It is a hot summer evening and customers wait their turn at the local barber's shop in a prominent Muslim neighbourhood of old Lucknow.A middle-aged man, who had been going through an Urdu newspaper kept at the waiting bench, starts reading the .
The association of Urdu language with Islam in India further adds to the credibility of the Urdu Press. A Muslim will put more faith in a news piece that he reads in an Urdu newspaper as compared to a newspaper in any other language.
On the bicentenary of the Urdu press in India, it is sad to note that there is now no major Urdu newspaper or magazine that is edited by a non-Muslim. In the past 75 years, the culture of Urdu magazines read by families of all faiths has disappeared.