2. News Reporting Not New in India It is interesting to note that before the advent of Europeans, India had a system of news gathering & reporting Ancient & Medieval kings and emperors had spies who also acted as informers about political activities within and outside the State
3. Special Political Reporters These special people were appointed by the royal courts They had their own network spread across regions They were highly respected in royal courts A Venetian traveller during Emperor Aurangzeb’s era has recorded about this system
4. Timeless Need For Political Information The kings and emperors would always need political information within their kingdom and from other kingdoms The British Crown could manage to consolidate its power only during the middle of the 19th Century The East India Company ruled parts of India before that
5. Portuguese Pioneers However, the first Europeans to start a printing press in India were not the British The Portuguese had already established printing in India as early as the 16th Century However, the main aim of the Portuguese was conversion The main aim of the British was trade, commerce, business and profits
6. British Supremacy & Suspicions In the ensuing power struggle, the British managed to establish their supremacy over the Indian subcontinent over a period of time India of that period had very poor rail and road infrastructure The British were highly suspicious and felt threatened by the reach of the Indian language press over the Indian masses and their influence on Indian public opinion
7. British Press Policies Their fears were not unfounded Many local Indian language publications were critical of British policies The British established a complex code of administrative rules to exercise control over the Non – English press The English press more or less was read by the British, the Anglo – Indians and the English-educated Indian elite
8. Anglicized Indians and Coming of The Mahatma Thanks to Macaulay’s policies, many educated Indians started to speak English, act and behave like English “ladies and gentlemen” and frowned upon Indian dressing, eating habits and general “native” behaviour Mahatma Gandhi was one of the prominent personalities who urged Indians to take pride in their own culture and heritage
9. Role of Indian Language Press in 18th Century The Indian nationalist press was the backbone of Indian Freedom Struggle from the latter part of the 19th Century These Indian publications spread awareness among Indians against the foreign rulers They touched the patriotic nerve of the country They built up Indian Public Opinion against the British
10. India – A Vast Nation However, the new administrative rules and regulations that were time and again introduced by the alarmed British made this difficult One has to remember that India is a vast and complex country with a multitude of languages and cultures
11. India v/s Bharat The Public at large was informed about political developments in local Indian languages There was a content divide between what the English press reported and what the Indian press reported This linguistic divide between English and Indian language press continues even today This divides India into two different countries from the point of view of media (India v/s Bharat divide)
