''Udant Martand'' (from Hindi, “The Rising Sun”) is the first

Hindi language Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

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

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

(now

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

), 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 (;"Urdu"
'' Devanagari script Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental syste ...

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

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...

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

Sadr Diwani Adalat The Ṣadr Dīwānī ʿAdālat ( ur, , bn, সদর দেওয়ানি আদালত ) (English: Sudder Dewanny Adawlut) was the Supreme Court of Revenue in British India established at Calcutta by Warren Hastings in 1772. It was reforme ...

(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 ( hi, कौरवी, ur, ), also known as Khaṛībolī is a set of Western Hindi varieties of Shauraseni Prakrit mainly spoken in Northwestern Uttar Pradesh. Standard Hindi and Urdu are based on Khariboli, specifically on its De ...

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

North India North India is a loosely defined region consisting of the northern part of India. The dominant geographical features of North India are the Indo-Gangetic Plain and the Himalayas, which demarcate the region from the Tibetan Plateau and Central ...

, 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. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (pro ...

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