One of the quintessential Kerala activities is to go to a chaaya kada or tea shop and read a newspaper with a morning cuppa and an unhealthy snack. This, however, is largely a post-independence phenomenon.

In the early 1900s, the princely states of Travancore and Cochin had high literacy rates when compared to the rest of India, but a vast majority of people (close to 80 per cent) could not read in what makes up the modern day state of Kerala at that time.

Newspapers, however, thrived in Kerala, and those who could read did manage to get their hands on them. Six decades after German missionary Hermann Gundert found the first newspaper in the region-Rajyasamacharam, 33 Malayalam-language newspapers were being published in the state.

Since the colonial authorities were always on the lookout for “seditious” material in the Indian press, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Madras hired translators to look through each newspaper and report anything remotely suspicious.

The CID maintained a record of the name, location, circulation, frequency of publication, as well as the name, age and caste of the editor.

In 1909, the most widely Malayalam weekly was the Bharata Shobhini, which had a circulation of 1,500 and was published in Alleppey. It was edited by 29-year old Neelakandan Pillai. There were no dailies published in Kerala at that time. The only paper that had as much circulation as Bharata Shobhini was The Flower of Karma, which was published by the St. Joseph’s Press in Mannanam in the Kottayam district.

The Malayala Manorama, which was a bi-weekly at that time, had a print run of 1,403 and was edited by 30-year old KM Mathula. The newspaper also published Bhashaposhini, a literary review that has been the gold standard when it comes to modern Malayalam literature. In 1909, it had a circulation of 649 and was edited by KC Mammen Mapilla, who was 34 at that time and would later become the editor of the Malayala Manorama.

The CMS Press in Kottayam also published a few newspapers such as the Malayala Mitram and Kudumba Priyavaadini.

At a time when missionaries, such as the Basel Mission, were very active in Kerala, a number of publications were released by them, both in English and Malayalam.

While Kottayam was the major centre for the newspaper industry in the region, Calicut also had a few notable publishers, such as the West Coast Press, which published the Manorama (Malayalam) weekly, which had a circulation of 600. The publisher also had an English-language newspaper called West Coast Spectator, which had a print run of 750 copies. Its editor was 26-year old MS Damodaran Nair. It’s likely that a number of its readers were officials working for the Malabar district administration, as well as Indians from other parts of the country such as the small Parsi community that lived in the city.

Calicut also had another English-language newspaper called the Malabar Daily News, which despite the name was a tri-weekly. It was published by Norman Printing Press and its editor was a 61-year old “Eurasian,” presumably an Anglo-Indian named Rolle Robin Platel.

Cochin and Travancore also had English-language newspapers in the beginning of the 20th century. The CID report listed two such weeklies in Cochin- the Malabar Herald and the Cochin Argus. The former had a circulation of 665, while its competitor printed 235 copies a week. Both papers had “Eurasian” editors. The Argus’s editor was a 38-year-old C. Hamilton Perreira. The paper was reportedly critical of the British Raj in India.

In the princely state of Travancore, two commercial newspapers were published at that time. The Travancore Times (circulation of 200), which was published by Victoria Press in Nagercoil and the Western Star(circulation of 620), published by a press of the same name in Trivandrum. The Nagercoil weekly was edited by MD Daniel, a 44-year old “Native Christian,” while the publication in Trivandrum, a tri-weekly, had an 48-year old editor named CJ Kurien.

In this day and age, these numbers look rather small and unimpressive, but these newspapers did create an impact on a much-smaller population than the mass media does in contemporary India. They were the first steps in Kerala having a large and thriving media landscape. It would be great to find some of them in the archives and read what concerned the CID of the day and what people were interested in reading and writing in the early 20th century.