The Vernacular Press Act was passed in 1878 under the Governor Generalship and Viceroyalty of Lord Lytton, for ‘better control” of Indian language newspapers. The purpose of the Act was to control the printing and circulation of seditious material, calculated to produce disaffection against the British Government in India in the minds of the ignorant, uneducated and largely illiterate masses.
The infamous “Gagging Act” of 1857 has been passed following the mutiny. It sought to regulate the establishment of printing presses and to restrain the circulation of printed mater. All presses had to have a license from the government. No distinction was made between publications in English and other regional languages. The Act also held that no licensed press should publish printed material impugning the motives of the British Raj, tending to bring it hatred and contempt and exciting unlawful resistance to its orders. When the British Government found that the Gagging Act was not potent enough to repress all Nationalist sentiments, it went on to create a more forcible law, designed in part by Sir Alexander Arbuthnot and Sir Ashley Eden, Lieutenant Governor of Bengal. At the time the Vernacular Press Act was passed, there were thirty five vernacular papers in Bengal, including the Amrita Bazar Patrika, the editor of which was one Sisir Kumar Ghose. Sir Ashley Eden summoned him and offered to contribute to his paper regularly, if he allowed what he published to go under scanner by Sir Ashley’s office first. Ghose refused, and remarked that “there ought to be at least one honest journalist in the land.” The Vernacular Press Act might be said to have grown from this incident. About the time the Act was passed, Sir Ashley remarked in a speech that forty five seditious writings published in fifteen different vernacular papers were presented before him before the Act was finalized. The Vernacular Press Act stated that any magistrate or Commissioner of Police had the authority to call upon any printer or publisher of a newspaper to enter into a bond, undertaking not to print a certain kind of material, and confiscate any printed mater it deemed objectionable. The affected party could not seek redress in a court of law. General threats to the Indian language press were these:
1. Any attempt to subvert the functioning of democratic institutions
2. Agitations and violent incidents
3. False allegations against British authorities or individuals
4. Attempts at endangering law and order to disturb the normal functioning of the state
5. Threats to internal stability
Any one or more of the above were punishable by law. No redress could be sought in any court in the land.
Reactions to the Vernacular Press Act were, with one exception, negative. The community of editors and printers were unanimously outraged. However, Maharaja Jotindra Mohan Tagore emphatically supported the Act, on the ground that the vernacular press did not represent the feelings of the greater part of the Indian populace accurately. Public reaction to this statement was unfavorable. Sir Richard Temple and Sir George Campbell had acknowledged the absolute loyalty of the press in Indian languages between the years 1872 and 1878.Surendranath Banerjea of the Indian Association pointed this out in his movement against the Vernacular Press Act and wondered how the same Indian Language press referred to by Temple and Campbell could turn hostile and seditious within a span of three years. Most of the Bengali middle class intelligentsia would not be a party to Banerjea’s agitation, but he found some strong supporters among Bengali Christians. Banerjee was arrested on grounds of libel and sedition, but this gave rise to a storm, of protest through street processions and general closure of work. The Vernacular Press Act was repealed on December 7, 1881, when Lord Ripon was Governor General and Viceroy of India. The Indian Penal Code was amended to make room for censorship of objectionable material in the writings of the Indian language press.
1. History of Inidian Journalism, J.Natarajan, p. 81, 100-102, 108-112.
2. Mass Media Laws and Regulations, C.S.Rayadu and S.B.Nageswar Rao, p. 1, 3-6,8-11.