Question

Give reasons for the following :
(a) Woodblock print only came to Europe after 1295. [CBSE 2013]
(b) Martin Luther was in favour of print and spoke out in praise of it.
(c) The Roman Catholic Church began keeping an Index of Prohibited books from the mid-sixteenth century.
(d) Gandhi said the fight for ‘Swaraj is a fight for the liberty of speech, liberty of the press, and freedom of association

Answer 1

(a)

• Paper reached Europe through the Silk Route in the 11th century.
• In 1295, Marco Polo, a great explorer, returned to Italy after many years of exploration in China. He brought with him the knowledge of woodblock printing.
• Italy began producing with woodblocks, and soon the technology spread to other parts of Europe.

(b)

• In 1517 Martin Luther wrote Ninety Five Theses criticising many of the practices and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church.
• A printed copy of this was posted on a church door in Wittenberg.
• It challenged the Church to debate his ideas.
• Luther’s writings were immediately reproduced in vast numbers and read widely.
• This led to a division within the Church and to the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
• Luther’s translation of the New Testament sold 5,000 copies within a few weeks and a second edition appeared within three months. All this became possible due to printing technology. Deeply grateful to print, Luther said, “Printing is the ultimate gift of God and the greatest one.”
• Several scholars, in fact, think that the print brought about a new intellectual atmosphere and helped spread the new ideas that led to the Reformation.

(c) The Roman Catholic Church began keeping an Index of Prohibited Books from the mid-sixteenth century due to the following reasons :

• The print and popular religious literature encouraged many distinctive individual interpretations of faith even among little-educated working people. For example, Manocchio, a miller in Italy, after reading some books available in his locality, reinterpreted the message of the Bible and formulated a view of God and Creation that enraged the Roman Catholic Church. Various types of questions were raised against the faith and the Church. Manocchio was hauled up twice and ultimately executed.
• As the Roman Catholic Church was troubled by such writings, it imposed severe controls over publishers and began to maintain an Index of Prohibited Books from 1558.

(d) Gandhi said the fight for Swaraj is a fight for the liberty of speech, liberty of the press, and freedom of association due to the following reasons :

• After the revolt of 1857, as the vernacular press became assertively nationalist, the colonial government tried to control it. Thus in 1878, the Vernacular Press Act was passed modelled on the Irish Press Laws. It provided the government with extensive rights to censor reports and editorials in the vernacular press. Whenever there was a seditious report, the newspaper was warned and if the warning was ignored, the press was liable to be seized and the printing machinery confiscated.
• When Punjab revolutionaries were deported in 1907, Bal Gangadhar Tilak wrote with great sympathy about them in his Kesari. This led to his imprisonment in 1908. There were widespread protests all over India.
• During the First World War under the Defence of India Rules, 22 newspapers had to furnish securities. Of these, 18 shut down rather than comply with government orders.
• Similarly during the Khilafat and Non-Cooperation Movement, the Government of India was trying to crush the three powerful vehicles of expressing (Liberty of speech, liberty of press, and freedom of association) and cultivating public opinion. Thus the fight for Swaraj was a fight for this freedom than anything else.