The Hindi Literary Sphere (1920s–1940s) from the Micro-Perspective of Lucknow

Chapter 1 investigates periodical publishing in the Hindi belt of the 1920s and sets a selected few influential periodicals of the time in relationship to publishing activities emerging out of Lucknow. It shows how the Hindi periodicals Mādhurī (1922–50) and Sudhā (1927–41) as well as the publishing house Gaṅgā Pustak Mālā (est. 1918/1919) along with its press and book depot, that is, Ganga Fine Art Press (est. 1927/1928) and Gaṅgā Granthāgār (c.1931), established Lucknow as the new centre for Hindi publishing in the 1920s and 1930s. This information is embedded into the production of literature by Gaṅgā Pustak Mālā’s combatants in the Hindi public sphere, that is, small and large printers, publishers, and distributors whose epitexts were advertised in Sudhā.

Conclusion

The conclusion addresses the question revolving around literature, visuals, and visibility as well as acts of reading and seeing. Offering knowledge did not mean that Sudhā (and other periodicals) was read and digested as intended by the contributors, editors, and publishers. Similarly, the increased number of women’s depictions does not allow for conclusions concerning the actual role of middle-class Hindu women in the early twentieth century. Text and image combined, however, significantly contributed to the imagining and the making of the Hindi public sphere in the early twentieth century by Sudhā and Gaṅgā Pustak Mālā.

‘Canon’ Formation (Part II)

Through the medium of print, processes of standardization, indigenization, canonization, and scientification not only of Hindi as the proposed national language, but also of Hindu national culture become visible in the early decades of the twentieth century. This chapter contextualizes such processes through a detailed analysis of Sudhā’s thematic columns. Processes of the nationalization of literature in particular are discussed through a micro-perspective on to Sudhā as it created its very own archives of knowledge of what it considered to be the national arts, medicine and science, music, news, and formerly orally transmitted knowledge on domesticity, homespun remedies, health, cooking, and child-rearing. Visually, women featured centrally in the column section of the periodical. Even though they were for the most part featured as recipients of knowledge, they were also imagined as women taking active roles in the construction of this supposedly canonical knowledge.

‘Canon’ Formation (Part I)

The proprietor of Gaṅgā Pustak Mālā relied on an impressive network of scholar-writers, journalists, and educationalists who were involved with the publishing house and the periodical. Their contributions to Sudhā are introduced in Chapter 3 with the intention to demonstrate what in the eyes of the editors of Sudhā and the Hindi public constituted useful knowledge for the middle-class reader. Poetry, fiction, and prose essays were three major publication genres of the time, which underwent transformations while being written in. The discussion of these genres takes place in the context of the developments within the pages of Sudhā, the publishing house, and the Hindi literary sphere that witnessed a number of literary movements in the early twentieth century.

Marketing Sudhā (1927–41)

Chapter 2 provides an introduction and discussion of Sudhā’s peritext as well as of Gaṅgā Pustak Mālā and Sudhā’s contributors, objectives, customer care, and marketing strategies. It begins with a horizontal reading of the periodical, showing how it consisted of two major parts that disseminated knowledge through the essay and through poetry and fiction offering a blend of ‘education’ and ‘entertainment’ (Part I) and through a diversity of more practically oriented columns, one of which was a readers’ digest and a lengthy editorial, which also offered a blend of entertaining and educational knowledge (Part II). It considers the periodical’s visual layout as central to understanding its positioning as modern while also being rooted in Vaishnava tradition and devotion towards Rama and Krishna in particular. The visuals are also indicative of new conceptualizations of women in liminal spaces and their relationship to the publishing world in the Hindi public sphere.

Introduction

This chapter discusses new approaches to the study of periodicals that include a consideration of paratexts, text–image relationships as well as horizontal and vertical ways of reading. It suggests that the periodical acts as both a source (from where to gather primary sources) and as a genre in its own right. Other themes addressed in the introduction are the commercialization of print in colonial India, the designation and creation of poetic and prose genres and ‘canons’ in the Hindi periodical Sudhā as well as the creation of specifically gendered spaces within a mainstream Hindi literary periodical. The introduction concludes with an overview of primary sources consulted in this monograph as well as a chapter overview.