Page 59 - India - Armenia

acHaL MaLHOTra | 59
There is a controversy as to whether it was published in 1773 or later in 1788–
89; the date of publication does not, however, diminish the importance of the
book which the Armenian scholars have described as the world’s first known
blue print for a Constitutional Democracy; remarkably it appeared in the
East. The Vorogyat Parats outlined the bold vision for an independent Armenian
State in the form of a mercantile Republic with its own elected Parliament or the
Hayots’tun (the Armenian House).
The Vorogyat Parats contains 551 Articles for an imaginary independent
Armenian Republic; these are preceded by a 73-page introduction in which
the authors build upon their earlier analysis, such as “Nor Tetrak Vor Kochi
Hardorac” of the causes of the collapse of the independent Armenian Statehood,
turning them into “vagabonds and drifters in foreign lands, dispersed from their
homeland like brushwood and reeds in the wind, and scattered across the face
of the world.” The authors attribute the collapse to monarchial despotism
characterizing Armenian political history; the collapse of Statehood, they say,
had nothing to do with any providential wrath against a ‘sinful’ people, as
propagated by some those days. The proposed constitution contained a wide
range of provisions; it covered, for instance, the formation of a representative
parliament, political, military, economic and social issues and several other
aspects of a new State such as education, taxation, justice, respect for the
rights and freedoms of individuals, etc. The authors of the draft Constitution
had apparently realized the importance of an independent Armenian State to
back and support their own survival in India and the survival of their fellow
Armenians in other parts of the world. The document was obviously far ahead
of its times. For it took more than a century before an independent Republic of
Armenia emerged on the world map in 1991.

Azdarar: The First Ever Printed Armenian Journal
As mentioned elsewhere, the Armenian merchant and intellectual, Shahamir
Shahamirian had founded the first Armenian printing press in Madras in 1771–
72. In 1789, Shahamirian’s fonts and printing materials were passed on to an
Armenian priest Father Harutyun Shmavonian who was born in 1750 in Shiraz
(Iran) and moved in 1784 to Madras where, in 1789, he founded a second
Armenian Publishing House. His most notable achievement was the publication
of “Azdarar’’- the first periodical Armenian journal ever published anywhere in
the world. The first issue appeared on 14th October 1794. It covered mainly