VERNACULAR PRESS ACT

 The year of the Sepoy Mutiny or the First War of Independence – 1857 brought press restrictions in the form of the ‘Gagging Act’.  The main topics of discussion in the English and Vernacular press before and after the Mutiny were sati, caste, widow remarriage, polygamy, crimes, and opposition to the teaching of English in schools and colleges. Bombay’s Gujarati press excelled in the defense of the Indian way of life. The fear of the spread of Anti-British propaganda through the Vernacular press led to the promulgation of the Vernacular Press Act.

Vernacular Press Act was enacted to curtail the freedom of the non-English (Indian language) press. The act excluded English language publications.

This Act was proposed by Lord Lytton who was the then Viceroy of India. The act was intended to prevent the vernacular news from expressing criticism of British policies. It elicited strong and sustained protests from a wide spectrum of the Indian populace.

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 could confiscate any printed material it deemed objectionable. The Act provided for submitting to police all the proof sheets of contents of papers before publication. What was seditious news was to be determined by the police, and not by the judiciary.

Under this Act many of the papers were fined, their editors jailed. Thus, they were subject to prior restraint. The affected party could not seek redress in a court of law.

General threats to the Indian language press included:

1.    Subversion of democratic institutions

2.    Agitations and violent incidents

3.    False allegations against British authorities or individuals

4.    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, but no redress could be sought in any court in the land.

Because the British government was in a hurry to pass the bill without encouraging any reactions whatever, the bill was not published in the usual papers in Calcutta and the North-Western Provinces were the slowest in obtaining information.

While the Amrita Bazar Patrika in Calcutta had converted itself into an all-English weekly within a week of the passing of the Vernacular Press Act, papers in the north were wondering what the exact provisions of the act were, even after two weeks of its existence. The following years saw the appearance and disappearance of a number of Bengali journals in quick succession, failing to gain support with their poverty of language and thought.

Once publishers learned of the provisions, the repressive measure encountered strong opposition. 

All the native associations irrespective of religion, caste and creed denounced the measure and kept their protests alive.

All the prominent leaders as Bengal and India condemned the Act as unwarranted and unjustified, and demanded its immediate withdrawal.

The newspapers themselves kept criticizing the measure without end.

The succeeding administration of Lord Ripon reviewed the developments consequent upon the Act and finally withdrew it (1881).

However, the resentment it produced among Indians helped fuel India's growing independence movement.

The Indian Association, which is generally considered to be one of the precursors of the Indian National Congress, was one of the Act's biggest critics. The crucial demand for a judicial trial in case of an accusation of sedition against an editor was never conceded by the government. However, in October 1878 the act was modified in minor respect; the submission of proofs before publication was no longer insisted upon, although the bail-bond remained.