From theMeḥ filto the printed word: Public debate and discourse in late colonial India

Abstract

In 1905, the Urdu writer ‘Abdul Halim Sharar published a critical review of Brijnarayan Chakbast’s new edition of Pandat Daya Shankar Kaul Nasīm’s (1811–43) maṡnavī (‘Narrative Poem’), Gulzār-e Nasīm (‘Rose Garden of Nasim’). This critical review met with a flurry of responses in newspapers throughout north India and the Deccan. Described as the longest and bitterest of polemics in the history of Urdu literature, this debate reveals the printing press’ new-found role as one of the main forums for public debate. This article seeks to turn our focus to the world of print outside the colonial gaze, which provided a space for the consolidation and expansion of social and cultural worlds now linked in a way previously unimaginable. Many of those involved in arenas of vernacular print at the turn of the century were creating a world, not dependent on colonial patronage, nor constrained by physical distance. This debate, in particular, between Sharar, Chakbast and their respective supporters, presents unique opportunities to examine the relationship between print, circulation, literature, history and the workings of an expanding and critical public in late colonial India, while pointing to some of the changes fostered by print in the world of public debate and discourse.