Brief History of the Print Media in India

For about 600 years printing has been the basic tool of mass

communication, storing and dissemination of information and knowledge.

From about the second half of the last century electronic media has

somewhat taken over the mass media world by a storm but the print media

has not lost its sheen and its social relevance.

*The modern printing in India originated in Goa in 1550 by Spanish

Coadjutor, Brother John de Bustamante, also known as Indian Gutenburg.

The first language printing press with vernacular types was established in

1557 at Vaipicotta.

In India the concept of the freedom of the press can be referred back

to the Mughal Era. An emperor like Aurangjeb allowed great freedom in

news reporting, but the reports sent by the news-writers were often

unreliable. The East India Company’s news-writers were under greater

control than under the Moghal Emperors.

The first attempt to start a newspaper in India was made in Kolkata in

1766 by William Bolts, the well known author of consideration on Indian

Affairs.

On January 29, 1780 the first Indian newspaper, the Bengal Gazette,

two pages, twelve inches by eight, popularly known as the Hicky’s Gazette

was published. During the later half of the 19th century Anglo- Indian press

established firm foundation in India. In 1861 there were 11 Urdu newspapers

and 8 Hindi newspapers. *By 1870 the press in Indian languages was

growing rapidly. There were about sixty-two Indian languages newspapers

in Bombay, about sixty in North-West Provinces, Oudh and the Central

Provinces, some twenty-eight in Bengal, about nineteen in Madras (Tamil,

Telgu, Malyalam and Hindustani). There were about 100,000 readers and the

highest circulation of any one newspaper was about 3000