William Hickey

His Bengali is a bit rusty now but some years ago, US-based historian Andrew Otis spent a lot of time in Calcutta asking librarians, bureaucrats and other strangers: "Keno hobe na?" Why not? Over time, the question saw him gain access to copies of India's first newspaper, Hicky's Bengal Gazette. Run by James Augustus Hicky, a "fearless but flawed" Irishman who was sued for libel by governor general Warren Hastings, the 200-year-old paper--replete with expletives, poems and even frontpage bylines of a woman grocer--set the tone for press freedom before it was shut down by the government in 1782. In an interview, 33-year-old Otis, author of the recently-republished book 'Hicky's Bengal Gazette', tells Sharmila Ganesan Ram about this "unique" first draft of history.