Print and India

The 9^th September 2015, in Barath’s Sir class of ‘ History and Growth of Journalism ‘, we touched on the advent of print in India. With the coming of print India became much more modern or to put in other words, colonial modernity. Modernity came into these main presidencies, namely Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. In Calcutta, it lead to the modern English education whereas Bombay and Madras had a dissent with the INC ( Indian National Congress ) which mainly comprise of North Indians. In religion terms, Christianity was considered a much more modern religion compared to the religion followed by the majority of Indians, i.e Hinduism. In Calcutta presidency people were not much in favour of the missionaries and also conversion, hence resulting in the coming up of a number of reformers, one such reformer was Raja Ram Mohan Roy. Whereas in the other two Presidencies, Bombay and Madras, the conversion of people from Hinduism to Christianity was  much more simpler due to various reasons, the Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese had already established themselves in Bombay presidency resulting in the rise of numbers of Indian converting to Christians. In the southern peninsula ( Madras presidency }, the Hindu believers of Shiva and the Hindu believers of Vishnu had always fought among themselves which led to many problems and taking the lives of each other, this is also one of the main reason which lead to a majority of the people to convert into Christianity. Certain kind of challenges by the whites also led to the conversion of Christianity in Inida.

Many prominent personalities in India during the time when print first came to India had different views on Nationalism, for example, Tagore’s take on Nationalism was western modernity whereas Gandhi’s opinions were against modernity. Gandhi mix religion with politics, whereas the likes of Tagore, Nehru and Jinnah were Secular, but talking about secularism, we have to keep in mind that secularism in India is totally different from secularism in the rest of the world.

With the advancement of print in India, the British had to bring some kind of control to administer the smooth operation of print. The 1^st print ordinance which comprises of various Do’s and Dont’s and various rules and regulations was implemented, what was implemented in London was also implemented in India. We can safely assume the dissent between the 3 presidencies since all of them were vying for power, led to the protest for the implementation of the 1^st press ordinance. The 2^nd ordinance was implemented at the beginning of the 20^th century which involves more clauses, this again led to various problems for patriotic writers, these so called ‘ patriotic writers ‘ would take refuge in Pondicherry which was not a colony of the British.

                                                                                            - Fabian Thangkhiew 

History of Print in India

When the British first arrived in Calcutta in the late 18^th century, they were mainly merchants and the British East India Company was setup. In the early 19^th century, when the East India Company was settled and their trade well established, they began to fight against other western trade companies from Portugal, France and Netherlands. The local rulers who were already weak from continuous conflicts began seeking help from the western trade companies whose armed forces were used only to guard the goods. The East India Company and other trade companies started supporting the local rulers, this lead to many battles. At the end The British East India Company emerged victorious and hence had control of trade in the major parts of India and this lead to the Colonization of the Indian Subcontinent.

The coming of the East India Company and later the British rule, the idea of modernity was changed to western technology such as Print, western religion of Christianity, for the Northeastern Parts of India who don’t have a written script, the British provided the script and later the idea of modernity lead to the formation of a Nation. The Missionaries who came widely used printing to produce many Bibles and thus started converting the natives. The British also widely documented the history of India thoroughly this gave them the power of knowledge and thus take the observations to better themselves.

The Presidency states like Calcutta, Madras and Bombay greatly developed when the British came. Calcutta was the first state where the British introduced English Education which gave the people in Bengal a great advantage as the British always take them along with them. The Bengal Gazette which was published in January 29, 1780 was the first newspaper to be published in India, it gave the Indians inspiration to write their own newspaper. In Madras and Bombay, Regional language became very popular and flourished as they used the printing technology brought by the British to promote their dialect as the locals were able to print newspapers in their own language thus increasing the growth of their language.

Print brought the idea of Nationality and National language, it was widely used by the Indian freedom Fighters to spread the spark of freedom and it was the last outcome of the British introduced Print in India. Towards the 20^th century, there were many Indian newspapers which are opting for a free India as more and more leaders propagated their Ideas of freedom using newspapers.

Thus we see the influence of Print in the Indian subcontinent it shapes, spreads and inspires people. It shaped the educational institutes and made it available to all. Christianity was spread to almost all the parts of the country and in the very end it Inspired Indians to strife for a free country for the freedom of expression. Till this day Print media plays an important role in our everyday lives.

                                                                                                              - Damechwa L. Mawnai

Imagined communities

Before print , manu scripts was resisted to the church and the ruling class, but with the coming of print media , it applied to the people with the common language and create a nation of the same communities, thus forming imagined communities with something abstract , this factors which influence could also be the race , language, caste, religion believe , cultures etc

       He also speak on the influence of the western intellectual. 

1) Annals school: French historians, Instead of studying simple people history they studies deep structure history (geographical history)

2)Walter Benjamin: The replicability in print as in ability in which printed materials can be replicate as many times we need .

3) Luben Febure : In his book ' The coming of book ' describes the access of knowledge is available only to the church and the ruling class with the advanced of printing knowledge become availability more 

freely.      

   Imagined communities of Benedict Anderson talk about how the coming of print led to the idea of race which cause communal genocide which in turns cause the feeling of nationality . simultaneously the race of the people made maps and documents,memory and history through meseums.     He also talk about the idea of nations / state, nations has more social exist such as literature , history culture and so on where as a state has real , more geographical area( maps) it also has a functional economy and thus they trades ,with  other nation / state . Nations / state is formed by cultural , geographical and political territorial .

 The more dominated race or caste over power the lesser one and commit cultural genocide . the nation/ state has a strong military presence and huge bureaucracy . But in the 20th century nations / state is basically cooperative , it has control above human resources . Nations / state is a kind of readjusting in India . All nation/state work for the betterment of all .                                                                                                                                                      

                                                                                                                    - Article by Albert

Habermas ‘Public Sphere’

Today’s class started with the recap of what we had learned so far – Print revolution, printing press, Bible, French revolution and the role of print during the revolution.

During the revolution, people gathered in public areas like coffee houses to read out pamphlets or newspapers to empower them and those who can’t read with the spirit of statesmanship and revolution. This act gave the people a platform to come together and discuss the important issues of the state be it religious or political. These acts/ platform spread awareness among the people belonging to the working class. 

In Habermas ‘Public Sphere’ a society consists of the public domain and the individual who are codependent as to say, has an important role in the society. The public domain like churches, government offices, hospitals or even prison are functioned or run by the individuals who may be an individual or a family. All these exert power in a society. Michel Foucault, a 19^th century philosopher, studied the relationship of knowledge, culture and society and how power is consumed or exerted in a society.

The media are the gatekeepers but with digital technology the people have become the producers and consumers wherein we can easily have access to information which we can easily have accessed to with digital technology. But as Neil Postman points out for every advantage technology provides there is always a corresponding disadvantage.

                                                                                               Article by Beautymorn Synnah