give the difference between press during pre independence and press post independence?
Answers
Answer:
James Augustus Hickey in 1780 started The Bengal Gazette or Calcutta General Advertiser, the first newspaper in India, which was seized in 1872 because of its outspoken criticism of the Government.
Later more newspapers/journals came up—The Bengal journal, Calcutta Chronicle, Madras Courier, Bombay Herald. The Company’s officers were worried that these newspapers might reach London and expose their misdeeds. Thus they saw the need for curbs on the press.
Explanation:
1 The postindependence period in India
India and Pakistan were partitioned and given independence in 1947, after which there was remarkable improvement in scientific and technological education and research; illiteracy, however, remained high. The new constitution adopted by India did not change the overall administrative policy of the country. Education continued to be the prime responsibility of the state governments, and the union (central) government continued to assume responsibility for the coordination of educational facilities and the maintenance of appropriate standards in higher education and research and in scientific and technical education.
2 the pre independence period in India
During the reign of the British empire there were several Acts passed as stringent curbs over the Indian Press. Prior to the rumblings of the 1857 mutiny, the Press was fiercely involved in rallying the masses, and inevitably, the British government was increasingly becoming apprehensive about the Press’ freedom. Through the newspapers, a nationalistic rebellion was slowly being pieced together through words and symbols. In view of this, the “Gagging Act” was passed by Lord Lytton, which was driven to curtail and control the Indian publications’ content. The Act compelled all Indian publications to apply for a license from the government, while also ensuring that nothing was written against the British government, nor was the government challenged in any measure.
Unfortunately for the government, the Press was impervious to the “Gagging Act”, working its way around disseminating news. It pushed the government to design far more stringent measures. For instance, in the 1870s, it panned its focus onto the regional vernacular publications that were individually inspiring the masses to partake in the fight against the British empire, by informing them about the dire situation of the Indian people. One such publication was the Bengali weekly, Amrita Bazar Patrika (established in 1868 in Jessore district, now in present-day Bangladesh). Amrita Bazar Patrika caught the authorities’ attention when it reported on the exploited indigo farmers.
Sir Ashley Eden, a British official, approached the editor of Amrita Bazar Patrika, Sisir Kumar Ghose, and asked him to hand over the final approval of editorial content to Eden. Ghose bluntly refused. As did several other Indian editors of regional papers across the country. In the light of this, the Vernacular Press Act was passed on March 14, 1878, where the British government claimed stronger control over the vernacular newspapers in the interest to curb “seditious writing” in “publications in oriental languages”. This Act was not imposed on English-language publications. Amrita Bazar Patrika, a bilingual, adapted to the circumstances and became solely an English weekly, going on to play an important role in the development of investigative Indian journalism, rooting its politics in the freedom struggle. It was fierce, politically vocal and unputdownable. The weekly once even described the Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, as “Young and a little foppish, and without previous training but invested with unlimited powers.”