On July 1, a very significant anniversary was celebrated by a certain section of media professionals – Kannada print journalists – in Karnataka. It was on this date, 180 years earlier, that the very first edition of the very first Kannada newspaper, the Mangaloora Samachara, was published, giving Kannadigas a window to the world, and to themselves, in their own language.
The remarkable story of the MS began in 1836, when Hermann Moegling, a young German missionary, arrived from the Basel Mission in Switzerland to the bustling markets of the ancient port city of Mangaluru. His brief was simple – to teach the word of the Gospel to ‘this stray flock.’ Recognizing that his facility with languages would be handy, the 25-year-old came armed with more than a smattering of Sanskrit, Arabic and English, but found himself stumped by one unexpected aspect of speaking Indian languages.
“What a demanding task to give up the guttural R so late in life,” he laments to his colleague, Hermann Gundert, in a biography the latter wrote, “and instead learn the R spoken here, which is produced by a fluttering of the tongue!” Gundert would have understood. He himself was based in Tellicherry; eventually, he would master Malayalam and, in 1872, compile the first Malayalam-English dictionary. (PS: Gundert was the grandfather of Hermann Hesse, the author of the 20th century classic, Siddhartha.)
Like Gundert, Moegling did not let the difficulties of pronunciation deter him. By 1840, he was not only speaking Kanarese fluently, but slowly and surely falling in love with the language. In 1841, the Basel Mission set up the first lithographic printing press of coastal Karnataka in Mangaluru’s Balmatta (today the Balmatta Institute of Printing Technology). The lithographic process involved printing off stone slabs inscribed with text that had been painted on to the stone with oil, fat or wax. Moegling was fascinated. In 1842, he had 1500 copies of a Kannada pamphlet printed and was thrilled by the ease and speed with which the information was disseminated to large numbers of his flock. By 1843, he was dreaming of a Kannada newspaper that had little to do with the Gospel.
{{/usCountry}}Like Gundert, Moegling did not let the difficulties of pronunciation deter him. By 1840, he was not only speaking Kanarese fluently, but slowly and surely falling in love with the language. In 1841, the Basel Mission set up the first lithographic printing press of coastal Karnataka in Mangaluru’s Balmatta (today the Balmatta Institute of Printing Technology). The lithographic process involved printing off stone slabs inscribed with text that had been painted on to the stone with oil, fat or wax. Moegling was fascinated. In 1842, he had 1500 copies of a Kannada pamphlet printed and was thrilled by the ease and speed with which the information was disseminated to large numbers of his flock. By 1843, he was dreaming of a Kannada newspaper that had little to do with the Gospel.
{{/usCountry}}The first edition of the four-page Mangaloora Samachara came out to great fanfare on July 1st, 1843. With a mission to “prevent the spread of rumours and untruthful things, and also to make available genuine information to the people at large”, the fortnightly had sections devoted to various topics, including oora varthamanagalu (local news), sarakarada niroopagalu (government – read: East India Company – laws and policies), sarva rajya varthamanagalu (news from all over the state, although it also included news from places further afield, like Afghanistan), nutanavada ashcharya suddigalu (new and sensational news), and even kathegalu (moral stories, songs about good conduct by Purandaradasa). Citizen journalism was also encouraged - “Anybody can send the news and it will be published” – but a cautionary corollary was issued alongside – “if it is true.”
A total of 7,850 copies of the MS were lithographed at the Basel Mission Press between 1st July 1843 and February 15, 1844. From its 15th edition onwards, the printing of the newspaper was taken over by the London Missionary Society in Ballari, which had a letterpress machine. Delighted with the response to MS from all over present-day Karnataka, Moegling expanded the scope of the newspaper, rechristening it Karnataka Samachara. Unfortunately, it did not have a long run. In its last edition, which came out in December 1844, Moegling spoke feelingly of a Samagra Karnataka, in which all Kannada-speaking regions would come together as one, little dreaming that it would be another 112 years before that fond hope came to fruition.
(Roopa Pai is a writer who has carried on a longtime love affair with her hometown Bengaluru)