''Rast Goftar'' () was an Anglo-Gujarati paper operating in

Bombay Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial centre, financial capital and the list of cities i ...

that was started in 1854 by

Dadabhai Naoroji Dadabhai Naoroji (4 September 1825 – 30 June 1917), also known as the ''"Grand Old Man of India"'' and "Unofficial Ambassador of India", was an Indian independence activist, political leader, merchant, scholar and writer. He was one of the f ...

and Kharshedji Cama and championed social reform among

Parsi The Parsis or Parsees () are a Zoroastrian ethnic group in the Indian subcontinent. They are descended from Persian refugees who migrated to the Indian subcontinent during and after the Arab-Islamic conquest of Iran in the 7th century, w ...

s in Western India. "Rast Goftar" is in

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

, it also had a Sanskrit/Gujarati "

Satya Prakash Satya Prakash may refer to: * Satya Prakash (physicist) * Satya Prakash (actor) * D. Satya Prakash, Indian filmmaker See also

* {{hndis, Prakash, Satya ...

" subtitle since 1861 as a result of merging of "Satya Prakash" started in 1852 by Karsandas Mulji. It was edited by Kaikhosro Nowroji Kabraji during 1864-1904. Kabraji also edited "Streebodh" which was edited by his daughter-in-law Putlaibai Kabraji until 1942.

Background

A riot between Parsis and Muslims concerning the printing of a picture of prophet Mohammad in 1851 was an immediate cause of the founding of the paper. As the Riots in

continued, the Parsis became frustrated with their leaders, and

started the paper with the purpose of voicing the grievances of the poor and middle class of his people. Postal rates tended to limit their circulation to local or nearby areas, but sometimes enthusiasm for a cause led the managers of a paper to distribute several copies of each issue free. Thus, the founders of the paper lost some 10,000 rupees by distributing the first issues of the ''Rast Goftar'' free, impatient at the state of

society, obviously in a hurry to reform it. In 1857 the proprietors of ''Rast Goftar'' in Bombay converted their property into a joint-stock concern so that Nasarvanji Cama, who had financed the paper from the beginning, would not be the sole loss-bearer. K. R. Cama, Sorabji Shapoorji Bengalee, and Nowroji Fardonji all became proprietors. The local governments subsidized several vernacular journals in northern India, though only a few in Bengal and Bombay. Their subsidy consisted in subscribing to a certain fixed number of copies of the journals concerned. In 1858 circulation rose from 432 to 852, a number then unheard of for native journalism. The widened from exclusively Parsi topics to larger questions of Indian politics. During the Rebellion of 1857, the paper remained loyal to the British, and it even began the first English columns in Gujarat, mostly written by Nowroji Fardoonj. By the 1870s ''Rast Goftar'' was one of the four daily newspapers operating in

, and it was not only vigorous in itself, but was also the cause of vigor in other journals either by way of antagonism or support.

References

{{reflist Newspapers published in Mumbai Defunct newspapers published in India Zoroastrian media Parsi culture Newspapers established in 1851