DEVELOPMENT OF INDIAN PRESS Flashcards
The Bengal Gazette or Calcutta General Advertiser was seized in?
1872 because of its outspoken criticism of the government.
Who imposed almost wartime press restrictions and who relaxed it?
Lord Wellesley imposed almost wartime press restrictions including pre censorship.
These restrictions were relaxed under Lord Hastings, and in 1818, pre censorship was dispensed with.
What were the licensing regulations of 1823 and who enacted these?
John Adams. According to these regulations, starting or using a press without license was a penal offences. Later on, the Act was extended to cover journals, pamphlets and books.
These restrictions were directed chiefly against Indian language newspapers or those edited by Indians.
Rammohan Roy’s Mirat-ul-Akbar had to stop publication.
Who is called the liberator of the Indian press?
- Metcalfe repealed the obnoxious 1823 ordinance and earned the epithet, “liberator of the Indian press”.
- The new Press Act (1835) required a printer/publisher to give a precise account of premises of a publication and cease functioning, it required by a similar declaration.
Licensing Act, 1857?
Due to the emergency caused by the 1857 revolt, this Licensing Act, 1857 imposed licensing restrictions in addition to the already existing registration procedure laid down by Metcalfe Act and the government reserved the right to stop publication and circulation of any book, newspaper or printed matter.
Registration Act, 1867?
This replaced Metcalfe’s Act of 1835 and was of a regulatory, not restrictive, nature.
As per the Act,
(i) every book/newspaper was required to print the name of the printer and the publisher and the place of the publication.
(ii) a copy was to be submitted to the local government within one month of the publication of a book.
Vernacular Press Act?
VPA was designed to better control the vernacular press and effectively punish seditious writing.
1. The district magistrate was empowered to call upon the printer and publisher of any vernacular newspaper to enter into a bond with the government undertaking not to cause disaffection against the government or antipathy between persons of different religions, caste, race through published material; the printer and publisher could also be required to deposit security which could be forefeited if the regulation were contravened, and press equipment could be seized if the offence re-occurred.
2. The magistrate’s action was final and no appeal could be made in a court of law.
3. A vernacular newspaper could get exemption from the operation of the Act by submitting proofs to a government censor. The Act came to be nicknamed “the gagging Act”. The worst features of this Act were-
(i) discrimination between English and veracular press.
(ii) no right of appeal.
Later, the pre-censorship clause was repealed,and a press commissioner was appointed to supply authentic and accurate news to the press.
There was strong opposition to the Act and finally Ripon repealed it in 1882.
Under Vernacular Press Act proceedings were instituted against which newspapers and which newspaper escaped the VPA?
- Proceedings were instituted against Som Prakash, Bharat Mihir, Dacca Prakash and Samachar.
- Incidentally, the Amrita Bazar Patrika turned overnight into an English newspaper to escape the VPA.
Who was the first Indian journalist to be imprisoned?
In 1883, Surendranath Banerjee became the first Indian journalist to be imprisoned.
In The Bengalee Banerjee had criticized a judge of Calcutta of Bengalis in one of his judgements.
All Maharashtra campaign and no tax campaign in Maharashtra was organised by?
- 1896, Tilak organised an all Maharashtra campaign for boycott of foreign cloth in opposition to imposition of excise duty on cotton. - In 1896-97 he initiated a no-tax campaign in Maharashtra, urging farmers to withhold the payment of revenue if their crop had failed.
Who supported goverment measures to check Plague of 1897?
Tilak .
Tilak was arrested after the murder of Rand on the basis of the publication of which poem in which newspaper?
Tilak was arrested after the murder of Rand on the basis of the publication of a poem, ‘Shivaji’s Utterances’, in Kesari, and a speech which Tilak had delivered at the Shivaji festival, justifying Afzal Khan’s murder by Shivaji.
Newspaper (Incitement to Offences) Act, 1908 aim?
Aimed against Extremist nationalists activity, the Act empowered the magistrates to confiscate press property which published objectionable material likely to cause incitement to murder/acts of violence.
Tilak as the leader of the militant nationalism was tried on charges of sedition and transported to Mandalay (Burma) for six years.
Indian Press Act, 1910?
Local government was empowered to demand a security at registration from the printer/publisher and forfeit/deregister if it was an offending newspaper, and the printer of a newspaper was required to submit two copies of each issue to local government free of charge.
In 1921, on the recommendations of a Press Committee chaired by ________, the Press Acts of 1908 and 1910 were repealed.
Tej Bahadur Sapru.
