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HALF YEARLY: TERM 1

PRINT CULTURE AND THE MODERN WORLD
Q.1Where wasthe earliest kind of print technoloy developed?
The earliest kind of print technology was developed in China, Japan and Korea.

Q2. Briefly describe the earliest kind of print technology that developed in the world
The earliest kind of print technology was based on manual labourie hand printin
From AD 594 onwards, books in China were printed by rubbing paper – also invented
there – against the inked surface of woodblocks.

As both sides of the thin, porous sheet could not be printed, the traditional Chinese
‘accordion book’ was folded and stitched at the side.

Superbly skilled craftsmen could duplicate, with remarkable accuracy, the beauty of
calligraphy.

Q4. What is Calligraphy?

The art of beautiful and stylized writing is known as Calligraphy

Q5.Which country was the major producer of printed material? Why?

The imperial state in China was, for a very long time, the major producer of printed
material.

HUGE BUREAUCRATIC SYSTEM

China possessed a huge bureaucratic system which recruited its personnel through civil
service examinations.

PRINTING OF TEXTBOOKS
Textbooks for this examination were printed in vast numbers under the sponsorship of
the imperial state.

INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF CANDIDATES

From the sixteenth century, the number of examination candidates went up and that
increased the volume of print.

China – Printing of Books

Q6 How did the uses of print diversify in China
By the seventeenth century, as urban culture bloomed in China, the uses of print
diversified. Print was no longer used just by scholar officials

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TO COLLECT TRADE INFORMATION

Merchants used print in their everyday life, as they collected trade information.

READING
Reading increasingly became a leisure activity.

The new readership preferred fictional narratives, poetry, autobiographies, anthologies of

literary masterpieces, and romantic plays.

PUBLISHING
Rich women began to read, and many women began publishing their poetry and plays.

Wives of scholar-officials published their works and courtesans wrote about their lives.

Western printing techniques and mechanical presses were imported in the late nineteenth
century as Western powers established their

outposts in China.

Shanghai became the hub of the new print culture, catering to the Western-style schools.

From hand printing there was now a gradual shift to mechanical printing.

Print in Japan
Q7.Who introduced print in Japan ?
Buddhist missionaries from China introduced hand-printing technology into Japan around
AD 768-770.

Q8 Name the oldest book to be printed in Japan.

The oldest Japanese book, printed in AD 868, is the Buddhist Diamond Sutra, containing
six sheets of text and woodcut illustrations.

Briefly describe the various kinds of print used in Japan.

Pictures were printed on textiles, playing cards and paper money.

In medieval Japan, poets and prose writers were regularly published, and books were
cheap and abundant.

Q.9 What were the interesting publishing practices of the late 18th century?
Printing of visual material led to interesting publishing practices.

In the late eighteenth century, in the flourishing urban circles at Edo (later to be known as
Tokyo), illustrated collections of paintings depicted an elegant urban culture, involving
artists, courtesans, and teahouse gatherings.

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Libraries and bookstores were packed with hand-printed material of various types –
books on women, musical instruments, calculations, tea ceremony, flower arrangements,
proper etiquette, cooking and famous places.

PRINT CULTURE IN EUROPE

Q.10 What were the factors that helped the rise of print culture in Europe?
In the eleventh century, Chinese paper reached Europe via the silk route.

Paper made possible the production of manuscripts, carefully written by scribes.

Then, in 1295, Marco Polo, a great explorer, returned to Italy after many years of
exploration in China. China already had the technology of woodblock printing. Marco
Polo brought this knowledge back with him.

Now Italians began producing books with woodblocks, and soon the technology spread to
other parts of Europe.

Luxury editions were still handwritten on very expensive vellum, meant for aristocratic
circles and rich monastic libraries which scoffed at printed books as cheap vulgarities.

Merchants and students in the university towns bought the cheaper printed copies.

Q11.What is vellum?
A parchment made from the skins of animals.
Q12 How were luxury editions in Europe printed ?
Luxury editions were handwritten on very expensive vellum meant for aristocratic people
and rich monastic libraries.
Q13 Who were the people who brought cheaper copies?
Merchants and students in the university towns bought cheaper printed copies.
Demand For Books
Q14 What steps were taken by the booksellers to meet the increasing demand for books?
As the demand for books increased, booksellers all over Europe began exporting books to
many different countries. Book fairs were held at different places.

Production of handwritten manuscripts was also organised in new ways to meet the
expanded demand.

Scribes or skilled handwriters were no longer solely employed by wealthy or influential

patrons but increasingly by booksellers as well. More than 50 scribes often worked for
one bookseller.

Q.15 What were the limitations of Manuscripts?

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the production of handwritten manuscripts could not satisfy the ever-increasing demand
for books.

Copying was an expensive, laborious and time-consuming business.

Manuscripts were fragile, awkward to handle, and could not be carried around or read
easily.

• Their circulation remained limited. With the growing demand for books,
woodblock printing gradually became more and more popular.

• By the early fifteenth century, woodblocks were being widely used in Europe to
print textiles, playing cards, and religious pictures with simple, brief texts.

PRINT REVOLUTION
Q16. Explain the term Print Revolution
The shift from hand printing to mechanical printing led to the print revolution after he
invention of the printing press by Gutenberg
Q17. Which was the first book to be printed by Gutenberg
The first book he printed was the Bible. About 180 copies were printed and it took three
years to produce them. By the standards of the time this was fast production.

Q18 Write a short note on Gutenberg

Gutenberg was the son of a merchant and grew up on a large agricultural estate. From his
childhood he had seen wine and olive presses.

Subsequently, he learnt the art of polishing stones, became a master goldsmith, and also
acquired the expertise to create lead moulds used for making trinkets.

Gutenberg adapted existing technology to design his innovation.

The olive press provided the model for the printing press, and moulds were used for
casting the metal types for the letters of the alphabet.

By 1448, Gutenberg perfected the system. The first book he printed was the Bible. About
180 copies were printed and it took three years to produce them. By the standards of the
time this was fast production.

Q.19 What were the features of the printed books ?

Printed books at first closely resembled the written manuscripts in appearance and layout.

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The metal letters imitated the ornamental handwritten styles.

Borders were illuminated by hand with foliage and other patterns, and illustrations were
painted.

In the books printed for the rich, space for decoration was kept blank on the printed page.
Each purchaser could choose the design and decide on the painting school that would do the
illustrations.

This shift from hand printing to mechanical printing led to the print revolution.

Q20 What was the impact of the print revolution in Europe?

A new way of producing books; it transformed the lives of people, changing their
relationship to information and knowledge, and with institutions and authorities.
It influenced popular perceptions and opened up new ways of looking at things
1. EMERGENCE OF A NEW READING PUBLIc
Printing reduced the cost of books. The time and labour required to produce each book
came down, and multiple copies could be produced with greater ease.

Books flooded the market, reaching out to an ever-growing readership.

2. EMERGENCE OF A HEARING PUBLIC

Earlier books could be read by only a small number of people particularly the elite as the
number of literates in Europe was very low till the 20 th century
Publishers started publishing popular ballads folk tales with beautiful pictures and
illustrations .These were then sung at village gatherings Knowledge was transferred
orally. People collectively heard a story, or saw a performance . Thus a hearing and
reading public became intermingled.

3. RELIGIOUS DEBATES AND THE FEAR OF PRINT

Print created the possibility of wide circulation of ideas, and introduced a new world of
debate and discussion.

Even those who disagreed with established authorities could now print and circulate their
ideas. Eg MartinLuther was a German monk, priest professor and church reformer. In 1517
he wrote 95 thesis and openely criticized the rituals and practices of the Roman catholic
church.A printed copy of his thesis was posted on the church door at Wittenberg. It
challenged the church to debate his ideas. Lutherts writings were immediately produced in
large numbersand were read widely. This led to division within the church and the
beginning of the Protestant Reformation.

PRINT AND DISSENT

Print and popular religious literature stimulated many distinctive individual
interpretations of faith even among little-educated working people.

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In the sixteenth century, Manocchio, a miller in Italy, began to read books that were
available in his locality.

He reinterpreted the message of the Bible and formulated a view of God and Creation
that enraged the Roman Catholic Church.

When the Roman Church began its inquisition to repress heretical ideas, Manocchio
was hauled up twice and ultimately executed.

The Roman Church, troubled by such effects of popular readings and questionings of
faith, imposed severe controls over publishers and booksellers and began to maintain an
Index of Prohibited Books from 1558.

Q.21 What was the implication of Print Revolution on Religion?

In 1517, the religious reformer Martin Luther wrote Ninety Five Theses criticising many
of the practices and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church.

A printed copy of this was posted on a church door in Wittenberg.

It challenged the Church to debate his ideas.

Luther’s writings were immediately reproduced in vast numbers and read widely. This
lead to a division within the Church and to the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.

The Reading Mania

Q22.Why is it that in the the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries literacy rates went up in
most parts of Europe?
Churches of different denominations set up schools in villages, carrying literacy to
peasants and artisans. By the end of the eighteenth century, in some parts of Europe
literacy rates were as high as 60 to 80 per cent.

As literacy and schools spread in European countries, there was a virtual reading mania.

People wanted books to read and printers produced books in ever increasing numbers.

Q.23 What were the new forms of Popular Literature prevalent in Europe?(any 4)
New forms of popular literature appeared in print, targeting new audiences.

Booksellers employed pedlars who roamed around villages, carrying little books for sale.

There were almanacs or ritual calendars, along with ballads and folktales. But other
forms of reading matter, largely for entertainment, began to reach ordinary readers as
well.

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In England, penny chapbooks were carried by petty pedlars known as chapmen, and sold
for a penny, so that even the poor could buy them.

In France, were the ‘Biliotheque Bleue’, which were low-priced small books printed on
poor quality paper, and bound in cheap blue covers.

Then there were the romances, printed on four to six pages, and the more substantial
‘histories’ which were stories about the past.

Books were of various sizes, serving many different purposes and interests.

The periodical press developed from the early eighteenth century, combining information
about current affairs with entertainment.

Newspapers and journals carried information about wars and trade, as well as news of
developments in other places.

Similarly, the ideas of scientists and philosophers now became more accessible to the
common people.

Ancient and medieval scientific texts were compiled and published, and maps and
scientific diagrams were widely printed. When scientists like Isaac Newton began to
publish their discoveries, they could influence a much wider circle of scientifically
minded readers.

The writings of thinkers such as Thomas Paine, Voltaire and Jean Jacques Rousseau were
also widely printed and read.

Thus their ideas about science, reason and rationality found their way into popular
literature.

Books – Enlightment
Q24 Why did some people in the eighteenth century Europe think that print culture would
bring enlightenment and end despotism?
By the mid-eighteenth century, there was a common conviction that books were a means of
spreading progress and enlightenment.
Many believed that books could change the world, liberate society from despotism and
tyranny, and herald a time when reason and intellect would rule.

Louise-Sebastien Mercier, a novelist in eighteenth-century France, declared: ‘The

printing press is the most powerful engine of progress and public opinion is the force that
will sweep despotism away.’ In many of Mercier’s novels, the heroes are transformed by
acts of reading. They devour books ,are lost in the world of books and become

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enlightened in the process, Mercier proclaimed “Tremble therefore tyrants of the

world”Tremble before the virtual writer.

Q.25 What was the implication of print culture on the French Revolution?
First: print popularised the ideas of the Enlightenment thinkers

Collectively, their writings provided a critical commentary on tradition, superstition and

despotism.

They argued for the rule of reason rather than custom, and demanded that everything be
judged through the application of reason and rationality.

They attacked the sacred authority of the Church and the despotic power of the state, thus
eroding the legitimacy of a social order based on tradition. The writings of Voltaire and
Rousseau were read widely; and those who read these books saw the world through new
eyes, eyes that were questioning, critical and rational.

Second: print created a new culture of dialogue and debate.

All values, norms and institutions were re-evaluated and discussed by a public that had
become aware of the power of reason, and recognised the need to question existing ideas
and beliefs. Within this public culture, new ideas of social revolution came into being.

Third: by the 1780s there was an outpouring of literature that mocked the royalty
and criticised their morality.

In the process, it raised questions about the existing social order.

Cartoons and caricatures typically suggested that the monarchy remained absorbed only
in sensual pleasures while the common people suffered immense hardships. This
literature circulated underground and led to the growth of hostile sentiments against the
monarchy.

Q.26 What was the impact of the Print Revolution on children, women and workers?
CHILDREN
As primary education became compulsory from the late nineteenth century, children
became an important category of readers.

Production of school textbooks became critical for the publishing industry.

A children’s press, devoted to literature for children alone, was set up in France in 1857.
This press published new works as well as old fairy tales and folk tales.

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The Grimm Brothers in Germany spent years compiling traditional folk tales gathered
from peasants. What they collected was edited before the stories were published in a
collection in 1812.

Anything that was considered unsuitable for children or would appear vulgar to the elites,
was not included in the published version.

Rural folk tales thus acquired a new form. In this way, print recorded old tales but also
changed them

WOMEN
Penny magazines were especially meant for women, as were manuals teaching proper
behaviour and housekeeping.

When novels began to be written in the nineteenth century, women were seen as
important readers. Some of the best known novelists were women: Jane Austen, the
Bronte sisters, George Eliot

Their writings became important in defining a new type of woman: a person with will,
strength of personality, determination and the power to think

Literacy – Workers
Lending libraries had been in existence from the seventeenth century onwards.

In the nineteenth century, lending libraries in England became instruments for educating
white-collar workers, artisans and lower-middle-class people.

Sometimes, self-educated working class people wrote for themselves.

After the working day was gradually shortened from the mid-nineteenth century, workers had
some time for self-improvement and self-expression.

They wrote political tracts and autobiographies in large numbers.

Q27 What were the innovations in Print technology after the 18th century? (any 4)
By the late eighteenth century, the press came to be made out of metal. Through the
nineteenth century, there were a series of further innovations in printing technology.

By the mid-nineteenth century, Richard M. Hoe of New York had perfected the power-
driven cylindrical press. This was capable of printing 8,000 sheets per hour. This press
was particularly useful for printing newspapers.

In the late nineteenth century, the offset press was developed which could print up to six
colours at a time.

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From the turn of the twentieth century, electrically operated presses accelerated printing
operations. A series of other developments followed.

Methods of feeding paper improved, the quality of plates became better, automatic paper
reels and photoelectric controls of the colour register were introduced.

The accumulation of several individual mechanical improvements transformed the

appearance of printed texts.

India and the World of Print

CASE STUDY INDIA

Q1. What were the important features of manuscripts in ancient India?

India had a very rich and old tradition of handwritten manuscripts – in Sanskrit, Arabic,
Persian, as well as in various vernacular languages.

Manuscripts were copied on palm leaves or on handmade paper.

Pages were sometimes beautifully illustrated. They would be either pressed between
wooden covers or sewn together to ensure preservation.

Manuscripts continued to be produced till well after the introduction of print, down to the
late nineteenth century.

Q2. What were the limitations of manuscript in ancient India?

Manuscripts, however, were highly expensive and fragile.

They had to be handled carefully, and they could not be read easily as the script was
written in different styles. So manuscripts were not widely used in everyday life.

Even though pre-colonial Bengal had developed an extensive network of village primary
schools, students very often did not read texts. They only learnt to write.

Teachers dictated portions of texts from memory and students wrote them down.

Many thus became literate without ever actually reading any kinds of texts.

Print Comes to India

Q3.Give examples of the early books that were printed in India
The printing press first came to Goa with Portuguese missionaries in the mid-sixteenth
century.

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Jesuit priests learnt Konkani and printed several tracts. By 1674, about 50 books had been
printed in the Konkani and in Kanara languages.

Catholic priests printed the first Tamil book in 1579 at Cochin, and in 1713 the first
Malayalam book was printed by them. By 1710, Dutch Protestant missionaries had
printed 32 Tamil texts, many of them translations of older works.

Printing – Colonial Influence

Q4.Briefly describe the colonial influence on printing in India with the help of examples
From 1780, James Augustus Hickey began to edit the Bengal Gazette, a weekly magazine
that described itself as ‘a commercial paper open to all, but influenced by none’. So it
was private English enterprise, proud of its independence from colonial influence, that
began English printing in India.

Hickey published a lot of advertisements, including those that related to the import and
sale of slaves. But he also published a lot of gossip about the Company’s senior officials
in India. Enraged by this, Governor-General Warren Hastings persecuted Hickey, and
encouraged the publication of officially sanctioned newspapers that could counter the
flow of information that damaged the image of the colonial government.

By the close of the eighteenth century, a number of newspapers and journals appeared in
print.

There were Indians, too, who began to publish Indian newspapers.

The first to appear was the weekly Bengal Gazette, brought out by Gangadhar
Bhattacharya, who was close to Rammohun Roy.

Q5.What were the implications of Print culture on the religious reforms in India?
From the early nineteenth century, there were intense debates around religious issues.

Different groups confronted the changes happening within colonial society in different
ways, and offered a variety of new interpretations of the beliefs of different religions.

Some criticised existing practices and campaigned for reform, while others countered the
arguments of reformers. These debates were carried out in public and in print.

Printed tracts and newspapers not only spread the new ideas, but they shaped the nature
of the debate. A wider public could now participate in these public discussions and
express their views.

New ideas emerged through these clashes of opinions.

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This was a time of intense controversies between social and religious reformers and the
Hindu orthodoxy over matters like widow immolation, monotheism, Brahmanical
priesthood and idolatry. In Bengal, as the debate developed, tracts and newspapers
proliferated, circulating a variety of arguments.

To reach a wider audience, the ideas were printed in the everyday, spoken language of
ordinary people. Rammohun Roy published the Sambad Kaumudi from 1821 and the
Hindu orthodoxy commissioned the Samachar Chandrika to oppose his opinions. From
1822, two Persian newspapers were published, Jam-i-Jahan Nama and Shamsul Akhbar.
In the same year, a Gujarati newspaper, the Bombay Samachar, made its appearance.

Q6. Why did the Muslim clergy want to introduce religious reforms in Islam?
In north India, the ulama were deeply anxious about the collapse of Muslim dynasties.

They feared that colonial rulers would encourage conversion, change the Muslim
personal laws.

To counter this, they used cheap lithographic presses, published Persian and Urdu
translations of holy scriptures, and printed religious newspapers and tracts.

The Deoband Seminary, founded in 1867, published thousands upon thousands of fatwas
telling Muslim readers how to conduct themselves in their everyday lives, and explaining
the meanings of Islamic doctrines.

Q7 What were the implications of Print culture among the Hindus?

Among Hindus, too, print encouraged the reading of religious texts, especially in the
vernacular languages.

The first printed edition of the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas, a sixteenth-century text,

came out from Calcutta in 1810. By the mid-nineteenth century, cheap lithographic
editions flooded north Indian markets.

From the 1880s, the Naval Kishore Press at Lucknow and the Shri Venkateshwar Press in
Bombay published numerous religious texts in vernaculars. In their printed and portable
form, these could be read easily by the faithful at any place and time.

They could also be read out to large groups of illiterate men and women.

New Forms of Publication

Q8.Mention the new forms of publications in Indi

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Printing created an appetite for new kinds of writing. As more and more people could
now read, they wanted to see their own lives, experiences, emotions and relationships
reflected in what they read.

The novel, a literary firm which had developed in Europe, ideally catered to this need. It
soon acquired distinctively Indian forms and styles. For readers, it opened up new worlds
of experience, and gave a vivid sense of the diversity of human lives.

Other new literary forms also entered the world of reading – lyrics, short stories, essays
about social and political matters. In different ways, they reinforced the new emphasis on
human lives and intimate feelings, about the political and social rules that shaped such
things.

Q9What was the effect of print technology on new visual culture?

With the setting up of an increasing number of printing presses, visual images could be
easily reproduced in multiple copies.

Painters like Raja Ravi Varma produced images for mass circulation.

Cheap prints and calendars, easily available in the bazaar, could be bought even by the
poor to decorate the walls of their homes or places of work.

These prints began shaping popular ideas about modernity and tradition, religion and
politics, and society and culture.

Caricatures and Cartoons

By the 1870s, caricatures and cartoons were being published in journals and newspapers,
commenting on social and political issues.

Some caricatures ridiculed the educated Indians’ fascination with Western tastes and
clothes, while others expressed the fear of social change.

There were imperial caricatures lampooning nationalists, as well as nationalist cartoons

criticizing imperial rule.

Q10 What was the effect of Print culture on the life of the women in India?
Lives and feelings of women began to be written in particularly vivid and intense ways.

Women’s reading, therefore, increased enormously in middle-class homes. Liberal

husbands and fathers began educating their womenfolk at home, and sent them to schools
when women’s schools were set up in the cities and towns after the mid-nineteenth
century.

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Many journals began carrying writings by women, and explained why women should be
educated. They also carried a syllabus and attached suitable reading matter which could
be used for home-based schooling.

Women Writers
Q11What was the impct of print on women in India?
Since social reforms and novels had already created a great interest in women’s lives and
emotions, there was also an interest in what women would have to say about their own lives.
From the 1860s, a few Bengali women like Kailashbashini Debi wrote books highlighting
the experiences of women – about how women were imprisoned at home, kept in
ignorance, forced to do hard domestic labour and treated unjustly by the very people they
served.

In the 1880s, in present-day Maharashtra, Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai wrote
with passionate anger about the miserable lives of upper-caste Hindu women, especially
widows.

In the early twentieth century, journals, written for and sometimes edited by women,
became extremely popular.

They discussed issues like women’s education, widowhood, widow remarriage and the
national movement.

Some of them offered household and fashion lessons to women and brought
entertainment through short stories and serialised novels.

Liberal husbands nd fthers begn educting their womenol t homes nd sent them to
schools when the women schoos opened up.

Q12How did Print technology effect the folk literature?

In Punjab, too, a similar folk literature was widely printed from the early twentieth
century.

Ram Chaddha published the fast-selling Istri Dharm Vichar to teach women how to be
obedient wives.

The Khalsa Tract Society published cheap booklets with a similar message. Many of
these were in the form of dialogues about the qualities of a good woman.

In Bengal, an entire area in central Calcutta – the Battala – was devoted to the printing of
popular books. Here you could buy cheap editions of religious tracts and scriptures, as
well as literature that was considered obscene and scandalous.

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By the late nineteenth century, a lot of these books were being profusely illustrated with
woodcuts and coloured lithographs. Pedlars took the Battala publications to homes,
enabling women to read them in their leisure time.

Print and the Poor People ( NCERT Q.)

Q13What was the impact of the print on the poor people?
Very cheap small books were brought to markets in nineteenth-century Madras towns and
sold at crossroads, allowing poor people travelling to markets to buy them.

Public libraries were set up from the early twentieth century, expanding the access to
books.

These libraries were located mostly in cities and towns, and at times in prosperous
villages. For rich local patrons, setting up a library was a way of acquiring prestige.

Late Nineteenth Century, Issues of Caste Discrimination ( NCERT Q – REFORMERS )

Q14.How did print discuss the issues of social reform?
From the late nineteenth century, issues of caste discrimination began to be written about in
many printed tracts and essays.
Jyotiba Phule, the Maratha pioneer of ‘low caste’ protest movements, wrote about the
injustices of the caste system in his Gulamgiri (1871).

In the twentieth century, B.R. Ambedkar in Maharashtra and E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker
in Madras, better known as Periyar, wrote powerfully on caste and their writings were
read by people all over India.

Local protest movements and sects also created a lot of popular journals and tracts
criticising ancient scriptures and envisioning a new and just future.

Workers in Factories
Q15.What was the impact of print on workers in the factories?
Workers in factories were too overworked and lacked the education to write much about their
experiences.
Kashibaba, a Kanpur millworker, wrote and published Chhote Aur Bade Ka Sawal in
1938 to show the links between caste and class exploitation.

The poems of another Kanpur millworker, who wrote under the name of Sudarshan
Chakr between 1935 and 1955, were brought together and published in a collection called
Sacchi Kavitayan.

By the 1930s, Bangalore cotton millworkers set up libraries to educate themselves,

following the example of Bombay workers.

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These were sponsored by social reformers who tried to restrict excessive drinking among
them, to bring literacy and, sometimes, to propagate the message of nationalism.

Print and Censorship

Before 1798, the colonial state under the East India Company was not too concerned with
censorship. Strangely, its early measures to control printed matter were directed against
Englishmen in India who were critical of Company misrule and hated the actions of
particular Company officers.

The Company was worried that such criticisms might be used by its critics in England to
attack its trade monopoly in India.

By the 1820s, the Calcutta Supreme Court passed certain regulations to control press
freedom and the Company began encouraging publication of newspapers that would
celebrate British rule.

In 1835, faced with urgent petitions by editors of English and vernacular newspapers,
Governor-General Bentinck agreed to revise press laws. Thomas Macaulay, a liberal
colonial official, formulated new rules that restored the earlier freedoms.

After the Revolt of 1857

Wht prompted the British government to curb thefreedom of the Indian press and what
steps did it take to achieve this aim/
After the revolt of 1857, the attitude to freedom of the press changed. Enraged
Englishmen demanded a clamp down on the ‘native’ press. As vernacular newspapers
became assertively nationalist, the colonial government began debating measures of
stringent control.

STEPS TKEN BY THE BRITISH

In 1878, the Vernacular Press Act was passed, modelled on the Irish Press Laws.

It provided the government with extensive rights to censor reports and editorials in the
vernacular press.

From now on the government kept regular track of the vernacular newspapers published
in different provinces. When a report was judged as seditious, the newspaper was warned,
and if the warning was ignored, the press was liable to be seized and the printing
machinery confiscated.

Nationalist Newspapers
Explain how the print culture led to the the growth of Nationlism in India?
Despite repressive measures, nationalist newspapers grew in numbers in all parts of India.

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They reported on colonial misrule and encouraged nationalist activities.

Attempts to throttle nationalist criticism provoked militant protest.

This in turn led to a renewed cycle of persecution and protests.

When Punjab revolutionaries were deported in 1907, Balgangadhar Tilak wrote with
great sympathy about them in his Kesari. This led to his imprisonment in 1908,
provoking in turn widespread protests all over India.

GLOSSARY
Ques-1. Define the following words.
Ans.-1. a.) Calligraphy- The art of beautiful and stylized writing.
b.) Vellum- A parchment made from the skin of animals.
c.)Platen- In letterpress printing, platen is a board which is pressed onto the back of the paper to get the
impression from the type. At one time it used to be a wooden board; later it is made of the steel.
d.) Compositor- The person who composes the text for printing.
e.) Galley- Metal frame in which types are laid and the text composed.
f.) Ballad- A historical account or folk tale in verse, usually sung or recited.
g.) Taverns- Places where people gathered to drink alcohol, to be served food, and to meet friends and
exchange news.
h.) Protestant Reformations- A sixteenth- century movement to reform the Catholic Church dominated by
Rome. Martin Luther was one of the main Protestant reformers. Several traditions of anti- Catholic
Christianity developed out of the movement.
i.) Inquisition- A former Roman Catholic court for identifying and punishing heretics.
j.) Heretical- Beliefs which do not follow the accepted teachings of the Church. In medieval times, heresy
was seen as a threat to the right of the Church to decide on what should be believed and what should not.
Heretical beliefs were severely punished.
k.) Satiety- The state of being fulfilled much beyond the point of satisfaction.
l.) Seditious- Action, speech or writing that is seen as opposition the government.
m.) Denominations- Sub groups within a religion.
n.) Almanac- An annual publication giving astronomical data, information about the movements of the
sun and moon, timing of full tides and eclipses, and much else that was of importance in the everyday life
of people.
o.) Chapbook- A term used to describe pocket- size books that are sold by traveling pedlars called
chapmen. These became popular from the time of the sixteenth- century print revolution.
p.) Despotism- A system of governance in which absolute power is exercised by an individual, unregulated
by legal and constitutional checks.
q.) Ulama- Legal scholars of Islam and the sharia (a body of Islamic law).
r.) Fatwa- A legal pronouncement on Islamic law usually given by a mufti (legal scholar) to clarify issues
on which the law is uncertain.

CLASS ASSIGNMENT
Note: The following questions should be done in the note books

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.-1. Give reasons for the following :

a.) Woodblock print only came to Europe after 1295.
b.) Martin Luther was in favour of print and spoke out in praise of it.
c.) The Roman Catholic Church began keeping an index of prohibited books from the mid- sixteenth
century.
d.) Gandhi said the fight for Swaraj is a fight of liberty of speech, liberty of the press, and freedom of
association.

Ques.-2. Write short notes to show what you know about:

a.) The Gutenberg Press
b.) Erasmus’s idea of the printed book
c.) The vernacular Press Act

Ques.-3. What did the spread of print culture in nineteenth century India mean to:
a.) Women
b.) The poor
c.) Reformers

Ques.-4.Why did some people in eighteenth century Europe think that print culture would bring
enlightenment and end despotism?

Q.-5. Why did some people fear the effect of easily available printed books? Choose one example from
Europe and one from India.

Q.-6. What were the effects of the spread of print culture for poor people in nineteenth century India?

Q-7. Explain how print culture assisted the growth of nationalism in India.

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