Print and the Urdu Public : Muslims, Newspapers, and Urban Life in Colonial India

In early twentieth century British India, prior to the arrival of digital medias and after the rise of nationalist political movements, a small-town paper from the margins of society became a key player in Urdu journalism. Published in the isolated market town of Bijnor, Madinah grew to hold influence across North India and the Punjab while navigating complex issues of religious and political identity. In Print and the Urdu Public , Megan Robb uses the previously unexamined perspective of the Madinah to consider Urdu print publics and urban life in South Asia. Through a discursive and material analysis of Madinah , the book explores how Muslims who had settled in ancestral qasbahs , or small towns, used newspapers to facilitate a new public consciousness. The book demonstrates how Madinah connected the Urdu newspaper conversation both explicitly and implicitly with Muslim identity and delineated the boundaries of a Muslim public conversation in a way that emphasized rootedness to local politics and small urban spaces. The case study of this influential but understudied newspaper reveals how a network of journalists with substantial ties to qasbahs produced a discourse self-consciously alternative to the Western-influenced, secularized cities. Megan Robb augments the analysis with evidence from contemporary Urdu, English, and Hindi papers, government records, private diaries, private library holdings, ethnographic interviews, and training materials for newspaper printers. This thoroughly researched volume recovers the erasure of qasbah voices and proclaims the importance of space and time in definitions of the public sphere in South Asia. Print and the Urdu Public demonstrates how an Urdu newspaper published from the margins became central to the Muslim public constituted in the first half of the twentieth century. "In early twentieth century British India, prior to the arrival of digital medias and after the rise of nationalist political movements, a small-town paper from the margins became a key node for an Urdu journalism conversation with particular influence in the United Provinces and Punjab. Understanding this newspaper's rise shows how a print public characterized by bottom-up as well as top-down approaches influenced the evolution of a new type of Urdu public in 20th century South Asia. Addressing a gap in scholarship on Urdu media in the early 20th century, during the period where it underwent some of its most critical transformations, this book contributes a discursive and material analysis of a previously unexamined Urdu newspaper Madinah, augmenting its analysis with evidence from contemporary Urdu, English and Hindi papers, government records, private diaries, private library holdings, ethnographic interviews with families who owned and ran the newspaper, and training materials for newspaper printers. Madinah identified the Urdu newspaper conversation both explicitly and implicitly with Muslim identity, a commitment that became difficult to manage as the pro-Congress paper sought simultaneously to counter calls for Pakistan, to criticize Congress' treatment of Muslims, and to emphasize Urdu's necessary connection to Muslim identity. Since Madinah delineated the boundaries of a Muslim, public conversation in a way that emphasized rootedness to local politics and small urban spaces like Bijnor, this study demonstrates the necessity of considering spatial and temporal orientation in studies of the public in South Asia"-- Provided by publisher Dedication 6 Contents 10 Preface 10 Introduction— A Public Is a Place and Time: Dimensions of an Urdu Public Sphere 14 1. Putting the Public House of Madīnah on the Muslim Map 37 2. Back to the Future Qasbah: The Timescape of Bijnor 70 3. Urdu Lithography as a Muslim Technology 103 4. Viewing the Map of Europe through the Lens of Islam 139 5. Provincializing Policies through the Urdu Public 174 Conclusion: The Public as a Timescape 195 Transliteration and Citation Method 206 Appendix I: General Glossary 210 Appendix II: Proposal for Qualifications for Electors in Bijnor, 1913 212 Appendix III: Editors and Journalists of Madīnah, 1912–1948 214 Appendix IV: Spring Season 222 Bibliography 226 Index 252 Print and the Urdu Public: Muslims, Newspapers, and Urban Life in Colonial India addresses Urdu print publics from the perspective of Madinah newspaper, published in Bijnor qasbah of the then-United Provinces, in order to demonstrate how an Urdu newspaper published from the margins became central to the Muslim public constituted in the first half of the twentieth century. 'Print and the Urdu Public' addresses Urdu print publics from the perspective of Madinah newspaper, published in Bijnor qasbah of the then - United Provinces, in order to demonstrate how an Urdu newspaper published from the margins became central to the Muslim public constituted in the first half of the twentieth century