Words as weapons
Before radio, before television, the newspaper was how a nation talked to itself. In British India, it became one of the freedom movement's sharpest tools — which is why the British spent over a century trying to control it.
This page covers two things together: the great newspapers and journals run by Indian leaders, and the laws the British passed again and again to silence them. The two sides explain each other — every big newspaper on this page provoked a law, and every law provoked a new newspaper.
The first Indian newspaper
In 1780, James Augustus Hickey started the Bengal Gazette in Calcutta — also called Hickey's Gazette — India's first newspaper. It was a scandal-sheet as much as a newspaper, gossiping about Company officials, and it soon criticised the Company itself, including the Governor-General. Hickey was fined, jailed, and the paper was shut down within two years — but the idea of an Indian press had begun.
The Bengal Gazette was also known as the Calcutta General Advertiser. Hickey's paper proved the pattern that repeated for the next 160 years: a paper criticises the government, the government crushes it.
Think about it from the British side. Most Indians could not read English, and many could not read at all. A newspaper in Marathi or Bengali or Urdu, read aloud in a village square or a local library, could reach thousands of people the government could never watch or control one by one. One editorial could turn a local grievance into a national argument overnight. That is exactly why the government kept passing new laws — not because newspapers were dangerous like weapons, but because ideas that spread cannot be taken back. A soldier can be disarmed. A read newspaper cannot be un-read.
The leaders and their newspapers
Nearly every major leader of the freedom struggle ran or wrote for a newspaper. Matching leader to paper is the single most common question type on this topic.
| Leader | Newspaper / Journal | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Raja Ram Mohan Roy | Sambad Kaumudi (Bengali), Mirat-ul-Akhbar (Persian) | Used the press to campaign against Sati and for reform |
| Bal Gangadhar Tilak | Kesari (Marathi), Mahratta (English) | Tilak's most famous vehicles for nationalist ideas; he was jailed repeatedly for his writings |
| Surendranath Banerjea | The Bengalee | Early Moderate leader's paper |
| Motilal Ghosh | Amrita Bazar Patrika | Started in Bengali, switched overnight to English in 1878 to dodge the Vernacular Press Act |
| Mahatma Gandhi | Young India (English), Navajivan (Gujarati), Harijan (English) | Young India and Navajivan carried his political writings; Harijan, begun in 1933, focused on the fight against untouchability |
| Annie Besant | New India, Commonweal | Used for the Home Rule Movement |
| Lala Lajpat Rai | The Punjabee | Extremist leader's Punjab paper |
| Ghadar Party | Hindustan Ghadar | Published from the United States, aimed at Indians abroad, calling for armed revolt |
This is a favourite exam story. The Vernacular Press Act of 1878 applied only to Indian-language newspapers, not English ones. The Amrita Bazar Patrika, then published in Bengali, is said to have switched its entire printing to English overnight — becoming a bilingual and then English paper — specifically to escape the Act's reach. It shows how sharply Indians turned British loopholes against the British themselves.
Gandhi himself warned about the press's power: he wrote that an uncontrolled pen, like an unchained flood, could destroy as easily as it could build — showing that even the man who used newspapers most powerfully treated them with respect for their danger.
Which two newspapers did Tilak run, and in which languages?
Kesari in Marathi and Mahratta in English. Both were used to spread nationalist ideas, and Tilak was jailed more than once for what he wrote in them.
The laws that tried to silence the press
Every time the press grew bolder, the British answered with a new law. Learn this sequence — it is asked constantly, often as an ordering question.
| Law | Year | What it did |
|---|---|---|
| Censorship of Press Act | 1799 | By Governor-General Wellesley — pre-publication censorship, aimed originally at stopping the French from publishing against the British |
| Metcalfe's Act | 1835 | Charles Metcalfe relaxed press controls, earning the title “Liberator of the Indian Press”; required only that printer and publisher details be declared |
| Vernacular Press Act | 1878 | By Lord Lytton — targeted only Indian-language papers, requiring them to avoid “seditious” writing; called the “Gagging Act” |
| Repeal of the Vernacular Press Act | 1882 | By Lord Ripon, the most liked Viceroy — one of his most popular acts |
| Newspaper (Incitement to Offences) Act | 1908 | Allowed magistrates to confiscate press property printing material likely to incite violence — a direct response to Extremist writing after the Swadeshi movement |
| Indian Press Act | 1910 | Allowed the government to demand security deposits from printers and publishers, forfeited if they printed objectionable material |
Passed by Viceroy Lord Lytton, this law let a district magistrate force any vernacular (Indian-language) newspaper to sign a bond promising not to publish anything against the government, with no right of appeal. It deliberately exempted English-language papers, since criticism from educated elites writing in English mattered less to the British than nationalist ideas reaching the vernacular-reading masses. Indians were furious at this open double standard, and it remained a grievance until Ripon repealed it in 1882.
1799 censor (Wellesley), 1835 relax (Metcalfe), 1878 gag (Lytton), 1882 free again (Ripon), 1908 confiscate (after Swadeshi), 1910 deposit (Indian Press Act). Six laws, six years, one long tug-of-war between the press and the government.
Everything on one look
The first paper, the leader-paper pairings, and the laws in order.
- Bengal Gazette (1780) — Hickey, India's first newspaper
- Kesari and Mahratta — Tilak
- Sambad Kaumudi — Raja Ram Mohan Roy
- Amrita Bazar Patrika — switched to English to dodge 1878 Act
- Young India, Navajivan, Harijan — Gandhi
- New India, Commonweal — Annie Besant
- Hindustan Ghadar — the Ghadar Party, from the US
- 1799 — Censorship of Press Act, Wellesley
- 1835 — Metcalfe's Act relaxes controls
- 1878 — Vernacular Press Act, Lytton, the Gagging Act
- 1882 — Vernacular Press Act repealed by Ripon
- 1908 — Newspaper (Incitement to Offences) Act
- 1910 — Indian Press Act, security deposits
- Hickey's Bengal Gazette (1780) was India's first newspaper, also called the Calcutta General Advertiser
- Tilak ran Kesari (Marathi) and Mahratta (English) — a common two-paper pairing question
- The Vernacular Press Act (1878) applied only to Indian-language papers, not English ones
- Amrita Bazar Patrika switched to English specifically to escape the 1878 Act
- Lord Ripon, not Lytton, repealed the Vernacular Press Act, in 1882
- Charles Metcalfe is called the Liberator of the Indian Press, for his 1835 relaxation of controls — not Ripon
- Gandhi's Harijan (1933) focused on untouchability; Young India and Navajivan were his general political papers
- The Newspaper Act of 1908 followed the Swadeshi movement's Extremist writing
- The Indian Press Act of 1910 introduced security deposits, not pre-censorship
- Hindustan Ghadar was published from the United States, by the Ghadar Party, not from within India
- James Augustus Hickey started the Bengal Gazette in 1780, India's first newspaper
- The Bengal Gazette was also called the Calcutta General Advertiser
- Raja Ram Mohan Roy ran Sambad Kaumudi and Mirat-ul-Akhbar
- Bal Gangadhar Tilak ran Kesari in Marathi and Mahratta in English
- Surendranath Banerjea edited The Bengalee
- Motilal Ghosh ran the Amrita Bazar Patrika
- The Amrita Bazar Patrika switched to English overnight to dodge the Vernacular Press Act
- Gandhi edited Young India, Navajivan and Harijan
- Harijan, started in 1933, focused on the fight against untouchability
- Annie Besant ran New India and Commonweal
- Lala Lajpat Rai, the Extremist leader of Punjab, edited the newspaper The Punjabee
- The Ghadar Party published Hindustan Ghadar from the United States
- The Censorship of Press Act of 1799 was passed by Governor-General Wellesley
- Charles Metcalfe relaxed press controls in 1835 and is called the Liberator of the Indian Press
- The Vernacular Press Act of 1878 was passed by Lord Lytton
- The Vernacular Press Act applied only to Indian-language newspapers
- The Vernacular Press Act was nicknamed the Gagging Act
- Lord Ripon repealed the Vernacular Press Act in 1882
- The Newspaper (Incitement to Offences) Act of 1908 followed Extremist writing after the Swadeshi movement
- The Indian Press Act of 1910 required security deposits from printers and publishers