Social Scientist

An Empire of Books: The Nawal Kishore Press and the Diffusion of the Printed Word inColonial India by Ulrike StarkReview by: Razak KhanSocial Scientist, Vol. 37, No. 3/4 (Mar. - Apr., 2009), pp. 72-75Published by: Social ScientistStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27748587 .

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Social Scientist

where to sell their produce. More than half the households do not know what

crop insurance is, and only four percent have used it ever. However, there is

extensive use of modern inputs such as fertilizers, manures and seeds etc. The

author mentions another disturbing fact that only 2.2 percent farmer

households are registered with farmers' organisation. Only 29 percent of

households are members of any cooperative. Bhalla also makes a few policy suggestions like upgrading the knowledge

base of farmers through strengthening of extension services and PRIs, making institutional credit available in time and at reasonable rates, increasing the yield and productivity of crops through investment in research and development, new

technology, better market access, and finally through institutional reforms like

land holding consolidation. An important recommendation is to give homesteads to landless labour to augment their income and boost the dairy

industry. The National Book Trust must be complemented for bringing out the

book on a subject of urgent attention. Besides the specialist researchers, the book

may well serve the general readership in raising their awareness of the farm sector and the peasantry

- our significant but neglected other half.

Chinmoy Biswal, Centre for Social Medicine and Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Ulrike Stark, An Empire of Books: The Nawal Kishore Press and the Diffusion of the Printed Word in Colonial India, Permanent Black, 2007; 606 pages, HB; Rs 795

In recent years book history has received attention by scholars working on South

Asia. Ulrike Stark's path breaking work marks an important watershed in this

direction. Intertwining book history with intellectual and literary history, Stark

brings together the entangled genealogies of print and intellectual history in

colonial north India. The book explicates the hegemonic role assigned to colonial

ideology and shows the native response and agency in appropriating the printed word in various ways. Book history here emerges as a fascinating journey into

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Book Reviews

the world of debate and consciousness of governance, public opinion, religious reform, social issues as well as entertainment, pleasure and creativity.

The author is successful in bringing together a variety of issues under the

domain of her study. The book focuses on the life and career of Nawal Kishore, the founder of the Naval Kishore Press (henceforth, NKP), the largest publisher of Hindi/Urdu in Northern India in late nineteenth century. In the process, the

author also shed light on the galaxy of important intellectuals associated with

NKP in varied role as editors, calligraphers, authors, poets, patrons and consumers.

The book provides a rich and detailed examination of early print history of

Hindi and Urdu in North western provinces and Oudh after 1857 or what Stark

calls 'Age of commercialization 'that marked the growth of'print capitalism' in

colonial northern India. Stark points that new technological innovation, growth of indigenous paper industry among other factors facilitated this transition by making the book an 'affordable commodity' for a large section of urban literate

class. In the age of commercial print the printer-publisher emerges as the chief

actor, they came from varied background: traditional scribal classes, Kayasthas and Khatris, Muslims and Hindu religious scholars. The work shows the

pioneering role played by ulemas and pundits in appropriating print.

Among these many printer-publishers was Munshi Naval Kishore, a

product of this composite culture and yet distinguished from others in

responding to the changing times. Starting modestly from a small printing press Nawal Kishore rose rapidly between 1865-72 by adopting modern technology and better marketing and innovative print ventures. However his successors

could not keep up to his legacy and subsequently the press declined after 1890. The rise and fall of NKP brings into light many important issues. Firstly, the role

played by colonial state was crucial. Stark points to the patronage and collaboration and complex transactional relationships between Indian private entrepreneurship and the state. NKP benefited considerably from this symbiotic relation between Indian private entrepreneurship and state authority and British

patronage in the form of license grant, technological and material support and most importantly through printing contracts. While it provided colonial authorities a loyal collaborator in political matters and in spreading what was

termed 'useful knowledge' within colonial discourse on education and

knowledge.

Apart from the commercial and collaborative aspect that shaped NKP

growth, a very crucial factor remained the role played by a vibrant galaxy of

editors, writers and poets that assembled and worked together at NKP. The

press played a very central role in promoting literature and made valuable

contribution in the preservation and dissemination of Islamic religious texts, Unani medicine and works on Indo-Muslim historiography as well as

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Social Scientist

preservation and promotion of traditional Persian and Urdu narrative tradition of qissa and dastan. The NKP also engaged in publication and translation of

Sanskrit texts and promoted Puranas both in Hindi and Urdu. Stark argues that

in a period marked by dichotomization of two languages with Hindu and

Muslim culture, NKP's effort was a clear statement against the arbitrary

equation of language and religious community. NKP was nevertheless crucial in

building Hindi publishing in the stronghold of Urdu, in the city of Lucknow.

Among Hindi publication genres were Hindi devotional texts and bhakti

literature, riti poetry, ayurvedic medical texts and also 'suitable books' for women. In promoting both Hindi and Urdu literature NKP laid emphasis on

assimilation than differentiation aimed at enhancing composite elements in

north Indian intellectual and literary traditions. However, commercial

considerations related to reaching out to maximum readers cannot be denied

either.

Finally, NKP also played critical role in growth of journalism through its

famous Urdu paper Avadh Akhbar. In 1877 it became the first Urdu daily in

northern India. The paper was a huge commercial and popular success,

especially due to the role of efficient editors and professional management

techniques. Here the role of editors, like Ratan Nath Sarshar (who also contributed Fasana- e-Azad, his famous novel, which did boost its circulation) needs to be borne in mind. Apart from Avadh Akhbar, NKP also published other

newspapers and journals. Thus, covering a variety of issues, the book shows the role of Indians in

shaping literary culture and knowledge in the colonial scenario and draws our

attention towards the process of indigenization of print. In this process, print was not only limited to the issue of dissemination of education and useful

knowledge, but also stimulated the growth and impetus to a variety of genres of

entertainment, notably qiassa and dastan. By pointing at the emotional pleasure that print provided, Stark enables us to see how this helped in blurring the

boundaries between elite and popular literature. Thus, Stark makes a valid case

that the study of commercial print calls for re-evaluation of the category of'high' and 'low' literature.

However, the book leaves much to be desired on the complex issue of

readership and consumption practices and varied experiences of reading. Stark

acknowledges that the history of production will remain an incomplete narrative as long as it is not supplemented by a history of reading. Secondly, while Stark

carries forward the argument about appropriation of print by religious scholars, most notably the ulemas, she does not develop this argument

adequately or explore the genre of religious publishing. This could have helped one to grasp the distinction between commercial and religious publishing. In

terms of the treatment of sources, the book appears to be rather weak when it

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Book Reviews

comes to Persian and Urdu publications. Arabic print texts, by no way extinct, are given scant attention. Nevertheless, Stark compensates this by providing a

detailed and exhaustive list of publication in these languages. Overall the book

marks a great leap forward and stands as one of the most thoroughly researched

work on the print history of northern India and will contribute seminally in

developing our understanding of print-culture and the public sphere in colonial

India.

Razak Khan, Department of History, Delhi University, Delhi

Joya Chatterji, The Spoils of Partition: Bengal and India, 1947-1967, Cambridge University Press, 2007 (South Asian Edition, 2008); xvi + 342 pages. Rs. 795 (HB)

Partition historiography, so to say, has been slightly prejudiced?be it 'theme wise' or 'region-wise'. Therefore, the focus has been primarily on the 'high polities' debate, and in terms of regions?Punjab studies have clearly dominated the major works on Partition. Joya Chatterji's earlier work, Bengal Divided:

Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932-1947, (1994), was possibly the first

major work analysing singularly the Partition of Bengal and the politics involved therein. It was this path-breaking book which illuminated the very significant, and till then ignored, role of the Bengali Hindu Bhadralok in bringing about the

partition of Bengal. The Spoils of Partition, carries the story further. Here the focus is on the aftermath of Partition in Bengal, once again, an area much less worked upon.

The main crux of Chatterji's argument is that irrespective of the plans and ambitions according to which the Hindu bhadralok community in Bengal had

supported the Partition plan, the outcome of Partition was a complete disappointment to them. As stated by Chatterji, 'Partition, they believed, would lead them out of the wilderness and deliver them from the tyranny of a Muslim

majority. They expected partition?by creating a small, manageable, Hindu dominated state of West Bengal inside independent India?to restore a lost

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