History of Muslim Press in Sub-Continent – Part Three

History of Muslim Press in Sub-Continent – Part Three

Continued from the previous part …

Before the evolution of the Two Nation Theory in the 20^th century presented by Allama Mohammad Iqbal which meant that Hindus and Muslims of the sub-continent were separate nations and they cannot live together in the same culture. The objective
of the Muslim press during that period was generally to educate the Muslims and with the passage of time it emphasized on self-awakening of the Muslims of India, so that they can stand up and fight for their identity, religion and educational and political
rights. It ended up changing the public opinion amongst the Muslims to demand and fight not only for the separate identity but also a separate homeland where they can practice their religion and live a life free of slavery. It was because of the press and
inspirational leadership that Muslims were able to unite themselves once again after the turmoil of 1857.

With the downfall of the Mughal rule, Britain started offensive invasion in the sub-continent. Wherever the Muslims were in majority, there was quite a significant hatred for the British and people started privately-owned secret handwritten papers in order
to induce and stimulate more agony and reaction against the British and especially the East India Company. In the 1857 war of independence, such papers played an important role.

.The British rule in India had caused so much unrest amongst the Indians that they decided to revolt against the British. However, the war of independence was a total failure and Indians could not resist against the strong British. At that
time, there were a number of daily and weekly English newspapers and magazines which were either owned by the British or the Anglo Indians as compared to the Muslim newspapers which could be counted on fingertips. Muslims had strong press only in Delhi and
they tried their level best. Some of the leading newspapers published from Delhi were Delhi-Urdu Akhbar, Sadiq-ul-Akhbar and Siraj-ul-Akhbar. . Because of the British strength, the Muslim press was very much suppressed by the East India Company.  As far as
journalism and press is concerned, Muslims were detached of journalistic practice and their newspapers were either banned or diminished. Some Muslim newspapers had to shut their business down themselves in fear of the British atrocities.

In 1853, there were approximately 35 vibrant Urdu newspapers but only 12 had survived till 1857 in which just one newspaper was owned by a Muslim. These incidents completely isolated the Muslims from journalism and the journalistic practices
in sub-continent. But later on, Muslim press developed significantly with the efforts of some of the great Muslim leaders like Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and competed with the Hindu and British press in India.

To be continued …

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Posted by Yasir Hashmi on Dec 7 2011. Filed under Pakistan, South Asia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry