Hindi journalism and the emergence of modern Hindi: Part 1

Paradkar Smriti Bhawan, a three-storey white building on Maidagin road in Varanasi, also houses the Kashi Patrakar Sangh. It’s not clear how much influence the personality after whom the building is named—Baburao Vishnu Paradkar—has on the seminars, talks and lectures organised here. However, one influence is clear.

. In the first half of the 20th century, scholar-journalist and editor of Aaj , BV Paradkar (1883-1955), played a major role in standardising modern Hindi in the pages of his newspaper. Among the many influences that the written and spoken Hindi carry today, the influence of Paradkar is certainly an important one.

. In hindsight, what’s undeniable is the role of Hindi journalism in shaping modern Hindi language in the last 200 years of its evolution. In this long process that started with the publication of the first Hindi newspaper Oodunata Martand in 1826, Paradkar served as a strong mid-link. Many before him and many after him steered the Hindi press in making Hindi ready for use in the modern world.

. The formative years of Hindi journalism coincided with the emergence of Khari Boli as a vehicle of distinct identity from centuries of eclectic history of the Hindi language.

. Here the intention isn’t to undertake the ambitious task of chronicling the history of modern Hindi or that of journalism practised in it. This series limits itself to looking back at some important landmarks of Hindi journalism’s role in the journey of modern Hindi. It was a 200-year period in which Hindi not only received a standardised form but its political functions also gained momentum, while its intellectual and literary identity was consolidated.

. In the second half of the 19th century, Hindi was struggling to find its voice in the fastly-developing publication scene in the country. It was also trying to navigate through diverse claims on it from different dialects and historical roots. In that phase, it was Hindi literary journalism pioneered by Babu Bhartendu Harishchandra (1850-1885) which gave the development of modern Hindi a direction. Though the influence of Braj was evident in his publications (especially in poetry), literary magazines Kavivachan Sudha and Harishchandra Patrika published by him did attempt to establish a Khari Boli variant of Hindi.

. At the turn of the century, the development of modern Hindi found a major voice in Hindi literary journal Saraswati, which began publication in 1900. Under the editorial leadership of Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi (1864-1938) who started editing it in 1903, the task for evolving a standardised Hindi almost became an institutional objective.

. Saraswati established itself as Hindi’s most influential publication in the first half of the last century. It gave stability to modern Hindi’s grammar and usage. Other Hindi literary magazines also emerged onto the scene and strengthened the effort to make Hindi carve its identity amid the administrative clout of English, Persian and Urdu.

. Obviously, this wasn’t limited to literary journalism alone. The first three decades of the 20th century witnessed news journalism maturing in the Hindi press. This brought two different forms of influence on modern Hindi. The first one could be seen in Aaj , established in 1920 and nurtured by BV Paradkar and later RR Khadilkar, where the standard lexicon and structure of journalistic Hindi was meticulously developed. The second form of influence was of a different stream which led to Hindi being written in a way that allowed people to easily comprehend it. Under Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi (1890-1931), Pratap , established in 1913, preferred colloquial language to reach out to its readers.

. These two influences somehow represented the duality of Hindi’s historical ambitions in those times. First, amid the diverse claims of multilingual India, Hindi was being seen with possibilities of acting as the linking cultural device of newfound nationalism. Second, in the north, central and parts of East India, it was viewed for its appeal as a people’s language.

. Both perspectives were evident in how it was used and advocated in Hindi newspapers and magazines. The number of such publications increased in the 1930s as Hindustan , the sister publication of The Hindustan Times , began its journey in 1936, while Dainik Jagran appeared on the scene in the 1940s.

. Post-Independence, the duality of these impulses in developing a form of written Hindi found two major facilitators at different points of time. First, its constitutional status as an official language (not to be confused as the national language) meant that the official push for developing a scientific and comprehensive vocabulary for its precise administrative use gained momentum. The second development was a spillover effect on Hindi journalism of the Jayaprakash movement of the mid-1970s. It inspired an ideological stream of writing Hindi in a way that served its purpose as a people’s language.

. However, besides ideological reasoning, the new initiative of localisation was also shaped by an expansion drive in the Hindi press which in turn was guided by new dynamics in the publication market.

. In the last decade of the 20th century, economic liberalisation and globalisation didn’t only alter the work culture in Hindi journalism but also had a clear impact on the style and form of Hindi used in newspapers and on television news and websites.

. The modernity in contemporary Hindi has its evolutionary strands tied to all these developments over centuries. Many of them are closely linked to the trajectory of Hindi journalism. It could be seen as the story of Hindi journalism mirroring the struggle of Hindi in finding firm contemporary relevance for itself. In the following three parts we will look at some aspects of this historical journey.

Hindi journalism and the emergence of modern Hindi: Part 1

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