Development of Press, Railway, Press and Telegraph, Industries in British India
Development of Press:-
The first press in India was established by the Portuguese in 1550, first book was published by Portuguese missionaries (1557). The next was established by British in 1684.
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.
“The Bengal Gazette” newspaper is also sometimes known as Hickey’s Gazette. This paper attacked both Warren Hastings and Chief Justice E Impey. It criticized government policies and the Governor-General hence the paper was closed in just two years in 1782. But soon other news papers were started.
The first Indian to publish a newspaper was Gangadhar Bhattacharya who brought out the Bengal Gazette in English. In 1818 Digdarshan was started as the first Bengali weekly by Marshman from Srirampore. On December 4th 1821 Raja Ram Mohan Roy started Samvad Kaumudi and Persian weekly Mirat-ul-Akhbar in 1822
Indian Press under the British Rule
During the reign of the British Empire, there were several Acts passed as stringent curbs over the Indian Press.
Prior to the rumblings of the 1857 mutiny, the Press was fiercely involved in rallying the masses, and inevitably, the British government was increasingly becoming apprehensive about the Press’ freedom.
Through the newspapers, a nationalistic rebellion was slowly being pieced together through words and symbols.
The circulation of papers during the early period never exceeded a hundred or two hundreds. These journals usually aimed to cater to the intellectual entertainment of the Europeans and the Anglo Indians. There was hardly any danger of public opinion being subverted in India.
What really worried these Company’s officers was the apprehension that these newspapers might reach London and expose their misdoings to the Home authorities. In the absence of press laws, the newspapers were at the mercy of the Company’s officials. The Government sometimes enforced pre-censorship, sometimes deported the offending editor for anti-government policies
The Censorship of the Press Act, 1799
Lord Wellesley imposed severe censorship on all newspapers. The Censorship of the Press Act, 1799, imposed almost wartime restrictions on the press. These regulations required:
- The newspaper was to clearly print in every issue the name of the printer, the editor and the proprietor.
- The publisher was to submit all material for pre-censorship to the Secretary to the Government.
- The breach of these rules was punishable with immediate deportation.
In 1807 the Censorship Act was extended to cover journals, pamphlets and even books. The relaxation of press restrictions came under Lord Hastings.
Licensing regulation Act, 1823
Adams’s brief administration of seven months was marked by great energy, but it is remembered only by his illiberal proceedings against the press, and his vindictive persecution of Mr. Buckingham, who had come out to Calcutta in 1818, and established the “Calcutta Journal.” It was the ablest newspaper which had ever appeared in India, and gave a higher tone and a deeper interest to journalism.
The editor, availing himself of the liberty granted to the press by Lord Hastings, commented on public measures with great boldness, and sometimes with a degree of severity which was considered dangerous.
But the great offence of the Journal consisted in the freedom of its remarks on some of the leading members of Government. They had been nursed in the lap of despotism, and their feelings of official complacency were rudely disturbed by the sarcasms inflicted on them.