Bal Ganghadhar Shastri Jambhekar (20 February 1812 – 17 May 1846) also known as Bal Shastri Jambhekar was an Indian journalist from Bombay Presidency. He was the first to start journalism in

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India **Marathi people (Uttar Pradesh), the Marathi people in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Mar ...

with the first newspaper in this language named '' Darpan'' in the early days of British Rule in India. Thus he is known as the ''Father of Marathi journalism''. January 6 is not the birth anniversary of Balshastri Jambhekar. On January 6, 1832, he started Darpan, the first newspaper in Marathi. Therefore, this day is celebrated as Patrakar Din (Journalists' Day) or Darpan Din in Maharashtra. Since Balshastri Jambhekar himself never mentioned his birth date anywhere, there is some confusion regarding it. However, based on the study of available documents, one of his biographers
Yashwant Padhye
has suggested that his birth date could be February 16, 1812. Due to this uncertainty, the Marathi Vishwakosh does not mention his birth date. However, as per
government order issued in 2021
Balshastri Jambhekar's birth anniversary i
officially celebrated on February 20

Birth

He was born on 20th February 1812 in the remote village of Pombhurle in Devgad taluka (Sindhudurga) in

Konkan The Konkan is a stretch of land by the western coast of India, bound by the river Daman Ganga at Damaon in the north, to Anjediva Island next to Karwar town in the south; with the Arabian Sea to the west and the Deccan plateau to the eas ...

region of Maharashtra state. Talented and intelligent since childhood, Jambhekar became a great scholar and researcher in many subjects on adulthood. He was active only for a very short period, but his exceptional work left a permanent mark on India. And he died in Baneshwar.

Establishment of First Newspaper in Marathi Language – Darpan

Balshastri Jambhekar had grasped correctly the importance and power of the print media in the coming times during British Rule in India. He was sure that if the British were to be overthrown and freedom was to be attained, then it was essential to awaken the masses and the print media was the most useful tool to that end. The newspaper Darpan was born out of this patriotism and social awareness. He founded Darpan as the first Marathi newspaper. He was editor of this newspaper during the British rule in India. This turned out to be the beginning of Marathi journalism. Balshastri Jambhekar was only 20 years old then. His associates in this phase included people like Govind Kunte and Bhau Mahajan. The first issue of Darpan was published on 6 January 1832. The newspaper was printed both in English and Marathi languages in two separate columns. Marathi was meant for the general public and English was meant for the ruling British. It was priced at 1 rupee. Newspaper was a new idea in India at that time hence there were very few subscribers in the beginning but slowly people appreciated it and agreed with the thoughts expressed in it. The readership grew. It was published for eight and half years. The last issue was published in July 1840.

Social Impact of Darpan

He specifically dealt with the issues of widow remarriage in his newspaper. He tried to develop a scientific set of mind in the masses of uneducated Indian, Maharashtra. This resulted in a large-scale debate in the society and finally in a movement for the support of widow remarriage. He passionately desired that the knowledge should percolate in the society and Darpan was one of the means to this end. He was aware that the country could only progress with the use of scientific knowledge and a rational outlook towards social problems. He wanted to build a society having a scientific outlook. He was one of those social activists who made continuous effort in generating useful and healthy consciousness amongst the common masses and attempted to educate the uneducated. His never-dying talent and endeavour left a stamp over not only the Maharashtrian public, but across India, as a distinguished social reformer and journalist.

Other contributions

Balshastri Jambhekar understood the importance of public libraries. He founded 'The Bombay Native General Library'. He also started 'Native Improvement Society', of which 'Student's Literary and Scientific Society' was an offshoot. Intellectual giants like Dadabhai Navroji and Bhau Daji Lad drew inspiration through these institutions. Dadabhai Naoroji, Atmaram Pandurang and many other prominent scholars, future activists were Bal Shastri's pupils at the Elphinstone College. In 1840 he published first Marathi monthly, Digdarshan (meaning direction in English). He edited this magazine for 5 years. Digdarshan published articles on various subjects including physics, chemistry, geography, history etc. He had mastery in many languages including Marathi,

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

, English and

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

. Apart from that he also had a good grasp of

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

, French, Gujarati and Bengali. He was the first Indian to have published research papers in the quarterly journal of the Asiatic Society. He was the first person to print Dnyaneshwari in 1845. It was known as the first ever-printed version. He was also well known as the first professor of Hindi in the Elphinston College, Mumbai. He also worked as Director of the Colaba Observatory. He wrote books like Neetikatha (stories on morality), Encyclopedic History of England, English grammar, History of India and Mathematics based on Zero. He was active during the years 1830 to 1846 and worked for the betterment of Maharashtra and India. He had a very short life span of just 34 years. But in those years as well he tried to educate people and develop a scientific mindset. He a stamp of his personality as a social reformer and a journalist during the period 1832 to 1846.

Recognition

For these contributions in the form of first Marathi newspaper and first Marathi monthly, he is acknowledged as The Father of Marathi Journalism. The day of publication of the first issue of Darpan is 6 January and it is celebrated as the Journalist Day in Maharashtra in his memory. While he died in 1846 further recognition was forthcoming in 1901 when Justice Narayan Ganesh Chandavarkar while delivering eulogy for the just died Justice M.G. Ranade ( in whose place he had been appointed as justice at Bombay High Court) noted that in terms of intellectual stature Balshastri Jambhekar was perhaps the only one who could have matched up to the intellectual level of Justice Ranade who he said was one of the foremost of Indian university graduates.

References

A profile of Mr Balshastri Jambhekar on MNS site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Balshastri Jambhekar, Acharya 1812 births 1846 deaths Marathi people Journalists from British India People from Bombay Presidency People from Sindhudurg district