Print, censorship and nationalism

Detail

Before 1798 — Company did not fear print, it feared Englishmen

• In the early years the East India Company did not bother much about censoring what Indians printed.
• Its first controls were aimed at Englishmen in India, not at Indians.
• Reason was money, not culture:
• Some English officials and traders wrote articles attacking Company misrule.
• Such writing could reach England and help the Company's enemies there.

• Those enemies wanted the Company's trade monopoly (sole right to trade) taken away.

• So censorship began as a way to protect a business privilege.

1820s — first rules, and loyalist newspapers

• In the 1820s the Calcutta Supreme Court passed regulations to control press freedom.
• At the same time the Company encouraged newspapers that praised British rule, to balance critical voices.

1835 — Bentinck and Macaulay restore freedom

• English and Indian editors sent petitions against the restrictions.
• Governor-General Bentinck agreed to review the rules.
• Thomas Babington Macaulay framed new rules in 1835 that restored the earlier freedoms.
• Macaulay is the same person who drafted the Indian Penal Code: his draft code was finished in 1837, and the Revolt of 1857 pushed it into law in 1860, one year after his death. [4]
• The draft code had no sedition clause. Section 124A (sedition) was inserted about ten years later, around 1870 — the section later used again and again against newspapers. [4]

After 1857 — anger turns on the 'native' press

• The Revolt of 1857 changed English opinion in India completely.
• Englishmen now demanded a clampdown on the 'native' press (Indian-language papers).
• As nationalist writing grew, the colonial state looked for a legal weapon.

1878 — the Vernacular Press Act

• The Vernacular Press Act, 1878 was modelled on the Irish Press Laws.
• It gave the government wide power to censor reports and editorials in the vernacular press (papers in Indian languages).
• How it worked:
• Government kept track of vernacular papers province by province.
• A report judged 'seditious' (stirring hatred of the government) brought a warning to the newspaper.

• If the warning was ignored, the press could be seized and the printing machinery confiscated.

• It was proposed by Viceroy Lord Lytton. [2]

• By the 1870s there were over 150 vernacular newspapers, with a total readership of about 100,000 across British India. [2]
• District magistrates could make publishers sign bonds, submit matter for official checking before printing, or face warnings, seizure of the press, fines or jail. [2]
• English-language papers were exempt. The Amrita Bazar Patrika escaped the Act by switching from Bengali to English — proof the law targeted Indian languages only. [2]
• The Act was repealed in 1881 by Viceroy Lord Ripon, but the bitterness it created lasted and fed organised political opposition. [2]

• Note: the repeal date (1881) and Lytton/Ripon names come from [2]; the NCERT scaffold does not give them, and there is no conflict.

A cycle of persecution and protest

• Repression did not silence the press. It did the opposite.
• Nationalist newspapers multiplied across India.
• They reported colonial misrule and openly backed national movements.
• Every attempt to crush them provoked more protest, which drew more readers.

1907–1908 — Tilak and the Kesari

• In 1907 revolutionaries in Punjab were deported (forced out of the province).
• Bal Gangadhar Tilak wrote in his Marathi paper Kesari with sympathy for them.
• This led to his imprisonment in 1908, which set off protests all over India.
• Extra detail: Tilak had already been booked for sedition under Section 124A in 1897 over Kesari writings; the 1908 case was the second prosecution. [3]
• He was deported to Mandalay jail in Burma (Myanmar) to serve a six-year sentence. [3]
• In Mandalay he wrote the Gita Rahasya (Śrīmad Bhagavadgita Rahasya, "Secret of the Bhagavadgita"). [3]
• The 1907 Surat split in the Congress weakened the nationalists, and the government used that moment to strike at Tilak. [3]

Government could not even buy loyal editors

• The colonial state tried to create a friendly press. It largely failed.
• Sanders of the Statesman said he would want compensation for the loss of his freedom if he had to follow government wishes.
• The Friend of India refused a government subsidy (money support).
• Lesson for the exam: by the early twentieth century even the European-owned press in India valued its independence.

Wartime suppression — World War I

• Under the Defence of India Rules during World War I, papers were ordered to furnish securities (deposit money as a guarantee of good behaviour).
• Of the 22 papers so ordered, 18 shut down.
• The Rowlatt Sedition Committee Report (1919) recommended tighter control over the press.

Wartime suppression — World War II

• The Defence of India Act during World War II allowed censorship of war reporting.
• All news of the Quit India movement was censored.
• In August 1942 alone, about 90 newspapers were suppressed.

Gandhi and the link between press freedom and Swaraj

• Gandhi wrote in 1922: "Liberty of speech … liberty of the press … freedom of association … The fight for Swaraj, for Khilafat … means a fight for this threatened freedom before all else."
• The same year he faced the Great Sedition Trial of 1922, tried with Shankarlal Banker before the District and Sessions Judge at the Government Circuit House, Ahmedabad, for three articles in his journal Young India. [5]
• In court Gandhi called Section 124A "perhaps the prince among the political sections of the Indian Penal Code designed to suppress the liberty of the citizen." [5]
• He argued "Affection cannot be manufactured or regulated by law" — a person with no love for a system must be free to say so, as long as he does not plan or incite violence. [5]
• He appeared without a lawyer, pleaded guilty, asked for the maximum punishment, and was sentenced to six years' imprisonment. [5]
• Point to remember: by 1922 freedom of the press was no longer a side demand — it was part of the definition of Swaraj.

Prelims Hooks

• Vernacular Press Act, 1878 was modelled on the Irish Press Laws; proposed by Viceroy Lord Lytton. [2]
• The Act was repealed in 1881 by Lord Ripon. [2]
• Amrita Bazar Patrika dodged the Act by changing from Bengali to English. [2]
• 1835: Bentinck asked Thomas Macaulay to frame rules that restored earlier press freedoms.
• Section 124A (sedition) was not in Macaulay's 1837 draft; it was inserted about 1870. [4]
• Tilak's paper was the Marathi Kesari; he defended the Punjab revolutionaries deported in 1907 and was jailed in 1908, deported to Mandalay for six years. [3]
• In Mandalay jail Tilak wrote the Gita Rahasya. [3]
• WWI Defence of India Rules: of 22 papers asked for securities, 18 closed.
• Rowlatt Sedition Committee Report came in 1919.
• August 1942 (Quit India): about 90 newspapers suppressed under the Defence of India Act.
• Gandhi's 1922 sedition trial was over three articles in Young India; sentence six years. [5]

Mains Points

• Censorship followed the interest of the state, not a fixed principle. Before 1798 the target was critical Englishmen, because their writings could threaten the Company's trade monopoly in England; after 1857 the target shifted to the vernacular press. The same tool served two different fears.
• Repression produced the opposite of what it wanted. The Vernacular Press Act and later wartime rules did not kill nationalist journalism; the number of nationalist papers grew, and each act of suppression — Tilak's 1908 jailing, Gandhi's 1922 trial — created all-India protest and new readers. This is the classic "cycle of persecution and protest" argument.
• Print made the freedom struggle a mass, connected movement. A local deportation in Punjab could be read about in Marathi in Maharashtra within days. That is exactly why the colonial state tracked papers province by province and why it exempted English papers in 1878 — the danger was reach in Indian languages, not criticism as such. [2]
• Press freedom became a core definition of Swaraj. Gandhi's 1922 line and his courtroom attack on Section 124A show that civil liberty was not a by-product of independence but a stated aim of it. This links directly to Article 19(1)(a) debates in independent India and to the long afterlife of the sedition law. [5]