Paper 301

Day-7
Arkaprabha Sanyal
India and the World of Print
Synopsis
Even up until the late 19th century, manuscripts were the major way of reading in
India. It posed a variety of problems such as it was very fragile and had to be handled
carefully, a number of handwritten scripts were used to write them so not everyone
could read them and they were also very costly. A lot of schools came up during this
time and even though the students were educated most of them knew how to write but
did this without ever reading a book because manuscripts were very costly. The
teacher used to dictate the notes out of memory. Portuguese missionaries set up the
first printing press in Goa and eventually a lot of books started getting published in
Tamil, Malayalam, etc. A number of local newspapers started circulating among them
are the Bengal Gazette. In this way, quite like it’s European counterpart, the print
culture in India started affecting public values and ideas on social, economic and
political spheres. We will see these developments in the following presentation.
Manuscripts Before the Age of Print
India had a rich and old tradition of handwritten manuscripts – in Sanskrit, Arabic,
Persian, as well as in various vernacular languages. Manuscripts were copied on
palm leaves or on handmade paper. Pages were sometimes beautifully illustrated.
They would be either pressed between wooden covers or sewn together to ensure
preservation. Manuscripts continued to be produced till well after the introduction of
print, down to the late nineteenth century. Manuscripts, however, were overly
expensive and fragile. They had to be handled carefully, and they could not be read
easily as the script was written in different styles. So manuscripts were not widely
used in everyday life. Even though pre-colonial Bengal had developed an extensive
network of village primary schools, students very often did not read texts. They only
learnt to write. Teachers dictated portions of texts from memory and students wrote
them down. Many thus became literate without ever actually reading any kinds of
texts.
Print Comes to India
The Portuguese missionaries were the first to bring printing press to Goa in the mid-
sixteenth century. The first books were printed in Konkani language. By 1674, about
50 books had been printed in Konkani and Kanara Languages. Catholic priests
printed the first Tamil book in 1579 at Cochin. They printed the first Malayalam
book in 1713.From 1780, James Augustus Hickey began to edit the Bengal Gazette.
It was a weekly magazine. Hickey also published a lot of gossip about the senior
officials of the Company. Governor General Warren Hastings persecuted Hickey.
Warren Hastings encouraged the publication of officially sanctioned newspapers to
protect the image of the colonial government.
Print and Censorship

Before 1798, the colonial rulers were not too concerned with censorship. Initially,
the control measures were directed against Englishmen in India who were critical of
Company misrule.

After the revolt of 1857, the attitude to freedom of the press changed. The Vernacular
Press Act was passed in 1878. The Act provided the government with extensive rights
to censor reports and editorials in the vernacular press. In case of a seditious report,
the newspaper was warned. If the warning was ignored, the press was liable to be
seized and the printing machinery confiscated.
New forms of Publication
Initially, people got to read the novels which were written by European writers. But
people could not relate to those novels because they were written in the European
context. Many writers emerged who began to write in the Indian context. People
could correlate with the theme and characters of such novels in a better way. Many
other new forms of writing also came into origin; like lyrics, short stories, essays
about social and political matters, etc.
A new visual culture was taking shape by the end of the nineteenth century. Many
printing presses started to produce visual images in large numbers. Works of
painters; like Raja Ravi Varma were produced for mass circulation through printing.
By the 1870s, caricatures and cartoons were being published in journals and
newspapers. They commented on various social and political issues.
Print culture And The first Indian
newspaper
The first Indian newspaper was the weekly Bengal Gazette which was brought out by
Gangadhar Bhattacharya.
Print culture helped in initiating new debate on religious, social and political issues
in India. Many existing religious practices were criticized. Rammohun Roy published
Sambad Kaumudi from 1821 to criticize the orthodox views in the Hinduism. The
Hindu orthodoxy commissioned the Samachar Chandrika to counter his opinions. In
1822, publication of two Persian newspapers began, viz. Jam – i- Jahan Nama and
Shamsul Akhbar. Bombay Samachar; a Gujarati newspaper appeared in the same
year. In north India, the ulama began to publish cheap lithographic prints which
contained Persian and Urdu translations of holy scriptures. They also published
religious newspapers and tracts. The Deoband Seminary was founded in 1867. It
published thousands upon thousands of fatwas about proper conduct in the life of
Muslims. Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas was printed from Calcutta in 1810. From the
1880s, the Naval Kishore Press at Lucknow and the Shri Venkateshwara Press in
Bombay published many religious texts in vernaculars.
Print helped in bringing the religious texts within reach of the common masses. It
also helped in shaping the new political debate. It also helped in connecting the
people from various parts of India; by carrying news of one part to another.
Thank You