|
ROLE OF PRESS IN
INDIA’S STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM
At the time of the
first war of independence, any number of papers were in operation in
the country. Many of these like Bangadoot of Ram Mohan Roy,
Rastiguftar of Dadabhai Naoroji and Gyaneneshun advocated
social reforms and thus helped arouse national awakening.
At was in 1857 itself
that Payam-e-Azadi started publication in Hindi and Urdu,
calling upon the people to fight against the British. The paper was
soon confiscated and anyone found with a copy of the paper was
persecuted for sedition. Again, the first Hindi daily, Samachar
Sudhavarashan, and two newspapers in Urdu and Persian
respectively, Doorbeen and Sultan-ul-Akhar, faced
trial in 1957 for having published a ‘Firman’ by Bahadur Shah Zafar,
urging the people to drive the British out if India. This was
followed by the notorious Gagging Act of Lord Canning, under
which restrictions were imposed on the newspapers and periodicals.
Notable Role
In the struggle against
the British, some newspapers played a very notable role. This
included the Hindi Patriot! Established in 1853, by the
author and playwright, Grish Chandra Ghosh, it became popular under
the editorship of Harish Chandra Mukherjee. In 1861, the paper
published a play, “Neel Darpan” and launched a movement against the
British, urging the people to stop cultivating the crop for the
white traders. This resulted in the formation of a Neel Commission.
Later, the paper was taken over by Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. The
paper strongly opposed the Government’s excesses and demanded that
Indians be appointed to top government posts. The Indian Mirror
was the other contemporary of this paper which was very popular
among the reading public.
Yet another weekly,
Amrita Bazar Patrika which was being published from Jessore, was
critical of the government, with the result that its proprietors
faced trial and conviction. In 1871, the Patrika moved to
Calcutta and another Act was passed to suppress it and other native
journals.
Marathi Press
Mahadev Govind Rande, a
leading leader of Maharashtra, used to write in Gyan Prakash
as well as the Indu Prakash. Both these journals helped
awaken the con-science of the downtrodden masses. Another Marathi
weekly, Kesari was started by Tilak from January 1, 1881. He
alongwith Agarkar and Chiplunkar started another weekly journal,
Mratha in English. The Editor of the ‘Daccan Star’ Nam
Joshi also joined them and his paper was incorporated with
Maratha. Tilak and Agarkar were convicted for writings against
the British and the Diwan of Kolhapur. Tilak’s Kesari became
one of the leading media to propagate the message of freedom
movement. It also made the anti-partition movement of Bengal a
national issue. In 1908, Tilak opposed the Sedition ordinance. He
was later exiled from the country for six years. Hindi edition of
Kesari was started from Nagpur and Banaras.
Press and the First Session of
Congress
The Editors commanded a
very high reputation at the time of the birth of the Indian National
Congress. One could measure the extent of this respect from the fact
that those who occupied the frontline seats in the first ever
Congress session held in Bombay in December 1885 included some of
the editors of Indian newspapers. The first ever resolution at this
Session was proposed by the editor of The Hindu, G. Subramanya Iyer.
In this resolution, it was demanded that the government should
appoint a committee to enquire into the functioning of Indian
administration. The second resolution was also moved by a journalist
from Poona, Chiplunkar in which the Congress was urged to demand for
the abolition of India Council which ruled the country from Britain.
The third resolution was supported by Dadabhai Naoroji who was a
noted journalist of his time. The fourth resolution was proposed by
Dadabhai Naoroji.
There were many
Congress Presidents who had either been the editors or had started
the publication of one or the other newspapers. In this context,
particular mention may be made of Ferozeshah Mehta who had started
the Bombay Chronicle and Pandit Madan Malaviya who edited
daily, Hindustan. He also helped the publication of leader
from Allahabad. Moti Lal Nehru was the first Chairman of the Board
of Directors of the leader. Lala Lajpat Rai inspired the publication
of three journals, the Punjabi, Bandematram and the People
from Lahore. During his stay in South Africa, Gandhiji has brought
out Indian Opinion and after settling in India, he started
the publication of Young India; Navjeevan, Harijan, Harijan Sevak
and Harijan Bandhu. Subash Chandra Bose and C. R. Das were not
journalists but they acquired the papers like Forward and
Advance which later attained national status. Jawaharlal Nehru
founded the National Herald.
Revolutionary Movement and
the Press
So far as the
revolutionary movement is concerned, it did not begin with guns and
bombs but it started with the publication of newspapers. The first
to be mentioned in this context is Yugantar publication of
which was started by Barindra Kumar Ghosh who edited it also.
When the Ghadar party was organized
in America, Lala Hardayal started publication of the journal
‘Ghadar’. Within one year, millions of copies of this journal were
published in Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi and English and
sent to India and to all parts of the world where Indians were
residing. In the beginning the copies of the journal were concealed
in parcels of foreign cloth sent to Delhi. It was also planned to
smuggle the printing press into India for this purpose. But then the
war broke out and it became almost impossible to import printing
machinery from abroad. Lala Hardayal was attested in America and
deported to India. One of his followers Pandit Ramchandra started
publishing Hindustan Ghadar in English. With the U.S. joining
the war, the Ghadar party workers were arrested by the American
Government. When the trail was on, one of the rivals of Pandit
Ramchandra managed to obtain a gun and shoot him dead in the jail
itself. The death of Ramchandra led to the closure of this paper.
In 1905 Shyamji Krishna Verma
started publication of a journal Indian Sociologist from
London. It used to publish reports of political activities taking
place at the India House in London. In 1909 two printers of this
journal were convicted. Shyamji Krishna Verma left England for Paris
from where he started the publication of the journal. Later on, he
had to leave for Geneva. He continued to bring out the journal from
there for two or three years more. In Paris, Lala Hardayal, in
collaboration with Madam Cama and Sardar Singhraoji Rana brought our
Vandematram and Talwar.
After Yugantar, it was
Vandematram that played a significant role in the freedom
struggle. This journal was established by Subodha Chandra Malik, C.
R. Das and Bipin Chandra Pal on August 6, 1906. its editor,
Aurobindo Ghosh, the editor of Sandhya B. Upadhyay and editor
of Yugantar B.N.Dutt had to a face a trial for espousing the
cause of freedom.
So far as the Hindi papers were
concerned, they looked to government for support for some time.
Bhartendu Harish Chandra was the first to start a journal Kavi
Vachan Sudha in 1868. its policy was to give vent to the
miseries of the people of India. When the Prince of Wales visited
India, a poem was published in his honour. The British authorities
were given to understand that the poem could also mean that the
Prince of Wales should get a shoe-beating.
The government aid to journals like
Kavi Vachan Sudha was stopped for publishing what was
objectionable from the government point of view. Bhartendu Harish
Chandra resigned from his post of an honorary Magistrate. His two
friends, Pratap Narain Mishra and Bal Krishna started publication of
two important political journals.
Two friends, Pratap Narain Mishra
and Bal Krishna Bhatt started publication of two important political
journals Pradeep from Allahabad, and Brahman from
Kanpur. The Pradeep was ordered to be closed down in 1910 for
espousing the cause of freedom.
The Bharat-Mitra was a
famous Hindi journal of Calcutta which started its publication on
May 17, 1878 as a fortnightly. It contributed a lot in propagating
the cause of freedom movement. The journal exposed the British
conspiracy to usurp Kashmir. Several other papers published from
Calcutta which played an important role in freedom struggle included
Ambika Prasad Vajpayee’s Swantrantra, Ramanand Chatterjee’s
Modern Review in English, Pravasi Patra’ in Bengali and
Vishal Bharat in Hindi.
One of the foremost Hindi
journalist who has earned a name for his patriotism was Ganesh
Shanker Vidyarthi. In 1913, he brought out weekly Pratap from
Kanpur. He made the supreme sacrifice in 1931 in the cause of
Hindu-Muslim unity. Krishna Dutt Paliwal brought out Sainik
from Agra which became a staunch propagator of nationalism in
Western U.P. The noted Congress leader, Swami Sharadhanand, started
the publication of Hindi journal Vir Arjun and Urdu journal
Tej. After the assassination of Swami Sharadhanand,
Vidyavachaspathi and Lala Deshbandhu Gupta continued the publication
of these journals. They were themselves prominent Congress leaders.
In Lahore, Mahashaya Khushal Chand
brought out Milap and Mahashaya Krishna started publishing
Urdu journals which helped a lot in promoting the national cause. In
1881, Sardar Dayal Singh Majitha on the advice of Surendra Nath
Bannerjee brought out Tribune under the editorship of
Sheetala Kant Chatterjee. Bipin Chandra Pal also edited this paper
for sometime. Later in 1917, Kalinath Rai joined the paper as its
editor.
There is not a single province in
India which did not produce a journal of newspaper to uphold the
cause of freedom struggle A. G. Horniman made the Bombay
chronicle’ a powerful instrument to promote militant
nationalism. He himself took part in the meetings where Satyagraha
used to be planned. He published vivid accounts of Jallianwala Bagh
carnage for which one correspondent of his paper, Goverdhan Das, was
sentenced to three years’ imprisonment by a military court. Horniman
too was arrested and deported to London even though he was ill at
that time. Amritlal Shet brought out the Gujarati Journal ‘Janmabhumi
which was an organ of the people of the princely states of
Kathiawad, but it became a mouthpiece of national struggle.
Similarly another Gujarati journal Saanjvartman played a
prominent role under the editorship of Sanwal Das Gandhi, who played
a very significant role in the Quit India Movement in 1942. It was
soon after independent formed a parallel Government in Junagarh and
forced the Nawab of Junagarh to leave the country. The three editors
of the Sindhi journal Hindi Jairam Das Daulatram, Dr.
Choithram Gidwani and Hiranand Karamchand, were arrested, their
press closed and the property of the paper confiscated.
In Bihar the tradition of national
newspapers was carried forward by Sachidanand Sinha, who had started
the publication of Searchlight under the editorship of
Murtimanohar Sinha. Dev Brat Shastri started publication of ‘Nav
Shakti and Rashtra Vani’. The weekly yogi and the
Hunkar’ also contributed very much to the general awakening.
- Jagdish Prasad Chaturvedi
|
