INDIAN PRESS AND ITS CONTRIBUTION IN FREEDON

STRUGGLE
Dr. Amrita Chakraborty

In India, the art of conveying news can be dated back to the ancient age when
news was given through inscriptions on the walls of temples, on copper plates,
through victory coins and writing on rocks. There were government officials who,
by the beat of tom-tom, announced policies and decisions of the king.

The relevant time for studying the history of journalism in India dates back to
more than 200 years. James Augustus Hicky’s Bengal Gazette was founded in 1780,
more than a century-and-a- half after the first English newspaper was launched in
London. He has the distinction of launching the first newspaper in India. His
Bengal Gazette alias Calcutta General Advertiser came out on January 29, 1780 in
Calcutta as a two-sheet weekly. It declared itself as a “weekly political and
commercial paper open to all parties but influenced by none.” Hicky’s fortune
began to decline when a rival appeared named Indian Gazette in the same year when
he began his venture. It was a better newspaper with four pages, each 16 inches
long with three columns and well-printed. In the social circles, Hicky was not
popular. The publicity which he gave to the social life of the European community
was touched by malice and ridicule. While announcing marriages and engagements,
he also published news of anticipated engagements and he utilized this to hit
people he disliked. It was like a scandal sheet. Action was finally taken against him
and he was imprisoned in June, 1781. In spite of Hicky being in prison, Bengal
Gazette was the forerunner of many newspapers and journals in Calcutta, which
was the birth place of Journalism in India.

In the other two presidency cities, Madras and Bombay, there were not many
newspapers. In Madras, Madras Courier was officially recognized and came out as a
weekly in 1785. There was no newspaper in Bombay until 1789 when the Bombay
Herald was started. It was renamed as the Bombay Gazette in 1791.

In the early years of the 19th century, Calcutta saw the emergence of the first real
journalist, the tallest in his profession at that time, James Silk Buckingham.
Jawaharlal Nehru described him as among the earliest champions of the freedom
of press in India and as one “who will be forever remembered.” He came to India
as the editor of the Calcutta Chronicle in 1818. The first issue which came out on
October 2, 1818 indicated that it would be a chronicle of political, commercial and

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literary news and views. He brought a breath of fresh air to an atmosphere polluted
by the scandal-mongering, flippancy of the European community.

The Letters to the Editor were a notable feature of the Calcutta Chronicle.
Buckingham laid emphasis on news of local conditions rather than fashions, life of
the people rather than social rounds. His editorials concentrated on omissions and
commissions of the government policies with regards to the postal services,
military establishment and government’s indifference to gain monopoly. He was
also fearless in condemning certain Indian traditions like Sati and government’s
failure to put an end to it. He was a stout champion of freedom of press and held
views which would be called revolutionary. It will perhaps not be an exaggeration
to think that Buckingham was the inspiration behind Indian Journalism.

Stage 1(1818-1868): This stage comprises of Buckigham’s Chronicle and inspiring

efforts by Raja Ram Mohan Roy against censorship, harassment, deportation and
persecution. There was a struggle to establish some measure of freedom of
expression, the dilemmas of colonial rulers.

The first Hindi newspaper Oodhund Martand, a weekly was published in Kolkata on
May 30, 1826 'in the interest of Hindustanis'. However, its editor Yugal Kishore
Shukla (Jooghol Kishore Sookool- in some documents) faced many difficulties in
running it. He was not allowed postal concession and had to close down the paper
within a year. He made another attempt to start another paper in 1850 called
Samyadani Martand but this also failed.

The second Hindi newspaper Banga Doot was published in 1829 by Raja Ram
Mohan Ray and Dwarika Prasad Thakore with Nilratan Haldar as its editor.
Besides Hindi, it was also published in English, Bengali and Persian.

The first Hindi daily Samachar Sudha Varshan came out in June 1854 from Kolkata
with Shyam Sundar Sen as its editor and publisher. It was a bilingual paper in
which market and shipping reports were published in Hindi, the rest in Bengali.

Hindoo Patriot was established in 1853, by the author and playwright Girish
Chandra Ghosh and it became popular under the editorship of Harish Chandra
Mukherjee. In 1861, the paper published a play, ‘Neel Darpan’ and launched a
movement against the British, urging the people to stop cultivating the crop for the
white traders. This resulted in the formation of a Neel Commission. Later, the
paper was taken over by Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. The paper strongly opposed
the Government’s excesses and demanded that Indians be appointed to top
government posts.

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The pro-Raj Times of India was founded in 1838 and served the British residents of
western India. It was initially named as The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce. J.
E. Brennan was its first editor. It had a huge impact on the political and intellectual
mood of the first war of Independence. The paper was published on Wednesdays
and Saturdays under the direction of Raobahadur Narayan Dinanath Velkar, a
Maharashtrian Reformist, and contained news from Britain and the world, as well
as the Indian Subcontinent. When Robert Knight purchased it, he rechristened it
the Times of India.

In 1865, The Pioneer was founded by George Allen, an Englishman who had had
great success in the tea business in Northeast India in the previous decade. It was
brought out three times a week from 1865 to 1869 and daily thereafter. In 1866, a
supplement, the Pioneer Mail, mostly of advertisements, was added to the
publication. In 1874, the weekly Pioneer Mail became the Pioneer Mail and India
Weekly News and began to feature short stories and travel writings. The paper
during that point of time was known for its strong imperialistic ideas. In July 1933,
The Pioneer was sold to a syndicate and moved from Allahabad to Lucknow inUttar
Pradesh, at which time the Pioneer Mail and India Weekly News ceased publication.

Stage 2 (1868-1919): It witnessed the rise of the Indian press as part of

nationalistic or anti-imperialist struggle and a manifestation of two lines of
thoughts in the press. One line was the support to the colonial Raj and its policies;
the other was a line of criticism and opposition. This stage saw major
developments like the founding of the Amrita Bazaar Patrika in 1868 and The Hindu
(1878), with the pro-Raj newspaper, The Statesman also appearing in 1875. The
Statesman had Sir Alfred Watson as its editor for some time; he had been connected
with the old Westminster Gazette of London and had served under the late Mr. J.A.
Spender. In due course after Mr. Alfred Watson left India, the paper was succeeded
by Mr. Arthur Moore. During his tenure The Statesman became more or less a pro-
Indian paper, and remained such even under Mr. Ian Stephens, who had taken
over Mr. Moore’s duties. When Delhi became the seat of the Government of India
The Statesman started publishing a Delhi edition; as a journalistic venture this was
unique in India.

The Hindu was started by G. Subramania Aiyer and M. Veeraraghavacharier who

belonged to a society called the ‘Triplicane Literacy Society’. Since its inception,
The Hindu clashed with officialdom and exposed its misdeed and abuse of power.
Amrita Bazaar Patrika is the oldest Indian-owned daily and has been described as
the “best nationalistic newspaper.”

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The Vernacular Press Act (mainly directed towards Amrita Bazaar Patrika) was
passed in 1878 a highly controversial measure repressing the freedom of vernacular
press. Amrita Bazaar Patrika which was being published from Jessore (presently in
Bangladesh), was critical of the government, with the result that its proprietors
faced trial and conviction. But the newspaper had become English weekly and
hence escaped the clutches of the act. Introducing the Bill, the Law Member of the
Council narrated how the vernacular newspapers and periodicals were spreading
seditious propaganda against the government. The British were of the perception
that the educated Indians who read the English newspapers were less likely to get
misled than those who were influenced by language press. It must be noted that
the vernacular press had a huge role to play in mobilizing people.

Kesari was a Marathi newspaper which was founded in 1881 by Lokmanya Bal
Gangadhar Tilak, a prominent leader of the Indian Independence movement. The
newspaper was used as a spokes piece for the Indian national freedom movement,
and continues to be published by the Kesari Mahratta Trust and Tilak's
descendants. Tilak alongwith Agarkar and Chiplunkar started another weekly
journal, Mratha in English.

Tilak’s Kesari became one of the leading mechanisms to propagate the message of
the freedom movement. It also made the anti-partition movement of Bengal a
national issue. In 1908, Tilak opposed the Sedition ordinance. He was later exiled
from the country for six years. Hindi edition of Kesari was started from Nagpur and
Banaras. Tilak faced ‘Sedition’ trials in 1897, 1909 and 1916.

Mahadev Govind Rande, a leading leader of Maharashtra, used to write in Gyan

Prakash as well as the Indu Prakash. Both these journals helped awaken the con-
science of the downtrodden masses.

The stage also witnessed the return of Gandhi to India in 1915 and the struggle
against the Rowlatt Acts (18th March, 1919) and uncivilised colonial repression.
Tilak and Gandhi, themselves considerable journalists, wielded a major influence
on the field. The Jallianwala Bagh massacre (13 April, 1919) closes this stage, with
the press sharply divided into the section which condemns the crime and the
opposite camp which defends or provided apologies for this brutal response to the
intensification of the freedom struggle.

Stage 3 (1919-1937): This stage saw the differentiation of the Indian press into
‘moderate’ and ‘radical’ tendencies in relation to the tactics involved in the freedom
struggle. Nationalist newspapers like Hindustan Times was established in 1924 by

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Sunder Singh Lyallpuri, co-father of the Akali movement in India. The opening
ceremony was performed by Mahatma Gandhi on September 26, 1924. Indian
Express in 1931 was started by an Ayurvedic doctor, P. Varadarajulu Naidu, at
Chennai, being published by his "Tamil Nadu" press. Soon under financial
difficulties, he sold the newspaper to Swaminathan Sadanand, the founder of The
Free Press Journal, a national news agency. In 1933, it opened its second office in
Madurai and launched the Tamil edition Dinamani.

Stage 4 (1937-1947): This stage saw the maturing of the press and significant
professional developments such as news services, pooling of arrangements and
expanded coverage of foreign news. The National Herald was founded in 1938 by
Jawaharlal Nehru which had a forward looking stand and was nationalistic in its
approach. In this period, the newspapers played a great role in reflecting the
opinion of the people. The newspapers greatly opposed the Communal riots and
the Partition.

It should be noted that during the British regime, Indian newspapers were not
allowed to publish matters which were seditious. As a result, underground press
was very active and few journalists were arrested.

At the dawn of independence, Indian press was in a strong position. Both English
and vernacular papers flourished, well produced, displayed news of national and
international importance, just like the counterparts in the west. After
Independence, the press had to function in a greatly transformed situation, with
new perspectives and tasks. Now it was the duty of the press to safeguard the
newly found independence and the democracy of the country.

The Indian press enjoys full freedom like the press in Britain and America. What
hampers this freedom and causes its diminution is its reliance on government for
its existence and efficient functioning. Though the press is more interactive now,
the editorial columns do not have the same appeal to readers as they had to a
previous generation. The winds of change have been felt and great attention is
being paid to investigative reporting and stories in depth and a niche audience is
sought by each newspaper which makes it very specialized.

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