EARLY PRESS RESTRICTIONS (1818-1868)

&
VERNACULAR PRESS ACT
 CENSORSHIP OF PRESS ACT
Lord Wellesley in 1789 assumed the office of Governor General. When Mr. Bruce, the editor of
Asiatic Mirror, published an article on the relative strength of the Europeans and the native
populations, Wellesley got furious and he wrote privately from Madras to Sir Alfred Clarke in
Calcutta in April 1799 that he was going to impose restrictions on the press and those not
complying with the rules will be sent to Europe .This threat was immediately put into action
and a fresh set of rules was published to shackle the press on May 13, 1799.
• It provided that every newspaper should bear the name of the
printer, that the name and address of the editor and proprietor
should be communicated to the Government and
• No newspaper should be published unless it had been inspected by
the Government censor appointed for the purpose.
• The penalty for a breach of regulations was an immediate
embarkation for Europe. The censor was instructed to prevent
publication of matter relating to subjects like “public credit”.
• These measures were justified on the ground of emergency so long
as the necessity existed for the maintenance of absolute power. Like
Warren Hastings before him, Wellesley also believed in restricting
the press for keeping the public ignorant and for maintaining power.
 LICENSING REGULATIONS 1823
(Adam’s Regulations)
• The acting governor-general, John Adams, who had
reactionary views, enacted certain provisions. These
restrictions were directed chiefly against Indian language
newspapers or those edited by Indians. Raja Ram Mohan
Roy’s Mirat-ul-Akbar had to stop publication.
• The main provisions of this act were:
• Prohibition of the printing of books and
papers and the use of printing presses without
a license.
• Penalty for infringement was a fine of Rs. 1000
commutable to imprisonment without labour
for a period of not more than 6 months.
 Succeeding Governor General
There was a swing towards
freedom of the press when
the liberal and progressive
Lord William Cavendish
Bentink came to power in
1828. He introduced reforms
of the press regulations. He
understood the advantage of
the press in the Indian
language. As Bentink’s
reputation as a reformer
grew the Indian Language
newspapers began to
flourish. The new Governor
General Lord Metcalfe
successor of Bentink.
PRESS ACT OF 1835
CHARLES METCALFE
• Charles Metcalfe governor-
general—1835-36 repealed
the 1823 ordinance and
earned the epithet,
“liberator of the Indian
press”. The new Press Act
(1835) required a
printer/publisher to give a
precise account of premises
of a publication and cease
functioning, if required by a
similar declaration.
• The result of a liberal press
policy was a rapid growth of
newspapers.
 LICENSING ACT OF 1857
• The emergency caused by the Rebellion of
1857 led the Government to again impose
licensing restrictions on the press in addition
to the existing registration procedure laid
down by the Metcalfe Act. The Act prohibited
the keeping or using of printing presses
without a license from the government and
the government reserved the discretionary
right to grant licenses or revoke them at any
time.
 REGISTRATION ACT 1867
• The Press and Registration of Books Act, 1867 was enacted to control the printing
press for retaining copies of works and registration of such works that consists of
news printed in India.
• The Act provides that all the books or periodicals that are printed in India shall be
printed clearly and legibly and contain details of the printer and publisher, place at
which the book is printed and the place where the book is published.
• A person shall furnish a declaration to own any press for the purpose of printing
before the District Magistrate, Presidency Magistrate or Sub-divisional Magistrate.
• A newspaper shall be published and circulated in India only according to the rules
prescribed under the Act.
• The newspaper shall consist of the name of the proprietor as well as the editor
and the printer and the person publishing the newspaper shall present a duplicate
declaration as per the prescribed rules. The declaration shall indicate the title and
language of the newspaper, periodicity and such other details necessitated by the
Act.
 VERNACULAR PRESS ACT

• The Vernacular Press Act was introduced on 14th

March 1878 by then Governor Lord Lytton.
• Very soon this act gained the name of Gagging Act.
• It was just brought 2 hours after a sanction obtained
from the secretary of state for India through telegram.
• It came as an outcome after the first freedom struggle
0f 1857.
• The main reason for introducing this act was to control
the printing and circulation of seditious material, which
was producing disaffection against the British
Government in India in the minds of the ignorant,
uneducated and largely illiterate masses.
• According to this Act, all presses have to get government license and there should
not be any differences in publications in Indian & English language newspapers. The
reason is by publishing the news in Vernacular language it will create awareness as
well as research and enthusiasm to learn our own vernacular language and it can
thus be linked to Swadeshi Movement.

• We have some British boolickes as well, who have informed such plan to Britishers
and they decided to ban Newspaper published in any Vernacular language, and to
make it more effective they made this Vernacular Press Act.

• Lord Lytton wanted to have better control on Indian language newspapers as

according to him the purpose of vernacular newspapers was to put an end to the
British Supremacy. The main newspapers of those times that satressed the
government were Somprakash, Sulabh Samachar, Halisahar Patrika, Amrita Bazar
Patrika, Bharat Mihir, Dacca Prakash, Sadharani and Bharat Sanskarak.

• After the enactment of this act the publishers have to submit the all the proof
sheets of contents of papers to police before publication. The police used to decide
what the seditious news was and deleted them. Thus many of the papers were fined
and their editors jailed.

• The succeeding government of Lord Ripon reviewed the Act and finally withdrew it.
The Provisions of the Act included the following:
The district magistrate was empowered to call upon the printer
and publisher of any vernacular newspaper to enter into a bond
with the Government undertaking not to cause disaffection
against the Government or antipathy between persons of
different religions, caste, race through published material; the
printer and publisher could also be required to deposit security
which could be forfeited if the regulation were contravened, and
press equipment could be seized if the offence re-occurred.
• The magistrate’s action was final and no appeal could be made in a
court of law.
• A vernacular newspaper could get exemption from the operation of
the Act by submitting proofs to a government censor.
• The Act came to be nicknamed “the gagging Act”. The worst features
of this Act were—(i) discriminator between English and vernacular
press, (ii) no right of appeal.
• Under VPA, proceedings were instituted against Som Prakash, Bharat
Mihir, Dacca Prakash and Samachar.
• (Incidentally, the Amrita Bazar Patrika turned overnight into an
English newspaper to escape the VPA.)
• Later, the pre-censorship clause was repealed, and a press
commissioner was appointed to supply authentic and accurate news
to the press.
• There was strong opposition to the Act and finally Ripon repealed it
in 1882.
Som Prakash Dacca Prakash
 REFERENCES
Books
• Handbook of Journalism and Mass
Communication- Vir Bala Aggarwal & V.S. Gupta
• Mass Communication In India by Keval J.
• History Of Indian Journalism by J. Natarajan
Internet
• www.british-history.ac.uk
• www.yourarticlelibrary.com
• Wikipedia
PRESENTED BY
Arushi Sharma
Avinash Jha
Bisman Trehan
Divya Rajani
Nishant Kumar