The Star
TypeDaily newspaper
FormatBroadsheet
Owner(s)Dawn Group of Newspapers[1]
Founded1932
Ceased publication2005

The Star was an English-language evening newspaper in Pakistan that ceased publication in 2005.

Early history

The paper was the successor to a daily founded by Surendranath Banerjea who had died in 1925. This evening daily was called The Bengalee. It was bought by the founders of The Star of India who started publishing on the same premises in Calcutta on 17 August 1932. Watson describes it as 'the first daily paper championing the Muslim cause and printed in English ... to appear in the city'.[2] It was similar in importance to such famous Muslim predecessor newspapers as Aligarh Institute Gazette, The Moslem Chronicle, Comrade, Zamindar and Mussalman but was always disregarded by both research and authorities as it was both too 'Calcuttan' for the Bengali Muslims and too 'Bengali' for the Northern and Western Muslims.

However, it rarely covered issues related to the Pakistan Movement.[3] It was more interested in entertainment, light news and even modern consuming, a typical emanation from the owners' interests as they all belonged to the local Muslim Chamber of Commerce, for example the Ispahani family, Ross Masood and Ghaznavi. It later included a weekly in Bengali called Muhammadi, a daily in Bengali, called Azad, and an Urdu weekly called Zamana all headed by Akram Khan. It appears also to have had strong links with the Muslim Bengali press in Dhaka in the 1930s or 1940s.[4] Jinnah's Delhi Dawn was deeply inspired by The Star of India's professionalism.

The Star of India represented nearly 10% of the readership in Calcutta at its peak. It had six extremely different editors: Horace Franks: 1932–36, Lawrence Atkinson: 1936–41, Pothan Joseph: 1941–42, Mahmud Husain: 1942–44, Usman Ahmad Ansari: 1944–48, Rezaur Rahman Khan: 1948–49. Pothan Joseph edited the paper in the 1940s.[5] Following the Lahore Resolution, he reoriented The Star's editorial stance to favour a separate Muslim nation.[6]

A number of significant figures in early Pakistan and the Pakistan Movement contributed to the paper, including Abul Hassan Ispahani, Mirza Ahmad Ispahani, and Adamjee Haji Dawood.[4] Nawab Khwaja Habibullah, Sir Khwaja Nazimuddin, H. S. Suhrawardy, Mahmudabad also contributed. Altaf Husain published under the pseudonym 'A Mofussil Muslim';[7] Raghib Assan, an associate of Muhammad Iqbal, frequently wrote for the paper.[8][9] In 1933, the paper published an article titled 'Grievances of Bengal Muslims', which was cited by S. C. Mitra to Harry Graham Haig in a question time session of the Central Legislative Assembly.[10] AF Rahman, Abul Hashim, MF Rahman, Abul Mansur Ahmad also wrote famous articles, and Zaib-un-Nissa Hamidullah published an award-winning poem in the paper at age 18.

The paper was moved by the Haroon family to Karachi in 1949 and began publishing there—as the Dawn's evening edition—in August 1949 and was renamed The Star.[11] In 1954, Julian Huxley debated the Soviet biologist Nuzdin, a supporter of the views of Trofim Lysenko, in Karachi. Star staff assisted Huxley in his preparations for the debate.[12] The paper folded in 2005.[13]

Modern era

The Star was part of the Dawn Media Group,[14] published by Pakistan Herald Publications (Pvt.) Limited (PHPL).[15][1]

Imran Aslam, now President of Geo TV, edited The Star in the 1980s.[15]

Notes

  1. ^ a b Profile of newspaper 'The Star' on mondotimes.com website Retrieved 29 March 2020
  2. ^ Watson, Alfred H. (1948). "The Growth of the Press in English in India". Journal of the Royal Society of Arts. 96 (4760): 121–130 at 128–129. ISSN 0035-9114. JSTOR 41363535.
  3. ^ See notes 10, 16, 32–34, and 105 to Chakrabarty, Bidyut (August 2008). "An Alternative to Partition: The United Bengal Scheme". South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies. 26 (2): 193–212. doi:10.1080/085640032000089744. ISSN 0085-6401. S2CID 143118984.
  4. ^ a b Talha, Naureen (June 2014). "Indian Muslims in British India: Toward Economic Nationalism and Economic Independence (1943–1947)" (PDF).
  5. ^ Fazila-Yacoobali 2006, p. 195.
  6. ^ DiCostanzo 2012, p. 232.
  7. ^ Fazila-Yacoobali 2006, p. 196.
  8. ^ Naqvi, S Ali Raza (1986). "Review of Iqbāl Janah-I-Dīgar: A Collection of Iqbal's Letters to Allama Raghib Ahsan". Islamic Studies. 25 (1): 102–106 at 102. ISSN 0578-8072. JSTOR 20839760. Besides his larger works: Jihad for Millathood, Kitab-i Mubeen and Light from the East, he also contributed more than two hundred articles on the political and religious problems of the Muslims of the sub-continent, most of which were published in the Star of India, Calcutta …
  9. ^ Hayat, Syed Umar; Ullah, Altaf (2017). "Allamah Raghib Ahsan and Pakistan Movement: An Assessment" (PDF). South Asian Studies. 32 (1): 239–249.
  10. ^ The Legislative Debates (Official Report). Vol. 6. New Delhi: Government of India Press. 1934. p. 919.
  11. ^ DiCostanzo 2012, p. 231–232.
  12. ^ Dronamraju, Krishna R.; Needham, Joseph (1 June 1993). If I Am To Be Remembered: Correspondence of Julian Huxley. Singapore: World Scientific. p. 109. ISBN 978-981-4505-19-2.
  13. ^ Acharya, Keya; Noronha, Frederick (20 January 2010). The Green Pen: Environmental Journalism in India and South Asia. New Delhi: SAGE Publications India. 106, note 11. ISBN 978-81-321-0496-4.
  14. ^ The Europa World Year Book. Vol. 2. London: Taylor & Francis. 29 July 2004. p. 3285. ISBN 978-1-85743-255-8.
  15. ^ a b "Imran Aslam". Pakistan Herald.

Sources

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