Indian National Movement

The Vernacular Press Act (1878) The Vernacular Press Act was passed in 1878 under the Governor Generalship and Viceroyalty of Lord Lytton, for better control of Indian language newspapers. The purpose of the Act was to control the printing and circulation of seditious material, calculated to produce disaffection against the British government in India in the minds of the ignorant, uneducated and largely illiterate masses. The infamous Gagging Act of 1857 has been passed following the mutiny. It sought to regulate the establishment of printing presses and to restrain the circulation of printed mater. All presses had to have a license from the government. No distinction was made between publications in English and other regional languages. When the British Government found that the Gagging Act was not potent enough to repress all Nationalist sentiments, it went on to create a more forcible law, designed in part by Sir Alexander Arbuthnot and Sir Ashley Eden, Lieutenant Governor of Bengal. The Vernacular Press Act stated that any magistrate or Commissioner of Police had the authority to call upon any printer or publisher of a newspaper to enter into a bond, undertaking not to print a certain kind of material, and confiscate any printed mater it deemed objectionable. The affected party could not seek redress in a court of law. Lord Lyttons arms act was a means to prevent Indians from keeping arms. Viceroy Ripon (1880 1884) repealed the vernacular press act by Act III of 1882.

The Ilbert Bill (1883)

The Ilbert Bill was a bill introduced in 1883 for British India by Viceroy Ripon that proposed an amendment for existing laws in the country at the time to allow Indian judges and magistrates the jurisdiction to try British offenders in criminal cases at the District level, something that was disallowed at the time. This bill was opposed by the British Residents in India. Ultimately the Bill was modified. Thus various factor contributed the rise of nationalism and formation of Indian National Congress.

Lucknow Pact (1916) Lucknow Pact refers to an agreement between the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League. In 1916, Muhammed Ali Jinnah, a member of the Muslim League, negotiated with the Indian National Congress to reach an agreement to pressure the British government to adopt a more liberal approach to India and give Indians more authority to run their country. This was a considerable change of policy for the Muslim League, as its position had been that to preserve Muslim interests in India, it needed to support British rule. After the unpopular partition of Bengal, the Muslim League was confused about its stand and it was at that time that Jinnah approached the League. Jinnah was the mastermind and architect of the pact. The Lucknow Pact also marked the establishment of cordial relations between the two prominent groups of the Indian National Congress the bold, fierce leaders or garam dal led by Bal Gangadhar Tilak, and the moderates or the naram dal led by Gopal Krishna Gokhale. As a result of the hard work of Mr. Jinnah, both the Muslim League and the Congress met for their annual sessions at Bombay in December 1915. The principal leaders of the two political parties assembled at one place for the first time in the history of these organizations. Within a few months of the Bombay meetings, 19 Muslim and Hindu elected members of the Imperial Legislative Council addressed a memorandum to the Viceroy on the subject of reforms in October 1916. Their suggestions did not become news in the British circle, but were discussed, amended and accepted at a subsequent meeting of the Congress and Muslim League leaders at Calcutta in November 1916. This meeting settled the details of an agreement about the composition of the legislatures and the quantum of representation to be allowed to the two communities. The agreement was confirmed by the annual sessions of the Congress and the League in their annual sessions held at Lucknow on December 29 and December 31, 1916 respectively. Sarojini Naidu gave Jinnah, the chief architect of the Lucknow Pact, the title of "the Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity". Although this Hindu Muslim unity did not last for more than eight years, and collapsed after the development of differences between the two communities after the Khilafat Movement, yet it was an important event in the history of the Muslims of South Asia.