ABOUT US

Hindusthan Samachar: A Multi-lingual News Agency

A nation speaks and informs itself through its press which, in turn, largely depends for its news resources upon news agencies. At the dawn of independence, India has no news agency that spoke and informed her citizens through their own languages, though freedom struggle was carried out and won, in a large measure, by the nationalist press in Indian languages.

Therefore, the country needed a news agency that would not only cater news through its own languages but was also inspired, motivated and informed by a spirit of true bharatiya (Indian) nationalism, pride in Bharatiya sanskriti and her glorious past, and the one that reflected in its approach the Indian ethos and aspiration.

It was this vision and initiative of Sh. Shivram Shankar Apte, better Known as Dada Saheb Apte, a lawyer by profession and training but who dedicated his life to serve the nation that ushered in a new era of news agency journalism in the country less than two years after independence. The country’s first multilingual news agency by the name of Hindusthan Samachar was born in December 1948 with that spirit and ideals to guide it.

It was soon blessed by such great sons of India as Rajarshi Purushottam Das Tandon and Acharya Vinoba Bhave who had crusaded in the cause of Indian Languages. It was also instantaneously welcomed by a large number of news papers in a wide spectrum of languages across the country.

The rapid growth, prestige and acceptability earned by Hindusthan Samachar in a short span of time despite hardly having any capital base and sustainable revenue inflow is a living legend in the history of Indian Journalism. The credit for this goes to a large army of inspired journalists working deep into the villages, besides numerous big and small towns throughout the country and an able team of dedicated workers comprising late Narayan Balkrishna (Bapurao) Lele, Late Narayan rao Tarte, Late G R Madhvrao, Baleshwar Agarwal and a host of other selfless colleagues. They joined Dada Saheb from the beginning and led Hindusthan Samachar through many trails and tribulations for three decades.

Within a few years, news gathering and transmission operations of the news agency had taken roots in almost all the states, beside Kathmandu, the capital of neighbouring Nepal and Thimpu, the capital of Bhutan. It had a strong presence in the North East too where other news agencies did not count for much. Not to be surprised then that Hindusthan samachar was the first to report the Chinese army attack in the Thagla Ridge area in September 1962. It has to its claim many other significant firsts in reporting news of far- reaching national importance. Before national News agency of Nepal was established, Hindusthan Samachar Was the main source of not only external news for the country, but also for its national and regional news.

The first president of India Dr. Rajendra Prasad, Shri Govind Vallabh Pant and Shri Rafi Ahmed Kidwai bestowed their special blessings on it. A galaxy of leaders from various fields has taken keen interest in the development of Hindusthan Samachar. Dr Hare Krushna Mehtab, Dr. Ram Subhag Singh, Takhat mal Jain, Jai Narayan Vyas, Harish Chandra Mathur, Rangnath Ramchandra Divakar, Ghanshyam Singh Gupta, Jaisukhlal Hathi, Dr. sarojini Mahishi, Kamakhya Prasad Tripathi, Siddheshwar Prasad, Babu Ganga Sharan Singh, Vasant Dada Patil, Vasant rao Oak, Janki Ballabh Pattnayak, Prakashveer Sahstri, Shyamadhar Misra, Seth Govind Das, Anant Prasad sharma, Prafull Chandra Barua are only a few to name among them.

The list of journalist members who were associated with the agency in one capacity or the other is practically the who’s who of Indian journalism. It includes among them Sarvshri Satyakam Vidyalankar(Dharmyug), Satyendra Kumar Gupta(Aaj), Shri Narayan Chaturvedi(Saraswati), Akshay Kumar Jain(Nav Bharat Times), Ratan Lal Joshi(Dainik Hindustan), S.N. Ghose(Pioneer), A. D. Mani(Hitvad), Krishna Chandra Agarwal (Vishwamitra), Dorilal Agarwal(Amar Ujala), Manak Chopra(Jan Gan), Sudhakar Shastri(Lokvani), Bhagwan Das Arora(Gandiv), V.N. Nayar(Mathribhumi), Amrit lal Jindal(vegetarian India) and Mukund rao Kirloskar ( Kirloskar Petrika).

Hindusthan Samachar created a sort of revolution in indian journalism when in june 1954 news in Devnagri script was transmitted for the first time. Devnagri teleprinter Service was inaugurated from Patna by shri Purushottam Das Tandon and from Delhi by Shri Jagjivan ram. It was the beginning of the swadeshi era in the annals of journalism.

Once the Indian languages newspapers has started receiveing the news in Devnagri script, the monopoly of big news papers became history. The newspapers in regional languages started publications from smaller cities and towns. The agency served a large number of small news papers beside the medium and big ones.

State government of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan and Kerala subscribed to services of Hindusthan samachar. Akashvani and Radio Nepal were other important subscribers.

The workers of Hindusthan Samachar decided to convert the private limited company into a co-operative society in 1956. A news agency being run on co-operative basis was a unique experiment anywhere in the world.

After the imposition of emergency in 1975, the then government formed SAMACHAR and Hindusthan samachar was forcibly merged in it.

The emergency was lifted in 1977 and demerger took place in 1978. Thereafter the agency resurfaced but due to unavoidable reason, its operations had to be suspended again. It was after a long legal battle that the Navotthan of Hindusthan Samachar became possible in 2002.

Today, Hindusthan Samachar is gathering the news through its offices spread over almost all the states of the country and catering to the news papers and magazines in eight Bharatiya languages viz. Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Sindhi, Assamese, Oriya, and Nepali besides Hindi. A feature service “Navotthan Lekh Seva” is providing features and articles on various national and international issues.

More than three hundred news papers and magazines are subscribing the services of Hindusthan Samachar. Agency is also providing the news scan service to the Government of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Uttrakhand.

At the occasion, when the organization is planning for sixty years celebration, Hindusthan Samachar has started its office in Bangalooru and is going to start its first south Indian language service in Kannada very soon. You are requested to extend your support for this noble cause of national integration through languages and to strengthen the values of Democracy.