''Udant Martand'' () is the first

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

newspaper published in India. Started on 30 May 1826, from

Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...

(now

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

), the weekly newspaper was published every Tuesday by Pt. Jugal Kishore Shukla. It was closed on 4 December 1827 due to financial crisis.

History

By the early 19th century, educational publications in Hindi had already started, thus journalism was only a matter time. By the 1820s, newspapers in several Indian languages were starting, including

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

and

Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...

; however, printing in

Devanagari script Devanagari ( ; in script: , , ) is an Indic script used in the Indian subcontinent. It is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ancient '' Brāhmī'' script. It is one of the official scripts of India an ...

was still rare. Soon after Calcutta School Book started printing, ''

Samachar Darpan ''Samachar Darpan'' () was a Bengali weekly newspaper published by the Baptist Missionary Society and published on 23 May 1818 from the Baptist Mission Press at Serampore in the first half of the 19th century. It is considered to be the first Ind ...

'', a Bengali journal which started in 1819, had some portions in Hindi. However, Hindi reading audience base was still at a nascent stage. Thus few of the early attempts were successful, but they nevertheless were a start. Shukla was a lawyer originally from

Kanpur Kanpur (Hindustani language, Hindustani: ), originally named Kanhapur and formerly anglicized as Cawnpore, is the second largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Uttar Pradesh after Lucknow. It was the primary ...

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh ( ; UP) is a States and union territories of India, state in North India, northern India. With over 241 million inhabitants, it is the List of states and union territories of India by population, most populated state in In ...

, who had settled in Calcutta, and became Proceedings Reader at the

Sadr Diwani Adalat The Ṣadr Dīwānī ʿAdālat (, ) (English: Sudder Dewanny Adawlut) was the Supreme Court of Revenue in British India established at Calcutta by Warren Hastings in 1772. It was reformed in 1780 and again in 1793 by the British Parliament. The co ...

(Civil and Revenue High Court), and later on a

pleader A special pleader was a historical legal occupation. The practitioner, or "special pleader" in English law specialised in drafting "pleadings", in modern terminology statements of case. History Up to the 19th century, there were many rules, tech ...

. On 16 February 1826, he along with Munnu Thakur of Banstala Gali, Calcutta, received a license to publish a newspaper in Hindi. The newspaper was started on 30 May 1826; with it for the first time a newspaper was published completely in Hindi, using Devanagari script. Udant Martand employed a mix of

Khari Boli Kauravi (, ), also known as Khaṛībolī, is a dialect of Hindustani descended from Shauraseni Prakrit that is mainly spoken in northwestern Uttar Pradesh, outside of Delhi. Modern Hindi and Urdu are two standard registers of Hindustani, ...

and

Braj Bhasha Braj is a language within the Indo-Aryan language family spoken in the Braj region in Western Uttar Pradesh centered on Mathura. Along with Awadhi, it was one of the two predominant literary languages of North-Central India before gradually ...

dialects of Hindi. The first issue printed 500 copies, and the newspaper was published every Tuesday. The office of newspaper was at 37, Amartalla Lane, Kolutolla, near

Barabazar Barabazar is a census town in the Barabazar CD block in the Manbazar subdivision of the Purulia district in the state of West Bengal, India. Before Indian independence in 1947, it was the capital of an expensive zamindari of Barabhum in Br ...

Market in Kolkata. Owing to its distance from the Hindi-speaking areas of

North India North India is a geographical region, loosely defined as a cultural region comprising the northern part of India (or historically, the Indian subcontinent) wherein Indo-Aryans (speaking Indo-Aryan languages) form the prominent majority populati ...

, the newspaper had difficulty in finding subscribers. The publisher tried to get government subscription, and patronage in the form of postal fee exemption for eight newspapers to be posted to North India. However, it didn't receive the subscription and only one newspaper was allowed postal fee exemption, which meant that the paper could never be financially viable. Nevertheless, it briefly gained prominence for featuring the controversy that rose Bengali-language magazine, ''Samachar Chandrika'' and traders from interiors, who were based in Calcutta.

Legacy

Today, "Hindi Journalism Day" or ''Hindi Patrakarita Diwas'' is celebrated on 30 May each year, as it marked the "beginning to

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree of accuracy. The word, a noun, applies to the journ ...

References

Sources

* {{cite book, author=Ram Ratan Bhatnagar, title=The Rise and Growth of Hindi Journalism, 1826-1945: Being an Attempt at a History of Hindi Journalism in Historical, Chronological and Evolutionary Perspective, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lXQLAAAAMAAJ, page=27, year=1947, publisher=Kitab Mahal

External links

Official website
Newspapers established in 1826 Defunct Hindi-language newspapers Weekly newspapers published in India Defunct newspapers published in India Publications disestablished in 1827 Newspapers published in Kolkata Defunct weekly newspapers 1826 establishments in British India