An Empire Of Books: The Naval Kishore Press and The Diffusion of the Printed Word In Colonial India
Ulrike Stark,
Permanent Black, Rs 795
“The Naval Kishore Press is the key to the literary trade. Without using it no one can enter the world of learning.”
—Abdul Halim Sharar
“Naval Kishore is a Muslim pandit and a Hindu maulvi.”
—Khavaja Abbas Ahmad

The power of the written word has never been in doubt, as the destruction of books and manuscripts, the prerogative of tyrants and those who fear knowledge and its spread, shows. How much more powerful is it then, when both the quantity and quality of the word is increased manifold with that magnificent invention, the printing press.

The rise and spread of the printed word has been amply documented in the West, and its impact on society diligently examined. The story in India is, however, somewhat different. The study of what we can call Book History is a relatively new area of scholarly enterprise. The history of book publishing in India has been largely focused on the printing presses set up by missionaries and on the English language. Even here, as far as I am aware, only Oxford University Press has, to date, printed a house history. There has been a deepening and broadening in the field only recently.

It has been accepted as axiomatic in academic circles that in India, the printing press in languages other than English only added to the quantity of the books that were circulated, and that there was no change, positive or negative, in the quality of their contents. The corollary of such a view would, of course, mean that they really had no impact on society in their day.

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