An in-depth look at the history of Bangladesh press

Rahman Jahangir reviewing the book At a time when there has virtually been a drought in the availability of literature on the press in Bangladesh, the book titled 'History of the Press in Bangladesh', penned by well-known media personality Md Golam Kibriya, is indeed like a cold lemonade in the 'sun-burnt Sahara'. This is because, earlier none could get a comprehensive picture of the media in Bangladesh as to how it had originated and how it had developed despite turbulent times. At a cursory glance, a reader will find that it is not only a chronicle, but also a book of knowledge and a painstaking intellectual exercise. The author has touched upon everything in the press in Bangladesh ranging from its language, history and 'politics' to societal phenomena. It indeed makes a sad and sordid commentary on the state of affairs, when we face the reality that Bangladesh suffers from an acute poverty in media literature. In the last six decades, not many books on the discipline were published, and the ones we got were written in a sketchy way. 'History of the Press in Bangladesh' makes a welcome departure. The situation is otherwise in Europe and the United States, where one out of every eight books is about the media. The book in question is a noble attempt to present the nation a history of its press. The 704-page voluminous publication has been divided into six parts. The first one deals with ancient India, when there were no newspapers, but there was an effective communication system. Language and literature of that time have been briefly, but poignantly, discussed. It has been reiterated that Sanskrit language and Vedic literature have spread over a vast area of South Asia, and the area still bears that legacy. The brief chapter on the Indo-European Language Group is particularly educative and will give the enthusiasts an enchanting read. The part two deals with the medieval period when the Indian rulers were Turkish Sultans and the Mughals. The Persian was the court language then and there was a hand-written newspaper of a fixed format of 12 inches long and eight inches width. The Turks had laid the foundation of the press and the Mughals had turned it into an institution. Initially, there was only one group of journalists called Barid. Later, during the Mughal times, four other groups had emerged —Wakia Navis, Khufia Navis, Sabina Nigar and Harkara. These issues have been portrayed in the book briefly. Publication of modern and machine-printed newspapers began in India with the Gazette of James Augustus Hickey, a Briton. Hickey was an independent thinker and an upright man. He staunchly opposed the arbitrary rule of the administrators of the East India Company. Hickey faced the music of what he did and was ultimately deported to England. The legacy that Hickey had left behind could not be erased. The British and the Indians continued to print newspapers and in three decades, all the three Presidency headquarters — Calcutta, Madras, Bombay — were vibrant with lively newspapers. The press, repression on journalists, coercive press laws and their arbitrary applications have been briefly discussed in part three. East Bengal, the territory which now comprises Bangladesh, lagged behind in newspapers due to practical reasons. At last in 1847, Gurucharan Roy launched the first Bengali weekly of East Bengal—the Rangpur Bartabaha. Since then up to 1905, the year when the province of East Bengal and Assam was created, almost 250 newspapers of different frequencies (barring dailies) had been launched. All of them, except for 20 monthly magazines, were owned by the Hindus despite the fact that East Bengal was Muslim-majority. Noticeably, since 1905, many new newspapers appeared but all of these except one had gone defunct by the year 1947. The respectable exception was the `Dhaka Prakash', that existed up to 1964. All these have been presented and analysed in part four. And it will be a rewarding experience for any reader who has a stake in the print media. After presenting facts of the individual papers, a review has been made. This will give an insight into the social, political and economic scenario of East Bengal of that period. Since 1947, with the end of the British rule and creation of Pakistan, a new phase of the press started here. It had practically begun anew in 1947 and did not inherit any legacy of the past as all East Bengal papers had gone extinct before or by 1947. The Bengali daily Azad and the Morning News were shifted to Dhaka from Calcutta. The situation in East Bengal and, later, in East Pakistan (since 23 March, 1956), was not conducive to healthy newspaper development due to multifarious reasons, the topmost being a political one. The governments here and at the centre in Rawalpindi were authoritarian, and they hardly gave any opportunity to newspapers to grow as independent and self-reliant institutions. But despite all odds, East Pakistan newspapers relentlessly fought for democracy and for equitable share of everything for the province. For their role, the dailies, the Ittefaq and the Pakistan Observer, had to face closure with the former for more than once. The editors of both these papers were imprisoned. In part six, the newspaper scenario since 1972 has been narrated. Brief facts of all the newspapers up to 1982 have been presented, and afterwards they have been reviewed, by and large, in an academic manner. With the achievement of liberation by Bangladesh, the press, however, was not liberated. It faced hazards of varied nature, the foremost being the government's attitude towards it. All of the Pakistan-time stringent press laws were in force. On top of that, a new law titled Special Powers Act (SPA) was introduced and some of its sections were enacted to gag the press. After the 1975 political changeover, the press started enjoying some freedom but the pace was slow and the dimension was narrow. During the regime of President Ershad, the limited freedom the media had been enjoying had withered. Journalists were arrested and harassed, newspapers were temporarily closed and an atmosphere of suffocation emerged. Since 1991, the Westminster type of democracy has been in place, but democratic liberalism and pluralism still remained elusive; only in the first week of the last month the government closed down one newspaper and one television channel. Md Golam Kibriya, having a long and chequered career in Bangladesh journalism, possesses the skill and acumen to take an in-depth look at the history of the struggling press in the country. Being once the Acting Director General of the Bangladesh Press Institute, he had the unique opportunity to be a silent watcher of developments in the media in Bangladesh. By writing a reliable and exhaustive history of the Bangladesh press, Md Golam Kibriya deserves kudos for filling a great vacuum that has long been existing in the literature centring the subject. The book will surely serve as a guide for those who crave for getting an insight into the history of the Bangladesh press. It will also be of great interest to the students of mass communication to know about the roots of what they pursue at training institutes and universities. The media world abroad too will find in the 'History of the Press in Bangladesh' a wealth of information it would love to savour. arjayster@gmail.com ....................... History of the Press in Bangladesh by Mohammad Golam Kibriya, published by Eastern Point, pages 704