How middlebrow Hindi magazines mirrored zeitgeist of post-Independence India

Through undertaking a similar study of the middlebrow Hindi language magazines and books printed in post-Independence north India, Aakriti Mandhwani has reached intelligent conclusions about the time and people in her book, Everyday Reading: Hindi Middlebrow and the North Indian Middle Class, published in India by Speaking Tiger Books. The book focuses primarily on Delhi Press’ magazine Sarita, the Bennett, Coleman and Company group’s magazine Dharmyug and Hindi paperbacks by Hind Pocket Books. Before getting into the worlds of these texts, it’s worth remembering that absence speaks as loudly as presence. In these middlebrow magazines, certain lives are simply not shown –– Dalit lives and Muslims. “This middlebrow is constructed on the back of a certain majoritarian view,” says Mandhwani. Any future inquiry about these texts must hold this omission close and critique the milieu accordingly.

Ads, letters as clues to literariness

The magazines consisted of a broad range of topics and tonalities. A column about makeup would sit alongside an opinion piece about Soren Kierkegaard and the latest chapter of a serialised novel would be printed in the same issue that’s also printing a travel essay with critical commentary on the region’s language politics. The magazines also had crossword puzzles, advertisements and letters. Essentially, the idea of Hindi as an official language was gaining ground and these editors were jumping on the bandwagon. “These editors wanted to make money. They are entrepreneurs and each is following a different model to make money,” explains Mandhwani.

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One of the things worth analysing are the advertisements in these magazines. Items being sold would range from beauty products like soaps and sarees to eatables from brands like Cadbury and Bournvita. Sarita refused to run ads about films because it had positioned itself as a serious and trustworthy reviewer of films. Dharmyug would have fancier ads, by bigger brands, than Sarita. (At this point, it’s worth noting that Sarita sold a monthly for one rupee and Dharmyug sold a weekly for that amount, positioning itself at a higher level.) Dharmyug has ads of white people playing golf. That certainly wouldn’t appear in Sarita. “If you don’t read anything else, the ads themselves will tell you what type of text you’re reading.”

There’s a lot in these texts that can teach us about the people reading them. The readers were active and vocal about their opinions through the letters to the editor published in the magazine. “Sometimes, editors can construct these letters,” cautions Mandhwani. “Editors are constantly moderating, curating and presenting to us a sense of readers as interactive.” However, if we take those letters as clues, what emerges are readers who are deeply invested in the matter and passionate about marking their presence and opinions, creating a sort of ‘I was here’ moment. In the letters, readers criticise a certain piece of writing, disagree with the facts in a story, raise issues with the language of an opinion piece or disregard the opinion piece itself. Women in particular make their presence felt through these letters. While they do participate in discussions about cooking, they also discuss the veracity of a story and the literariness of the magazine. These letters come from all over north India, and are written not just by professionals like lawyers and doctors but also by housewives.

One author bio in Sarita gives a clue to the dedication and loyalty with which women participated in this literary world. The bio for a writer named Saroj Luthra reads that she always wanted to contribute to Sarita as a child. She sent material to the children’s section, Bal Sarita, but that was never published. But now, here she is, bigger and better, with a story published in Sarita. From this blurb we can learn that Saroj has been reading Sarita for several years, has an interest in being published in this magazine in particular marking loyalty, and that for her, as a writer, being published in Sarita is a matter of pride.

A source of information and conversation

Another clue about the readers can be found in Vinod Kumar Shukla’s novel Naukar ki Kameez (Servant’s Shirt). The protagonist of the novel expresses how much he and his wife enjoy reading the magazines. From it, they can learn the cost of going somewhere, how much a hotel costs, the price of makeup and so on. The protagonist comments that of course they won’t do all this. But they like to be informed. Which means readers saw these magazines as a way of being in the know about what’s going on in the world. These magazines were their source of information and conversation. Even in the popular culture of the time, namely films, women are seen reading magazines. “The expression of being a modern woman is rooted in reading,” explains Mandhwani. “That’s why there’s Meena Kumari reading on the cover of my book,” she adds with a laugh.

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While we can glean much information about readers by studying these texts and the time they were produced in, we can also learn a great deal about writers. Every writer is marketed a certain way. That decides how they are read and who reads them. “There’s a certain gatekeeping that literary and highbrow publishers want us to believe is happening,” says Mandhwani. But in reality, an author that’s celebrated by the publisher, touted as genius and perhaps published in hardcover, will also be published in these middlebrow magazines. “The same author can appear as highbrow somewhere and middlebrow somewhere else,” she explains. Essentially, these magazines, although middlebrow, weren’t necessarily something to look down upon, since they published a large variety of subject matter and authors.

Interestingly, women appear as confident authors right alongside men. Even though all the editor-publishers studied in the book are men, women, Mandhwani finds, are equally responsible when it comes to shaping thoughts, ideas and public discourse. While women are writing gossip columns and cooking columns, they are also writing short stories and travel essays. They are writing and responding to letters. They are opinionated, confident and vocal. “That’s why I’m very hesitant about calling something a feminine or masculine text. My material is not showing me that,” Mandhwani concludes.