- On 29th January 1780, the Hickey’s Bengal Gazette or the Calcutta General Advertizer was published. It was the first English newspaper to be printed in the Indian sub-continent.
- The press was the chief instrument of forming a nationalist ideology
- The resolutions and proceedings of the Congress were propagated through press. Trivia: nearly one third of the founding fathers of congress in 1885 were journalists.
- Main news papers and editors
- The Hindu and Swadesamitran: G Subramaniya Iyer
- Kesari and Mahratta: BG Tilak
- Bengalee: S N Banerjea
- Amrita Bazar Patrika: Sisir Kumar Ghosh and Motilal Ghosh
- Sudharak: GK Gokhale
- Indian Mirror: N N Sen
- Voice of India: Dadabhai Naoroji
- Hindustani and Advocate: GP Varma
- Tribune and Akhbar-i-Am in Punjab
- Indu Prakash, Dnyan Prakahs, Kal and Gujarati in Bombay
- Som Prakash, Banganivasi and Sadharani in Bengal
- Newspaper was not confined to the literates. It would reach the villages and would be read by a reader to tens of others.
- Reading and discussing newspaper became a form of political participation.
- Nearly all the major political controversies of the day were conducted through the Press.
- ‘Oppose, oppose, oppose’ was the motto of the Indian press.
- The section 124A of the IPC was such as to punish a person who evoked feelings of disaffection to the government.
- The Indian journalists remained outside 124A by adopting methods such as quoting the socialist and anti-imperialist newspapers of England or letters from radical British citizens
- The increasing influence of the newspapers led the government to pass the Vernacular Press Act of 1978, directed only against Indian language newspapers.
- It was passed very secretively
- The act provided for the confiscation of the printing press, paper and other materials of a newspaper if the government believed that it was publishing seditious materials and had flouted an official warning.
- Due to the agitations, it was repealed in 1881 by Lord Ripon.
- SN Banerjee was the first Indian to go to jail in performance of his duty as a journalist.
B G Tilak
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