Exploring the Evolution of Hindi Journalism in India

In 1826, a lawyer from Kanpur named Pandit Jugal Kishore Shukla made a bold decision. Working out of Calcutta, he launched a weekly newspaper called Udant Martand – the first-ever publication in the Hindi language. The colonial British government denied him postal concessions, readership was sparse outside the Hindi belt, and the paper folded within two years. Nearly two centuries later, the Hindi press he helped birth now commands the largest newspaper readership in the world’s most populous democracy. That journey – from a financially struggling colonial-era weekly to a multi-billion-rupee media powerhouse – is one of the most remarkable stories in the history of journalism.

The first step: Udant Martand and the colonial era 🔗

Hindi journalism has a history spanning over two hundred years. Udant Martand, published on 30 May 1826, was the first Hindi newspaper – a date now commemorated every year as Hindi Journalism Day. Before this, newspapers across the Indian subcontinent were published in English, Persian, and Bengali, but not a single one in Hindi. Shukla wanted to give a voice to ordinary Indians in their own language – a bold experiment in a colonial landscape that had little use for it.

The paper faced impossible odds. Because few people in Bengal could read Hindi, there was almost no returning readership, and the cost of distributing the paper to Hindi-speaking states was prohibitively high. The British government’s repeated refusals to grant postal concessions sealed its fate. But the idea it planted – that Hindi-speaking Indians deserved a press of their own – never went away.

The freedom struggle era: Hindi press as a nationalist tool 🔗

The decades that followed saw Hindi journalism grow steadily alongside India’s independence movement. The period from 1867 to 1885, known as the Bharatendu era, is considered the second phase in the history of Hindi journalism. It was named after Bharatendu Harishchandra, widely called the “Father of Modern Hindi,” who brought a new literary and political direction to Hindi-language publishing.

By 1920, the paper Aaj had been launched from Banaras, quickly becoming one of the most respected Hindi dailies of the freedom struggle era. It was acclaimed for its impartial reporting and fearless editorials, balancing national and international news in a way few Hindi papers had attempted before. Meanwhile, Hindustan, a sister publication of the Hindustan Times, began in 1936 from Delhi, bringing wide news coverage and special features to Hindi readers in the capital.

These publications had something critical in common: they used Hindi journalism as a tool of political consciousness. Hindi newspapers helped readers understand the political process and, as a result, drew more and more people toward active participation in public life. After independence in 1947, Hindi was adopted as the official language of India, giving the press a new institutional legitimacy – but the industry’s real explosion was still decades away.

The Emergency of 1975: A turning point for Hindi press 🔗

The declaration of the National Emergency by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1975 was one of the darkest periods in Indian democratic history. The government imposed sweeping press censorship, silencing both English and Hindi papers. But this period had an unintended consequence that would permanently reshape the media landscape.

When the Emergency was lifted in 1977 and elections were called, the Indian public had been fed government-controlled information for nearly two years and was desperate for credible news. Many English-language papers were seen as having compromised their independence during the Emergency, surrendering editorial autonomy rather than resist. Hindi papers, operating in a space where they had less to lose and more to prove, began stepping into that credibility gap. The post-Emergency public was hungry for a press that would speak plainly, in the language of the masses, without deference to power. Hindi newspapers were positioned to be exactly that.

The 1980s and 1990s: The golden age of Hindi print expansion 🔗

What followed was nothing short of a revolution in print. The 1980s and 1990s became the golden era of Hindi newspaper expansion, driven by a combination of rising literacy, economic liberalization, and aggressive business strategy.

Rising literacy and the new middle class 🔗

Literacy rates in the Hindi heartland – covering states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan – were climbing steadily, creating millions of new potential readers every year. After India’s economic liberalization in 1991, a new aspirational middle class emerged in these states. Companies, from local businesses to multinationals, quickly realized that the mass market of India was not confined to Delhi and Mumbai – it lived in smaller cities and towns across the Hindi belt, and to reach it, they had to advertise in Hindi newspapers. This advertising revenue fueled a print boom that transformed the industry’s economics.

Technology and the printing revolution 🔗

Technology accelerated everything. The shift to offset printing allowed papers to print more copies faster and with better quality, including color. Computerized typesetting made composing pages in Hindi far more efficient. These innovations reduced costs and raised quality simultaneously, making it financially viable for papers to expand to new cities and regions.

The rise of the big four 🔗

Four newspapers came to define this era and continue to dominate today: Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhaskar, Amar Ujala, and Hindustan. Their expansion was driven not just by quality journalism, but by smart, aggressive business strategy.

Dainik Jagran, founded in Jhansi in 1942 by Puran Chandra Gupta, perfected the model of hyper-local editions. From the 1990s onwards, it launched editions across northern and central India, and its readership grew by 120.8% between 2000 and 2005 alone, reaching 21.2 million readers. Today, Dainik Jagran has more than 3.6 million copies in circulation daily, reaching a readership estimated at over 55 million people across 11 states.

Dainik Bhaskar became famous for an almost audacious market entry strategy. When it launched in Jaipur in 1996 – already a saturated market – it first deployed 700 in-house surveyors to canvas 200,000 households, asking residents exactly what they wanted in a newspaper. Based on that feedback, it offered subscriptions at a discounted rate and backed each subscription with a satisfaction guarantee. On its very first day of publication, it sold 172,347 copies, immediately becoming the number one paper in the city. This survey-first, reader-centric model was then replicated across India. Today, Dainik Bhaskar is estimated to have 4.5 million copies in daily circulation, ranking fourth in the world by circulation according to the World Association of Newspapers.

The numbers tell a striking story about the dominance of Hindi print. India currently publishes around 1,000 Hindi daily newspapers with a total circulation of approximately 80 million copies, compared to about 250 English dailies with a combined circulation of roughly 40 million copies. The total readership of the top 10 Hindi dailies is nearly five times that of the top 10 English dailies.

What hindered Hindi journalism’s early growth 🔗

Understanding how far Hindi journalism has come requires acknowledging the structural barriers it faced for decades. Three key factors kept Hindi journalism from realizing its potential in the pre-Emergency era.

First, there was the legacy of colonial infrastructure. The British had built their administrative and communication systems around English, and this shaped which newspapers received postal support, advertising, and institutional credibility. Second, high rates of illiteracy in the Hindi belt meant a limited readership. Without a large enough audience, papers could not attract advertisers, and without advertising revenue, they could not grow. Third, most Hindi papers remained small, family-run operations with limited capital, unable to invest in the technology or distribution networks needed to expand beyond their immediate region. They were locally important, but rarely national players.

Independence and official language status helped begin unwinding these disadvantages, but the real structural shift came only when rising literacy, economic liberalization, and the credibility crisis of the English press post-Emergency converged in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Digital transformation: Hindi journalism goes online 🔗

The next major transformation arrived with the internet. The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism has documented how leading Hindi newspapers like Dainik Jagran have overhauled their newsroom structures and distribution strategies to expand their digital presence, driven by the rapid growth of mobile internet access across India, including in areas beyond large cities and the English-speaking minority.

The shift has been significant. According to the Reuters Institute’s India Digital News Report, 68% of online news users identify smartphones as their primary device for news, with 31% using mobile devices exclusively – figures significantly higher than in many other developing markets. This mobile-first audience is overwhelmingly non-English speaking, and Hindi is at the center of it.

The digital revolution has given Hindi journalism unprecedented accessibility and diversification. Online platforms enable hyper-local reporting – news specific to a particular district or neighborhood – in ways print could never make financially viable. The 2011 Census recorded that over 44 percent of India’s population spoke Hindi, and that share has only grown since, making Hindi-language digital content one of the most significant and fast-growing segments of the Indian internet.

The biggest Hindi newspapers have moved decisively into this space. Digital arms like Jagran New Media have built multilingual platforms and integrated multimedia content, while independent digital-first Hindi news portals have emerged to serve audiences that print never fully reached. YouTube has become a particularly powerful medium, with Hindi news channels accumulating billions of views.

The challenges that come with digital growth 🔗

The digital transition has not been without serious problems. Scholars have identified misinformation, declining revenue models, limited digital literacy among audiences, and intensifying platform competition as the defining challenges facing digital Hindi journalism today. The speed of social media makes verification harder, and digital advertising revenue is structurally less lucrative than print. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated these pressures: newsprint costs rose sharply, circulation fell as stay-at-home orders kept readers from buying papers, and advertising revenue shrank significantly as the broader economy contracted.

At the same time, academic researchers argue that the success of digital Hindi journalism ultimately depends on integrating technological innovation with ethical responsibility – building trust-based, fact-verified, audience-centred news ecosystems that uphold the foundational principles of accuracy, fairness, and social accountability.

From regional voice to national power 🔗

The arc of Hindi journalism is, in many ways, the arc of modern India itself. It began as a marginalised voice in a colonial framework built for English. It grew through the freedom struggle, survived state censorship, and then exploded into the national mainstream when political and economic conditions finally aligned. The big four Hindi dailies – Jagran, Bhaskar, Amar Ujala, Hindustan – transformed from regional publications into national institutions with circulations that rival the most-read newspapers anywhere in the world. And now, they are navigating the most complex transition yet: moving from ink on paper to pixels on phones, in a country where the next 500 million internet users will be predominantly non-English speakers.

What began with Jugal Kishore Shukla’s bold experiment in 1826 has become one of the most powerful media ecosystems on the planet. Hindi journalism is no longer a footnote to the Indian media story – it is the Indian media story.

What do you think? With Hindi digital journalism growing faster than print and social media reshaping how news spreads, what responsibilities do major Hindi news organizations carry in combating misinformation while maintaining their mass reach? And as the heartland press becomes increasingly commercialized, do you think Hindi journalism still serves the ordinary reader it was founded to represent?

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi_media
2. https://preciouskashmir.com/2024/01/08/origin-and-development-of-hindi-journalism/
3. http://mediamantrabymrinalchatterjee.blogspot.com/2015/05/history-of-hindi-journalism.html
4. http://sstuffsimplified.blogspot.com/2020/11/history-of-hindi-journalism.html
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dainik_Jagran
6. https://grokipedia.com/page/Dainik_Jagran
7. https://dainikjagran.releasemyad.com/circulation
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dainik_Bhaskar
9. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/our-research/indian-newspapers-digital-transition
10. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/our-research/india-digital-news-report
11. https://www.jiclt.com/article/digital-hindi-journalism-in-the-contemporary-era-challenges-and-opportunities-228/
12. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311983.2025.2498187
13. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-024-04055-5