Vernacular press act and Role of Press in India's Struggle for Freedom

Vernacular press act

Reason behind vernacular press act .

Lord Lytton was being bitterly criticized for the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–80). So, he promulgated the act with an aim to prevent the vernacular press from expressing criticism of British policies under him.

Nick name :- Gagging Act

What was there in act ?

Publishers have to submit the all the proof sheets of contents of papers to police before publication. The police used to decide what the seditious news was and deleted them. Thus many of the papers were fined and their editors jailed.

 It was a modelled on the Irish Press Laws.

It empowered the British colonial government with extensive rights to censor reports and editorials in vernacular news papers.

The Act directly aimed at curtailing the nationalist activities by clamping down on the Vernacular press.

Role of Press in India's Struggle for Freedom

Press play role in Indian struggle for freedom befre 1857 revolt

It was in 1857 itself that Payam-e-Azadi started publi­cation in Hindi and Urdu, calling upon the people to fight against the British.

 The paper was soon confiscated and anyone found with a copy of the paper was prosecuted for sedition.

Again, the first Hindi daily, Samachar Sudhavarashan, and two newspapers in Urdu and Persian respectively, Doorbeen and Sultan-ul-Akbar,

It faced trial in 1857 for having published a 'Firman' by Bahadur Shah Zafar, urging the people to drive the British out of India.

Hindi patriot , established in 1853 publish a play neel darpan 1861 , which start a huge movement , the play urging the people to stop cultivating the Indigo crop for the white traders

Tilak kesri , A Marathi newspapaer became one of the leading media to propagate the message of freedom movement. It also made the anti-partition movement of Bengal a national issue.

When first ever meeting of congress held in Mumbai , 1885 , all the front seaters were editors of newspapaers

first ever resolution proposed to congresss was moved by the editor of the hindu , G. Subramanya Iyer. In this resolution, it was demanded that the government should appoint a committee to enquire into the functioning of Indian administration.

The second resolution was also moved by a journalist from Poona, Chiplunkar in which the Congress was urged to demand for the abolition of India Council which ruled the country from Britain.

the 3^rd and 4^th resolution proposed by dada bhai navarioji who was famous journalist of tha time

During his stay in South Africa, Gandhiji had brought out Indian Opinion and after settling in India, he started the publication of Young India; Navjeevan, Harijan, Harijan Sevak and Harijan Bandhu.

there were numbers of congress president who were editors like Ferozeshah Mehta who had started the Bombay Chronicle and Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya who edited the daily, Hindustan etc

Subash Chandra Bose and C.R. Das were not journalists but they acquired the papers like Forward and Advance which later attained national status. Jawaharlal Nehru founded the National Herald.

In case of the revolutionary movement, it did not begin with guns and bombs but it started with the publication of newspapers. The first to be mentioned in this context is Yugantar publication of which was started by Barindra Kumar Ghosh who edited it also.

When the Ghadar party was organised in Amenca, Lala Hardayal started publication of the journal 'Ghadar'. Within one year, millions of copies of this journal were published in Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi and English and sent to India and to all parts of the world· where Indians were residing

In 1905 Shyamji Krishna Verma started publication of a journal Indian Sociologist from London. It used to publish reports of political activities taking place at the India House in London.

The Bharat-Mitra was a famous Hindi journal of Calcutta which started its publication on May 17, 1878 as a fortnighly. It contributed a lot in propagating the cause of the freedom movement. The journal exposed the British conspiracy to usurp Kashmir.