BPSC 70th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 143 of 143

Correct — D, Sarwa Hitaishi. Our answer here rests on chronology and elimination rather than on a document, and it is worth being straight about that, because this is one of the few questions on the paper where we could not corroborate the positive claim from a scholarly or archival source. What is firmly established is the surrounding history. Bihar's first Hindi newspaper was Bihar Bandhu, started in 1872 by Keshavram Bhatt, a Maharashtrian Brahmin settled at Biharsharif — but it was a weekly, and the question asks for the first Hindi daily, which is why Bihar Bandhu is deliberately absent from the option list. Of the four titles that are offered, three can be dated: Kshatriya Hitaishi, Udyog and Chaitanya Chandrika all belong to the wave of Hindi periodicals that began around Patna after 1901, alongside titles such as Bharatratna, a monthly founded in 1901, and Aryavart. Udyog was edited by a well-known poet of the period and Chaitanya Chandrika by Krishna Chaitanya Goswami, and both are described as periodicals rather than dailies. Compilations on the history of Bihar journalism identify Sarvahitaishi — of which 'Sarwa Hitaishi' is the booklet's spelling — as the province's first Hindi daily, published from Patna in the late nineteenth century on those compilations' own dating — which is the dating the note below asks you to hold loosely. A title from that period cannot be preceded as 'first daily' by three titles that only begin a decade or more later, and that is the argument the answer stands on.

• (a)Udyoga — The booklet's spelling of Udyog, one of the Hindi periodicals published from the Patna area after 1901 and edited by a noted poet of the period. What rules it out here is chronology: it belongs to the twentieth-century wave rather than the nineteenth.
• (b)Kshatriya Samachar — Almost certainly the booklet's rendering of Kshatriya Hitaishi, another of the post-1901 Patna titles. It belongs to the same later cluster, and a caste-association journal of that kind was characteristically a periodical addressed to its community rather than a general daily newspaper.
• (c)Chaitanya Chandrika — Edited by Krishna Chaitanya Goswami and, like the other two, part of the twentieth-century Patna group of Hindi publications. Its name signals a devotional and literary journal rather than a news daily, and its date places it well after the period in which a first daily would have appeared.

Hindi journalism in India begins with Udant Martand, launched from Calcutta on 30 May 1826 by Jugal Kishore Shukla — a weekly, which is why 30 May is observed as Hindi Journalism Day. Bihar's own Hindi press begins nearly half a century later with Bihar Bandhu in 1872, also a weekly, and the shift from weeklies to dailies happened gradually over the following decades as printing capacity, literacy and the demand for political news grew. Bihar's press history is not only Hindi, and this matters for how the Commission asks about it: the province had English and Urdu papers earlier, and on the very next examination BPSC asked which of Bihar Bandhu, Patna Harkara, Akhbar-e-Bihar and Bihar Herald was published first, keying Patna Harkara. So there are three separate 'firsts' in circulation — the first newspaper of Bihar in any language, the first Hindi newspaper, and the first Hindi daily — and a candidate has to keep them apart. Spellings are a further hazard: these titles are transliterated inconsistently across sources, so Sarvahitaishi appears as Sarwa Hitaishi and Kshatriya Hitaishi as Kshatriya Samachar.

When a question turns on a fact you cannot recall, the productive move is to date the options rather than to search your memory for the answer. Three of these four titles belong to a recognisable group — the Hindi periodicals that appeared around Patna in the first decade of the twentieth century — and if you can place even one of them in that group, the pattern gives you the rest, because a first daily is unlikely to sit inside a later cluster. Then check the word the question actually uses. It says 'daily', not 'newspaper', which is a deliberate narrowing: the fact everybody memorises about Bihar is Bihar Bandhu in 1872, and by excluding it from the options the setter is signalling that the familiar answer is not being asked for. A candidate who spots that is already reasoning correctly even without the name. Honesty about the limits matters here too. The date usually given for Sarvahitaishi varies between compilations, and we could not confirm it against an archival source, so treat the title as the answer to this question while holding the founding year loosely.

• Bihar's first Hindi newspaper was Bihar Bandhu, started in 1872 by Keshavram Bhatt, a Maharashtrian Brahmin settled at Biharsharif — a weekly, not a daily
• Kshatriya Hitaishi, Udyog and Chaitanya Chandrika belong to the wave of Hindi periodicals published from the Patna area after 1901, alongside the monthly Bharatratna (1901) and Aryavart
• Chaitanya Chandrika was edited by Krishna Chaitanya Goswami; Udyog was edited by a well-known poet of the period
• India's first Hindi newspaper was Udant Martand, launched from Calcutta on 30 May 1826 by Jugal Kishore Shukla; 30 May is observed as Hindi Journalism Day
• On the next BPSC paper the Commission asked which Bihar newspaper was published first among Bihar Bandhu, Patna Harkara, Akhbar-e-Bihar and Bihar Herald, and keyed Patna Harkara
• The founding date of Sarvahitaishi is given differently by different journalism-history compilations and could not be corroborated from an archival or scholarly source

• Answering Bihar Bandhu from habit — it is Bihar's first Hindi newspaper but a weekly, and it is not even on the option list
• Ignoring the word 'daily'; the Commission distinguishes the first newspaper, the first Hindi newspaper and the first Hindi daily as three separate facts
• Being thrown by transliteration — Sarwa Hitaishi is Sarvahitaishi, Kshatriya Samachar is almost certainly Kshatriya Hitaishi, and Udyoga is Udyog

BPSC returns repeatedly to Bihar's press history and asks it as a 'which was first' question, varying the qualifier — first newspaper, first Hindi newspaper, first Hindi daily — so the safe preparation is a short dated list rather than a single remembered name. UPSC never asks a provincial press first; it asks which journal a named nationalist brought out, or which Viceroy passed or repealed the Vernacular Press Act, so the same period is examined through people and legislation instead.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Bihar Bandhu, regarded as the first Hindi newspaper of Bihar, was started in 1872 by

  • (a)Keshavram Bhatt
  • (b)Sachchidananda Sinha
  • (c)Krishna Chaitanya Goswami
  • (d)Rajendra Prasad

  Answer(a) Keshavram Bhatt — a Maharashtrian Brahmin settled at Biharsharif; the paper was a weekly, not a daily.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Udant Martand, the first Hindi newspaper in India, was published from

  • (a)Banaras
  • (b)Calcutta
  • (c)Patna
  • (d)Allahabad

  Answer(b) Calcutta — launched on 30 May 1826 by Jugal Kishore Shukla, which is why 30 May is observed as Hindi Journalism Day.