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268 Chapter  Print and the Emergence of Multiple Publics in Nineteenth-Century Punjab Vivek Bhandari Harsukh rai and Dayal Singh Majithia, two prominent personalities of late-nineteenth-century Punjab (in North India), came from radically different backgrounds. Harsukh Rai was a Bhatnagar Kayastha (a caste of scribes) from Bulandshehr whose father had been appointed municipal commissioner by the British. With the help of the colonial government, Rai moved to Punjab and established a printing press in Lahore immediately after the British annexation of Punjab in 1849. Dayal Singh Majithia was the son of Sardar Lehna Singh, a prominent lieutenant of Ranjeet Singh, the ruler of Punjab province until 1849. On his father’s death, Dayal Singh inherited one of the largest and wealthiest estates of the province. In 1883–4 he was appointed honorary magistrate of Amritsar and subsequently went on to join the Indian National Congress as a spokesman for the Punjabi region. Both of these men, each in his own way, deployed their literary talents and political skills as self-appointed publicists for their personal social constituencies. They adopted ideological postures inspired by Western liberalism but adapted them to suit their shifting contexts, and by participating in diverse publics, they addressed a wider social base than had ever been possible in the past. These men shared the distinction of establishing two of the earliest and most widely read newspapers of the Punjab—the Kohinoor (in Urdu) and the Tribune (in English). These newspapers reached impressive circulation figures and had a profound social impact by encouraging lively debate on a wide range of issues. As early as 1856, for instance, Rai expressed strong views on the freedom of the press (perhaps for the first time in colonial Punjab) and went on to influence a whole generation of publicists. What these men were articulating was a heightened awareness that they were members of a distinct, regional urban . Imdad Sabri, Tarikh-i Sahafat-i Urdu (New Delhi, 1953), 417–25. . Prakash Ananda, A History of The Tribune (New Delhi: Tribune Trust, 1986), 1–2, 3–4. Print in Nineteenth-Century Punjab 269 culture in flux and steeped in practices of debate and argument. A product of dramatic shifts in the political economy of the region following the British annexation of Punjab in 1849, this social formation set the parameters for how groups in India viewed questions of justice, loyalty, freedom, reform, literary production, and indeed their own subject position in relation to the wider world. Because of their scope, these shifts had far-reaching effects on the contours of nationalist discourse as it emerged in the last decades of the nineteenth century. This essay describes how the emergence of new forms of communication (specifically those associated with print and oratory) created an urban environment that fostered cosmopolitan debate, reform, and social mobilization in nineteenth-century Punjab. Elizabeth Eisenstein’s pioneering work on the ways in which the transformations associated with print shaped a culture of cosmopolitanism gives us a starting point for unearthing how the growth in uses of print shaped urban culture in Punjab. Eisenstein points out that although “a reading public was not only more dispersed; . . . more atomistic and individualistic than a hearing one, . . . vicarious participation in more distant events was . . . enhanced; and even while local ties were loosened, links to larger collective units were being forged.” By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, this cosmopolitan attitude was an important facet of city life in the region, and the politics of Punjab province was increasingly shaped by the activities of a group of individuals who came from different backgrounds but were beginning to converge in a plethora of associational “publics ,” variously described as samajes, sabhas, and anjumans (loosely translated as “societies,” “congregations,” and “gatherings,” respectively). This activity produced a class of publishers, booksellers, and publicists that was able to use the existing, deeply drawn lines of communication within society to which the colonial authorities had only minimal access, to fashion a public culture based primarily on the uses of oratory, performance, and print. The Origins of Print in South Asia In a recent essay, Vinay Dharwadker argues that colonial South Asia witnessed the first “fully formed” print culture to appear in the world outside Europe and North America, “distinguished by its size, productivity, and multilingual and multinational constitution, as well as its large array of Asian languages and its inclusion of numerous non-Western investors and producers among . Eisenstein, PPAC, 132. [18.119...

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