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INDIAN NEWSPAPER REPORTS, c1868-1942
from the British Library, London
Part 1: Bengal, 1874-1903
Part 2: Bengal, 1904-1916
Part 3: Punjab, Agra, Oudh, Rajputana and Central Provinces, c1868-1896
Part 4: United Provinces, 1897-1937
Part 5: Madras, 1876-1921
Part 6: Bombay, 1874-1898
Publisher's Note - Part 1
Introduction
By 1819 British supremacy in India was undisputed and became a source of great patriotic pride in the post-Waterloo years. In part, success in India compensated for the loss of America in 1783. However, it was at this point that changes in British policy and attitudes began to store up major problems for the future. The concept of remodelling the country along Western lines flew directly in the face of native religions and customs and the complex network of local privileges.
By the time of the Mutiny in 1857 almost two-thirds of India was under British control. The remaining provinces were ruled by princes and the East India Company drew up treaties with them which were beneficial to both parties. The princes kept their privileges but had to cooperate with the British.
Indian Newspaper Reports
The Directors of the East India Company established a Library in 1801 for the safe keeping of books and manuscripts placed in their care. In 1858 the Company was abolished and its Records and Library were taken over by the newly appointed India Office. When the India Office was abolished in 1947 the material, after passing through various other repositories, was transferred to the British Library in 1982 and in 1991 was merged with the Oriental Collections Department of the British Library to form the Oriental and India Office Collections. OIOC is now part of the Asia, Pacific and Africa Department.
Indian Newspaper Reports constitute an important series to be found in the Record Department Papers of the Oriental and India Office Collections at the British Library. The reports consist of abstracts taken from Indian newspapers for the following areas of India: Bengal, the North Western Provinces, Madras, Bombay, Punjab, Sind, Burma and Bihar and Orissa.
The reports were completed weekly and consist of typewritten abstracts of the contents of Indian newspapers with some extracts, translated by an official translator whose name is given at the end of the week’s report. Each weekly report gives a list of both the Indian language newspapers and English language newspapers owned by Indians examined, with their place of publication, whether issued weekly or monthly, the number of subscribers and the date of the issues examined. Some reports give the names of the editors of the newspapers. An extremely wide variety of newspapers was looked at weekly, averaging around 50 every week, ensuring that a wide spectrum of ideas, views and politics was addressed. Some reports list the languages of the newspapers, for example Bengali, English and Bengali, English and Urdu, Bengali and Hindi, Hindi and Persian.
Examples of newspapers examined are:
- Bharat Sangskarak
- Hindu Hitoishini
- Sadharani
- Soma Prakash
- Urdu Guide
- Qasid
- Education Gazette
- Bharat Mihir
- Ananda Bazar Patrika
- Navavibhakar
- Dacca Gazette
- Sudhakar
- Dacca Prakash
- Sahachar
The abstracts contained in the reports are divided into the following sections:
I Foreign Politics
II Home Administration
- Police
- Working of the Courts
- Jails
- Education
- Local Self-Government and Municipal Administration
- Questions affecting the land
- Railways and Communications, including canals and irrigation
- General (including a wide range of topics)
III Legislative
IV Native States
V Prospects of the Crops and Condition of the People
VI Miscellaneous
Part 1: Bengal, 1874-1903
Bengal newspaper reports cover 1874-1916. Part 1 contains 1874-1903 with Part 2 covering the years 1904-1916. The abstracts and extracts contained in the reports will provide scholars with an invaluable insight into Indian social and political events, the conditions of the Indian and British population, criticisms of the British government and the development of nationalist feelings.
The reports contain a wealth of information on subjects as diverse as:
- the postal service
- sale of infants
- prisoners in the jails
- drinking among the Indians
- ignorance of the Bench Magistrates
- the ruin of the zemindar class
- agrarian disturbances
- treatment of Native Princes
- the French and their relations with the British
- appointment of the Registrar of Calcutta University
- the Rajah of Puri and the worship of Juggernath
- the Coolie Act
- strained relations between the zemindars and the raiyats
- complaints against the Calcutta police
- an assault by an European guard on a native
- a description of the Sivaji celebration in Calcutta
- complaints that the British had ruined the chief industries of India
- the oppression of the indigo and tea planters
- the increase in prostitution
- salaries of native doctors
The following extracts taken from the report week ending 7th June 1890, translated by Chunder Nath Bose, the Bengali translator, give only a taste of the depth and variety of information to be found in the reports:
“Home Administration
Police The ‘Dacca Gazette’ of the 2nd June, says that increasing poverty is leading people to form themselves into gangs for criminal purposes, as they did during Mahomedan rule…
d) Education The ‘Sudhakar’ of the 30th May had the following:- ‘The Bengali language having become the mother tongue of the Bengal Mahomedans, it would be foolish on their part to neglect its study. It is a matter for congratulation, therefore, that the Bengal Mahomedans have taken to the study of that language in earnestness…’
f) Questions affecting the Land The ‘Dacca Prakash’ of the 1st June, returns to the question of the difficulty experienced by the zemindar in recovering rent from his ryots, and repeats that the zemindar is in a manner compelled to oppress his ryots, because Government has not given him an easy procedure for collecting his dues, and because litigation is both harassing and expensive…”.
General
This covers a good range of topics including:
• expenses per head incurred for natives and Europeans in lunatic asylums
• protests against income tax
• a Government circular prohibiting its employees to join in political agitations
• a delay in the distribution of letters by the Post Office at Triveni
• a reduction in the Durga Puja holidays
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