Indian Journalism in the Colonial Crucible

Abstract

India’s imperfect democracy may be underpinned by an equally imperfect journalism, but the symbiotic relationship between the two is rarely acknowledged or highlighted. The fact remains that India’s democracy is enabled and enhanced by its roots in the ancient tradition of dialogue, debate and argument, which was transformed by the growth of print journalism since the late eighteenth century. In the modern sense, this tradition matured in the acid bath of India’s freedom struggle, when journalism and journalist-leaders such as Gandhi and Nehru played a central role before independence in 1947. This paper focuses on a forgotten chapter in India’s modern political history, when the idea of a free press became the locus of the earliest example of constitutional agitation. In the colonial cauldron of the early nineteenth century, protest by Indian and British liberals against press licensing and other restrictions imposed by the East India Company took the form of “memorials” (petitions) addressed to the Supreme Court in Calcutta1 and to the King-in-Council in London. The agitation begun in Calcutta in 1823 was carried forward in London, which later curbed the Company-state’s restrictive acts towards the press in India, until the Mutiny of 1857. The agitation also included the daring act of Rammohun Roy to close his Persian journal, Mirat-ul-Akhbar, to protest against restrictions imposed by acting Governor-General John Adam. Recalling this chapter of political protest enhances our understanding of the dominant theme of politics in Indian journalism, which continues today, despite rampant commercialisation and corruption.