The Role of Vernacular Press in the Subcontinent during the British Rule: A Study of Perceptions (original) (raw)

REVISITING THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIAN PRESS UNDER COLONIAL AUTHORITY

One of the most significant subjects on colonialism in modern history could be that of Great Britain " s colonization of India. Started as a trading company, however, the attention slowly drifted to the control of its political and administrative system by taking due advantages of the weakness of Indians.\ Within 200 years of colonial rule the entire traditional political and administrative systems of Indians got heavily revamped, if not wholly abolished. Moreover, it is a well known fact that the country was looted of its resources to feed the industrial demands of Britain. While the negative impact of colonialism far outweighs the positive aspects, it will be unjust to undermine the contribution of colonial government in India " s past. This paper intends to through light on the role of colonial government and their contribution on the growth of press in the country.

VERNACULAR PRESS AND THE RISE OF POPULAR POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN COLONIAL SOUTH ASIA: CONTESTING 'RAJ' THROUGH LITERARY TRADITION OF INDIA IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

the country. The term 'popular' has been applied here to address class consciousness leading to political conflict and Indian response to colonial rule has also been deliberated. It also examines how literary tradition of the country and its impact on Indian society confront with the 'Raj' has also been discussed. For about two hundred years of the British rule, Indian experienced various kinds of challenges and changes in their socio-religious matters that affected them enormously., We have also chosen some vernacular (proscribed) literature published from various parts of the country to construct the history of the resistance movement that manifested in armed revolts, social protests, cultural assertions and intellectual dissent in colonial India. Most of the literatures dealing with British rule published in the first half of the twentieth century in colonial India were declared proscribed and its circulation was banned by the British. The purpose behind writing such pamphlets and circulating it among the masses, was obvious, that was to create national consciousness among the masses as to how the British introduced new system of administration to exploit Indian resources and at the same time how did they undermine the Indian social system in the garb of modernization and 'civilizing missions'. It also argues that those writing truth of the British rule were punished and their publications were banned under Section 124-A and 153-A of the Indian Penal Code and 99-A of Cr.P.C. ABSTRACT The present article seeks to examine the changes noticed under the colonial South Asia which has been argued by Karl Marx as 'destructive' and 'regenerative' phase of British rule. These two terminologies of Marx became an example for the writers of the 20th century to look into it in their literary tradition of India. While dealing with these two phases of history under the Raj, this article analyses the role of vernacular press, published from various parts of the country, in shaping Indian minds and bringing about political consciousness in

Anglo-Indian Press and Indian Nationalism-A Critical Note

Research Guru, 2017

till 1880's along with the vernacular press played a substantial role in propelling the intelligentsia to formulate their line of thinking, which formulates a key component based on which the nationalists in the twentieth century made all the efforts to bring changes in governing the country from within.

Press Government Relations in the Sub continent during the East India Company’s Era

Regional Studies, 2019

This paper briefly reviews press-government relations during the East India Company’s Rule (1600-1857) in South Asia. The paper begins with a short background on the beginning of the press in pre-colonial India. It examines the nature and evolution of the press during the Company’s Raj and its relations with successive viceroys and other colonial rulers. The paper also reviews the tactics of the colonial rulers to suppress the vernacular press under their authoritarianism our paper uses the sociological perspective of conflict theory, to describe and analyse the historical narrative of the press in pre-Independence India. The analysis revealed that the press in the subcontinent emerged owing to Britain’s colonial ambitions to collect information about rival powers, Christian preachers, and dissenting employees Company. The last was the prime reason that led to an adversarial relationship between the press and the regime in India from the very beginning. Initial press criticism of the regime was justifiable but also very scandalous. The Muslim press was mainly targeted on the eve of the 1857’s War of Independence. Regime’s ties with a few newspapers also remained cordial as some leaflets even supported the suppression of the native people and the press in 1857. Some anti-press laws, i.e., the Censorship of Press Act (1799), the Licensing Act (1823), the Press Act (1835), and the most draconian law, the Gagging Act (1857) were also enforced during the Company’s regime.

Cultural imperialism or vernacular modernity? Hindi newspapers in a globalizing India

While questioning the concept of media imperialism, the article also conceptualizes the rise of Hindi newspapers as what I have termed ‘vernacular modernity’, which is the critical appropriation of Western modernity reproduced in indigenous form. By adopting technological innovation and being sensitive to local cultural values, Hindi newspapers have been able to provide hybrid content to their readers. Such a hybrid content is sensitive to the vernacular realm of Hindi publics while incorporating a modern outlook and values. The study shows that Hindi newspapers, and the people who produce them, have an initiative, autonomy and presentation style – a ‘vernacular modernity’ – that undermines any crude theory of ‘cultural imperialism’.

The decline of multilingualism in a divided public sphere: The Indian Press and cultural politics in colonial Allahabad (1890-1920

Modern Asian Studies, 2023

This article draws attention to the provincial city of Allahabad at the turn of the century as the site of a prolific and multilingual print culture. While publishing trends in this city were shaped by the intertwined histories of political culture and cultural politics, specific journals responded to these forces in ways that remain unexamined. Taking the Indian Press-established in 1884 and arguably the city's most important multilingual publishing house-and four prominent journals that it produced (Saraswatī, Prabāsī, The Modern Review, and Adīb) as case study, I analyse the entanglements between print culture and debates on the contentious issues of languages and identities in a divided public sphere. Based on an extensive analysis of several decades of publishing trends for Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, and English, I argue that the continued thriving of many languages, or multilingualism, cannot be read simply as evidence for the proliferation of syncretism in the early decades of the twentieth century. Through a detailed reading of this complex field of cultural production, I show that while multilingual publishing thrived, cultural discourse led by middle-class and elite intellectuals was increasingly becoming homogeneous and insular, pushing a milieu of multilingual readers and publishers towards a narrow nationalist and majoritarian ideal. Thus, upon close analysis, multilingualism as a cultural value in the era of colonial modernity mirrored the fractures within the public sphere.

Development Of Press In Modern History

History of Indian Press accounts for the prestigious growth of Indian newspapers and its significance in Indian history as well. James Augustus Hickey is considered as the "father of Indian press" as he started the first Indian newspaper from Calcutta, the 'Bengal Gazette' or the 'Calcutta General Advertise' in January 1780. In 1789, the first newspaper from Bombay, the 'Bombay Herald' appeared, followed by the 'Bombay Courier' next year. This newspaper was later amalgamated with the 'Times of India' in 1861. The first newspaper in an Indian language was in Bengali, named as the 'Samachar Darpan'. The first issue of this daily was published from the Serampore Mission Press on May 23, 1818. In the very same year, Ganga Kishore Bhattacharya started publishing another newspaper in Bengali, the Bengal Gazetti. On July 1, 1822 the first Gujarati newspaper was published from Bombay, called the Bombay Samachar, which is still extant. The first Hindi newspaper, the Samachar Sudha Varshan began in 1854. Since then, the prominent Indian languages in which newspapers have grown over the years are Hindi, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Telugu, and Bengali.

More Than a Belated Gutenberg Age: Daily Newspapers in India

2013

While TV may still be the dominant medium in India today, and the internet and mobile phone industry are currently growing at a tremendous speed, 'old' media such as the press don't seem to be losing ground as yet. In times of a recurrent debate about the crisis of print media in Europe and the US, the Indian newspaper market still keeps growing and has attracted the interest of multinational corporations. One reason for this is that India is presently one of the largest markets for English-language newspapers and magazines in the world. Notwithstanding the continued growth of the English-language press, it is above all daily newspapers in the major Indian languages which form the motor of this unprecedented press boom. The article shows that in the wake of economic liberalization and the enforcement of the consumption-oriented market economy, the newspaper market in India can be said to be changing from a linguistically 'split public', which was characterized by many asymmetries for decades, to an integrated multilingual 'consumer sphere'. It can thus be argued that in this new consumer sphere, the old existing and imaginary boundaries between 'English-language', 'Indian-language' or 'regional newspapers' are becoming increasingly fuzzy, whereas the new geographies of the 'regional' are now very important for the expansion and consolidation of daily newspapers. In order to de-westernize the current debate about the 'newspaper crisis', it would thus be important to look at different historical as well as contemporary trajectories of newspaper developments in the framework of changing media configurations in the so-called global South, which may differ significantly from the European or North American context.

India and European Modernity: English Language an Instrument of Cultural Imperialism

Isara solutions, 2023

It is out of season to question at this time of day, the original policy of conferring on every colony of the British Empire a mimic representation of the British Constitution. But if the creature so endowed has sometimes forgotten its real significance and under the fancied importance of speakers and maces, and all the paraphernalia and ceremonies of the imperial legislature, has dared to defy the mother country, she has to thank herself for the folly of conferring such privileges on a condition of society that has no earthly claim to so exalted a position.