Print History: Representing The Middle-Class Printer - Poona Press Owners Association

Can Indian printing be termed swadeshi? This was the vexatious question which the organisers of the Poona Industrial Exhibition of 1937 sought to answer while considering a proposal from the Poona Press Owners Association to participate in the exhibition with a pavilion devoted to printing. In 1875, the city of Poona had pioneered the concept of industrial exhibitions to showcase “Native Arts and Manufactures” in a variety of sectors. The exhibition of 1888 led to the establishment of the Lord Reay Industrial Museum as a permanent monument to Indian manufacturing talent. The exhibition, organised by the Poona City Municipality, had become an annual feature from 1933 under the stewardship of BV Gharpure, the curator of the museum, and it was he who had to decide whether the printing fraternity could participate in the exhibition.

Though India had a thriving printing industry, Indian printers were completely reliant on imported printing machines to run their operations. Besides the machines, other consumables also had to be imported as there were not manufactured in India.

Though types, printing inks and paper were, to some extent, manufactured locally, Indian print was not swadeshi. But how could the work of Indian printers and manufacturers of types in Indian languages be showcased? And how could they be incentivised to innovate locally?

Banding together
According to the proprietors of printing presses in Poona, the most critical issue faced by them after the conclusion of the First World War was the non-availability of labour and their demand for excessive wages. The formation of the Poona Press Workers Union earlier in the year provoked the printing press proprietors to band together. The lead was taken by Aryabhushan Chhapkhana, the largest printing press in Poona at that time. At a meeting convened in 19 May 1919 at its premises, the Poona Press Owners Association was constituted, perhaps the first print industry organisation in India. The manager of Aryabhushan Chhapkhana, Keshavrao Mahadeo Bal, was elected its first president. The association tackled the labour issue by establishing a standardised system of wages which all Poona printing presses affiliated to the association adhered to. It also hoped to address other pressing issues: the numerous laws applicable to printers of newspapers; increased taxation by provincial governments; and, the complex rules of the post office. The association also planned to establish a training school to alleviate the shortage of trained personnel. In the same year, a similar association was formed in Bombay.

The wage agreement was a success for a few years; however, as new entrants, who refused to toe the association’s line entered the field, it became redundant. The ardour of its members cooled and the association become dormant for a few years. When newer and more enthusiastic members joined the association, a meeting was again convened at the Aryabhushan Chhapkhana in January 1934 and its proprietor, Anant Vinayak Patwardhan, was elected president. The members of the Poona Press Owners Association, who numbered 44 by 1937, met fortnightly at different printing presses in Poona to discuss issues connected with their business. One of these meetings was held outside Poona every year when the members went on a field trip. In October 1937, they went to Kirloskarwadi, an industrial hub to the south of Poona. The following year, they went to Bombay where they visited leading print institutions—Gujarati Type Foundry, the Times Press and Vakils. These meetings were evidently a success and spurred the association to undertake more ambitious projects. 

Members of the Poona Press Owners Association on a field trip to Kirloskarwadi

The Poona industrial exhibition of 1937
Indian printers had earlier participated in swadeshi-themed exhibitions; for instance, at the second Indian Industries Fair held in Bombay in December 1936, the exhibitors included the British India Press and the Gujarati Type Foundry. The proposal of the Poona Press Owners Association to set up a printing pavilion in the industrial exhibition had been derailed by the swadeshi question. As one of the primary objectives of the pavilion was to expose printers to the latest print trends, it was imperative that foreign-made machines be displayed. After much discussion, a solution was proposed by the organisers of the Poona Exhibition: international manufacturers of printing machines could display their products at the exhibition but they would not be able to sell them. This condition was not onerous as these machines were priced in the thousands of rupees and impulsive purchases were not expected. But when invitations were sent to these machine manufacturers, none of them accepted it and also forbade their Indian agents from participating in the exhibition. 

To ensure that Indian printers from all over the country would come to attend the exhibition, the association decided to hold a conference on the sidelines of the exhibition which would discuss the concerns of Indian printers. But how were the printers to be
contacted? There were no printing trade directories or industry associations through which they could be reached. The Press Registration Act, one of the laws used by the colonial government to monitor the printing fraternity, came to their rescue. They wrote to the district magistrates for lists of printers registered in each district in India; they received a prompt response from most officials, but surprisingly, the district magistrate of Poona spurned their request. They were thus able to reach out to 3,000 printers and invite them for the exhibition and the conference. 

The Poona Industrial Exhibition, held between 7 March and 18 April 1937, was inaugurated by Balasaheb Pant Pratinidhi, Raja of Aundh and himself a printer. It was estimated that over 225,000 visitors thronged its pavilions over five weeks. The
centrepiece of the exhibition was the agricultural section. Besides exhibits on poultry, dairy, horticulture and food processing, numerous stalls displayed indigenous agricultural implements and machinery. There were sub-exhibitions on other themes: hygiene and health, forestry, library propaganda, and printing and allied trades. The separate printing pavilion had printing machines, paper, types, inks and other material associated with printing. Samples of high-quality artistic printing were also on display. Live demonstrations were arranged: for instance, the technological department of the University of Bombay set up demonstrations for the manufacture of printing ink and binding cloth. The association estimated that most printers from Maharashtra visited the exhibition. 

The first All India Printers’ Conference was held on 28–29 March 1937 at the main pandal of the exhibition. Electricity and loudspeakers, then a novelty, were arranged for the conference. Delegates arrived from all corners of British India, from Calcutta to Karachi and from Delhi to Madras. The princely states of Kathiawar, Gwalior, Baroda and Kolhapur also sent representatives. The president of the conference, nominated at short notice, was Venkateshwar Shastrulu, the proprietor of the Madras-based Vavilla Press, one of the leading publishers of Telugu literature. Many of the sessions at the conference reflected the shared concerns of Indian printers: onerous laws, censorship, unhealthy competition, tariffs, government printing contracts, and lack of innovation. The association had planned to organise a prize competition for printing machines of Indian make but paucity of time precluded the announcement. However, they did announce a cash award for a designer from Solapur whose prototypes for a printing machine seemed promising. Both the exhibition and the conference were deemed a great success and the Poona Press Owners Association hoped that they would serve as models for future events. 

A journal for printers
After the success of the Industrial Exhibition and the All India Printers’ Conference, the Poona Press Owners Association felt the need to have an ongoing communication with printers. Though printing trade magazines were ubiquitous in the western world, there were hardly any in India and none in Maharashtra. In November 1926, a printer named GR Tikekar started a journal titled Mudran Sewak devoted exclusively to the art and science of printing. It was a monthly published from Barshi, a town near Solapur. Though it survived for only ten months before folding up in August 1927 due to lack of subscribers, Mudran Sewak demonstrated that a journal for printers was a major desideratum. When the association, with its deeper coffers and access to writers, decided to step in to fill the breach, it started a quarterly journal titled Mudran Prakash. The first editorial outlined its objectives: 

It is well known that proprietors of printing presses face problems in their business on a regular basis. It is not as if every one of them knows how to address these issues. Nay, they do even know who might be able to guide them in such situations. Some may face problems and other may know the solution to these problems. The objective of this quarterly magazine is to bring them together. It also seeks to increase the knowledge of printers about their trade and provide them with information so that they can make their operations more efficient and increase their revenues. 

The association decided to conduct the journal in Marathi as its primary constituency was printing organisations owned by native speakers of Marathi in greater Maharashtra, a vast territory governed by many political entities including the Bombay Presidency, Central Provinces, Hyderabad, Portuguese Goa and numerous princely states. It estimated that its audience was 1,000 printing presses strong; 300 in Bombay, another 100 or so in Poona and the rest spread across smaller cities and towns. Assuming that four-fifths of them employed, on an average, a capital of five thousand rupees and the other fifth employed Rs 50,000, the association estimated that the industry deployed Rs 1,50, 00,000 as capital and employed thirty thousand people.

Though the association acknowledged that there were presses owned by “Gujaratis, Bohris, Muslims, Parsis and Europeans” in greater Maharashtra, it felt their concerns were different because those presses were much larger, with a capital of many lakhs of rupees and some over a crore. It hoped that “middle-class Marathi printing houses,” that is, owners and managers of printing presses, editors of newspapers and magazines, bookbinders and manufacturers of type and paper would not only subscribe to Mudran Prakash but also advertise in it. 800 copies of the first issue of Mudran Prakash for January 1938 were dispatched to this audience in the hope that many of them would send in the subscription fees of two rupees per annum. 

The joint editors of Mudran Prakash were Shankar Ramachandra Datey, the manager of Lokasangraha Chhapkhana and SB Sahasrabuddhe, the proprietor of Modern Printing Services, a print conglomerate which included Balodyan Chhapkhana, Poona Litho Works, Model Engraving Works and Poona Printing Ink Works. Not only were they experts of printing technology, they also had practical experience of successfully running a printing press. Datey had already published Mudran-Pravesh, an introductory printing manual in Marathi. Sahasrabuddhe, besides his business responsibilities, was also a researcher who had been “making experiments in almost every chemical branch of the printers’ requirements.” 

Each quarterly issue of Mudran Prakash, forty-eight pages long, sought to cover every aspect of the business of printing. Though the focus was on the technical and commercial aspects of printing, it also carried articles on legal issues connected with the trade. The first issue carried a detailed and illustrated article on three-colour block printing, and another one titled ‘The Tyranny of the Press Act’. Since many printers were not aware of costing methods, they were underpricing their products which led to unhealthy trade practices; the editors carried a four-part article on how to estimate costs associated with printing. The journal was also a discussion forum to address practical printing problems.

The first volume for 1938 published many of the speeches delivered at the 1937 conference by members of the association. While taking stock of the journal after a year, the editors were not satisfied with their performance; too few subscribers, no advertising support from the printing fraternity, no submissions of high-quality articles, and a general apathy regarding the finer aspects of printing. The editors had to write most of the articles themselves and most of the advertisements were paid for by the association’s members. Except for Monotype, international printing machine manufacturers did not advertise in the journal. Though it was decided to continue publishing the journal, the format changed from quarterly to monthly in mid-1939. Mudran Prakash appeared regularly except for a few years during the Second World War. In 1945, a new editorial team took over with DG Devkule of the Chitrashala Press as its manager. Though the number of subscribers was only 225 in 1947 (336 in 1960), it was, perhaps, the most important activity of the Poona Press Owners Association. 

Advertisement for Mudran Prakash; also a specimen of the types available at Chitrashala Press

Training the printer
Besides Mudran Prakash, the Poona Press Owners Association sought to create a library of books related to printing technology. It initially promoted books published by the authors themselves. For instance, printers could purchase  a book authored by GC Natarajan, the superintendent of the Government Printing Press, Nagpur from the association's office. It was marketed as “a best and most useful book on printing, deals with every day problems of the printer.” Besides, Datey’s Mudran-Pravesh was also for sale. 

One of the first publications of the association was a broadsheet titled Mudran Niti Sangraha which enumerated 28 rules which the ideal printer should follow while dealing with his customers, suppliers, workers and competitors. These prescriptive edicts were reflective of the moral high ground which the office-bearers of the association sought to occupy. Priced at two annas, it was marketed as “worth displaying in every printing press.” Having successfully conducted the first All India Printers’ Conference in 1937, the association was in possession of names and addresses of thousands of printers across India. It compiled this data in a book titled Directory of Printing Presses in India which was published in 1938. It listed 7500 printing houses. A similar book was the Poona District Printers, Publishers & Newspaper Directory which was slightly different in scope and contained “valuable information to those who concern with printing presses, process studios, type founders, booksellers and periodicals.” 

Mudran-Pravesh by S R Datey, second edition, 1960

When it was first formed in 1919, one of the objectives of the Poona Press Owners Association was to provide training in all the trades connected to printing and help new entrants run their business profitably. Though its members continued to discuss the proposal over the years, they could not raise a corpus large enough to support their vision for the school. Three decades later, on 15 August 1949, a start was finally made with a three-month course on composing conducted by SR Datey. In the fifties, the Poona Press Owners Association developed a series of technical books for the use of the printing fraternity titled Tantravigyan Prakashan. The star of this series was Datey’s Mudran-Pravesh whose second edition was published in 1960. Some of the other books in this series dealt with bookbinding, machine operating and laws related to printing.  

To tackle the chronic shortage of printing supplies, especially paper, during the 1940s, the Poona Press Owners Association, established a fair price shop named the Mudran Sahitya Bhandar from where its members could purchase their requirements. In 1952, the association adopted a new constitution and incorporated itself into a company. While many other industry associations fell by the wayside or were rendered irrelevant by newer organisations, the Poona Press Owners Association continues to serve the printers of the city to the present day.