“You will be surprised to know how many things started in Madras first,” said historian K.R.A. Narasiah. He was delivering a talk on “Printing and growth of journals: The journey of Madras Journalism” at Madras Literary Society on Saturday.
Mr. Narasiah spoke about how journals were an important part of the city’s history. “The first Armenian Journal in the world was published in Madras in 1794, and if you visit the Armenian church even today, there is a grave with an open book. Engraved in it is the title — ‘Azdarar’ which means ‘The Intelligencer’ which was the name of the journal,” he said.
First press
Speaking about the first printing press here, he said that while it was sent from London to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in 1711, the French captured the ship. “After several obstacles, finally a soldier in Madras had an idea and the ship was sent to Tranquebar where printing was done in Portuguese,” he said.
The College of Fort St. George, from around 1820, played a big part in the printing of non-religious books in South Indian languages. “The college’s press published dictionaries and scientific texts”, Mr. Narasiah said.
Centre of printing
Tamil Journals began to be published with Patrika in 1831 from the Religious Tract Society. “Madras was the centre for these works in other regional languages and in 1876, 19 journals were published out of Madras in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Hindi,” the historian said.
Mr. Narasiah highlighted the founding of The Hindu in 1878, and how it became a daily from 1889. “The six young men who started The Hindu were a part of the Triplicane Literary Society and were pained by the fact that there was no way for Indians to express their opinion when the appointment of T. Muthusami Iyer was criticised by the Anglo-Indian press. This led to the birth of The Hindu,” he said.
Highlighting how G. Subramania Aiyer was keen that people needed to be told about the objectives of the British rule, its merits and defects in Indian languages to develop political language, Mr. Narasiah said that this saw the birth of the first current affairs Tamil Journal of Madras — Swadesamithran in 1881.
