institutions are discussed (e.g. Oudh Educational Department), A special difficulty of this study is that it deals with terms and book titles in five different languages, namely Hindi, Urdu, Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic. To use a different transliteration system for each lan would have made it thoroughly unreadable, unnecessarily. For this reason Larrived at and Sanskrit are transliterated age while confusing the reader acompromise. Words in Hindi according to the systems used in R.S. McGregor’s Oxford Hindi-English Dic tionary and M, Monier-Williams” Sanskrit-English Dictionary. For Sanskrit terms the inherent vowel *a” has been retained (hence Ramayan in Hindi and Ramayana in Sanskrit). Transliteration of words in Urdu, Persian, and Arabic follows the system used in J.T, Platts, A Dictionary of Urdi, Classical Hindi, and English with some minor modifications. The Persian izdfat is indicated by -e. ‘The same word may sometimes be transliterated variously, depending on whether it occurs in a Hindi or Urdu context. There exis a baffling variety of contemporary spellings for the name of the central character of this book, Munshi Naval Kishore (correctly transcribed as Navalkishor in Urdu and Navalkigor in Hindi). Some of these represent ‘corrupt’ English pronunciation. The publisher himself signed his name ‘Newul Kishore’ in English documents. In opting for Naval Kishore I have chosen a compromise between the most common variant and the principles of modern transliteration. xiv Note on Transliteration Throughout this book Naval Kishore Press (NKP) titles issued from Lucknow, Kanpur, and Lahore have been marked by an asterisk preceding the year of publication. The date after the asterisk indicates the year gt first publication from the NKP only, and often does not coincide with the first printed edition of a given title. Also, despite my best efforts, the Publication dates given for NKP first editions may notalways be accurate, for the firm did not keep a complete and accurate record of its early imprints dating from c. 1858-65. To complicate matters, lithographed and typeset versions of the same text, as well as reprints in different format, were often announced as ‘first’ editions, while reprints of other Publishers’ titles were generally designated as ‘second’ editions on NKp title pages. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations from the original Hindi and Urdu are my own. 5.0 6.0 6.1 7.0 Tables Books Published by the Gulzar-e Hamesha Bahar Press in Benares, 1849 63 Price Patterns: Books Produced at the NKP. 1863-87 68-9 Number of Persons Engaged in the Book Trade in Urban Centres in the NWP&Oudh, 1881 2 Organizational Structure of the NKP 172 NKP Publishing Figures: Registered Titles per Year, 1868-95 181 The NKP’s Sales Network in 1879 203 Copyrights Owned by the NKP in 1879 207-11 Textbook Production in Avadh: Books Sold by the Oudh Educational Department, 1865-71 235 Offical Patronage Accorded to Presses in the NWP&Oudh 252 Some Private Patrons of Sanskrit Texts in Translation 320 Avadh Akhbar in 1871 366 Avadh Akhbar: Circulation, Frequency, Editors 380 Classification of Nagari Publications in NKP Book Lists 414 Publishing Patterns in the NWP&Oudh: Number of Registered Titles in Urdu and Hindi, 1868-95 431 Number of Students Learning Urdu and Hindi in NWP&Oudh Government Schools 432 Fig. Fig. Fig. 3 Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig Fig. Fig Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Crane 10, 12 14 15 16 Illustrations Munshi Naval Kishore (1836-95) 128 Title page of Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Ahkam-e 1a°Gm-e ahl-e kitab (1868) 136 Title page of Hir ranjha kuh, Mumbai al

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