Indian Publishing House

The Indian Press was founded and registered on 4 June 1884 in Allahabad, far away from the birthplace of Chintamoni Ghosh at Bally in West Bengal. In a short time the printing press earned prestige and reputation for quality printing and honest service. The first and best printed book in Hindi (today Hindi is India’s national language) came out from The Indian Press. Chintamoni was considered the Caxton of the Hindi world, and he was instrumental in ushering in a renaissance in Hindi literature. The company’s publishing front for Hindi as well as English books made headway by leaps and bounds and perfectly fulfilled the publishing need for the advancement of Hindi language and literature. The epoch-making magazine Saraswati saw the light of day on 1 January 1900. This magazine has been rightly acclaimed as the harbinger of modern Hindi prose and poetry. 

Addressing the Rashtra Bhasa Sammelan presided over by Mahatma Gandhi on 29 December 1928 in Calcutta, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose rightly pointed out : 

“ ….. Chintamoni Ghosh, the proprietor of The Indian Press in Uttar Pradesh, through the publication of the first and the best Hindi monthly magazine, Saraswati, and through the publication of numerous Hindi books, rendered the service to Hindi which perhaps any Hindi publisher has not done so far….” 

Indian Publishing House, Calcutta began its journey in 1908 after Charu Chandra Bandopadhyay, a devotee of Rabindranath Tagore, had joined Indian Publishing House as its Manager. The Poet was already enamoured of Chintamoni’s printing and publishing performances. An agreement between Rabindranath Tagore and Indian Publishing House, Calcutta was entered into on 21 June 1909 which assigned the sole right of printing and publishing of about 100 titles of Tagore including responsibility for making arrangement for sale of those books against biennial settlement of royalty to the author. Tagore’s immortal work Gitanjali, which was printed at The Indian Press a year earlier, fetched him the Nobel Prize in 1913. 

Ramananda Chattopadhyay, the prince among Indian journalists, used to stay in Allahabad and have his renowned magazines Prabasi (in Bengali) and Modern Review printed at The Indian Press; and Chintamoni’s generosity was a great help in publication of these magazines. As a common friend of Tagore and Chintamoni, Ramananda played an important role in the Poet–Publisher relationship. 

Rabindranath Tagore formed the institution of Santiniketan-Visva Bharati on 18 September 1922. He informed Chintamoni that he had transferred copyright of his books to Visva Bharati and requested him to join hands for a satisfactory arrangement of printing the books henceforth. Chintamoni readily responded and, ignoring self-interest, transferred the entire stock of books at a nominal one third of the price, and thus the foundation of Visva Bharati publications was laid in July, 1923. 

In 20 October 1922, Tagore wrote to Chintamoni, “I should like to add my personal appreciation of the efficient manner in which you and your press have always performed your part of the agreement and to make it clear that the sole reason why I suggested this arrangement was that the copyright of my Bengali books having been made over to Visva Bharati our future relations will no longer be in my own personal control and would feel very sorry should anything happen in the future to impair our past relations. It is clearly understood that this new arrangement does not any way affect your right of translating my Bengali books into Hindi and of publishing and selling such translations on the former terms.”