Question

why had Englishmen demanded a clamp down on the vernacular press in the 19th century?​

Answer 1

The press act was clamped down by the British people. Initially the East India company was not too bothered with the printing of the matters in newspaper.

In the 1820s the Supreme Court of Calcutta passed certain laws to curtail the spread of wrong messages through newspapers.

In 1835 Bentinck revised the press laws, and mainly in 1878 the Vernacular Press Act was passed which curbed down the nationalist ideology that was part of the newspapers.