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Print Culture
It is difficult for us to imagine a world without printed matter. We
find evidence of print everywhere around us – in books, journals,
newspapers, prints of famous paintings, and also in everyday things
like theatre programmes, official circulars, calendars, diaries,
advertisements, cinema posters at street corners. We read printed
literature, see printed images, follow the news through newspapers,
and track public debates that appear in print. We take for granted
this world of print and often forget that there was a time before
print. We may not realise that print itself has a history which has, in
fact, shaped our contemporary world. What is this history? When
did printed literature begin to circulate? How has it helped create
the modern world?
In this chapter we will look at the development of print, from its
beginnings in East Asia to its expansion in Europe and in India. We
will understand the impact of the spread of technology and consider
how social lives and cultures changed with the coming of print.
Print Culture and the Modern World
Print Culture and the Modern World
Chapter VII
Fig. 1 – Book making before the age of print, from
Akhlaq-i-Nasiri, 1595.
This is a royal workshop in the sixteenth century,
much before printing began in India. You can see
the text being dictated, written and illustrated. The
art of writing and illustrating by hand was
important in the age before print. Think about
what happened to these forms of art with the
coming of printing machines.
India and the Contemporary World
154
1 The First Printed Books
Fig. 2 – A page from the Diamond Sutra.
The earliest kind of print technology was developed in China, Japan
and Korea. This was a system of hand printing. 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.
The imperial state in China was, for a very long time, the major
producer of printed material. China possessed a huge bureaucratic
system which recruited its personnel through civil service
examinations. Textbooks for this examination were printed in vast
numbers under the sponsorship of the imperial state. From the
sixteenth century, the number of examination candidates went up
and that increased the volume of print.
By the seventeenth century, as urban culture bloomed in China, the
uses of print diversified. Print was no longer used just by scholarofficials. Merchants used print in their everyday life, as they collected
trade information. Reading increasingly became a leisure activity.
The new readership preferred fictional narratives, poetry,
autobiographies, anthologies of literary masterpieces, and romantic
plays. 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.
This new reading culture was accompanied by a new technology.
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.
1.1 Print in Japan
Buddhist missionaries from China introduced hand-printing
technology into Japan around AD 768-770. The oldest Japanese book,
printed in AD 868, is the Buddhist Diamond Sutra, containing six sheets
of text and woodcut illustrations. Pictures were printed on textiles,
New words
Calligraphy – The art of beautiful and stylised
writing
155
Print Culture
playing cards and paper money. In medieval Japan, poets and
prose writers were regularly published, and books were cheap
and abundant.
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. 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.
Box 1
Kitagawa Utamaro, born in Edo in 1753, was widely known for
his contributions to an art form called ukiyo (‘pictures of the floating
world’) or depiction of ordinary human experiences, especially urban
ones. These prints travelled to contemporary US and Europe and
influenced artists like Manet, Monet and Van Gogh. Publishers like
Tsutaya Juzaburo identified subjects and commissioned artists who
drew the theme in outline. Then a skilled woodblock carver pasted
the drawing on a woodblock and carved a printing block to
reproduce the painter’s lines. In the process, the original drawing
would be destroyed and only prints would survive.
Fig. 3 – An ukiyo
print by Kitagawa
Utamaro.
Fig. 4 – A morning scene,
ukiyo print by Shunman
Kubo, late eighteenth
century.
A man looks out of the
window at the snowfall while
women prepare tea and
perform other domestic
duties.
India and the Contemporary World
156
2 Print Comes to Europe
For centuries, silk and spices from China flowed into Europe through
the silk route. In the eleventh century, Chinese paper reached Europe
via the same 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. As you read above, 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.
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.
But 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 therefore 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.
There was clearly a great need for even quicker and cheaper
reproduction of texts. This could only be with the invention of a
new print technology. The breakthrough occurred at Strasbourg,
Germany, where Johann Gutenberg developed the first-known
printing press in the 1430s.
New words
Vellum – A parchment made from the skin
of animals
Imagine that you are Marco Polo. Write a letter
from China to describe the world of print which
you have seen there.
Activity
157
New words
Print Culture
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
was made of steel
2.1 Gutenberg and the Printing Press
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. Drawing on this knowledge,
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.
The new technology did not entirely displace the existing art of
producing books by hand.
In fact, printed books at first closely resembled the written
manuscripts in appearance and layout. 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.
In the hundred years between 1450 and 1550, printing presses were
set up in most countries of Europe. Printers from Germany travelled
to other countries, seeking work and helping start new presses. As
the number of printing presses grew, book production boomed.
The second half of the fifteenth century saw 20 million copies of
printed books flooding the markets in Europe. The number went
up in the sixteenth century to about 200 million copies.
This shift from hand printing to mechanical printing led to the
print revolution.
Fig. 6 – Gutenberg Printing Press.
Notice the long handle attached to the screw.
This handle was used to turn the screw and
press down the platen over the printing block
that was placed on top of a sheet of damp
paper. Gutenberg developed metal types for
each of the 26 characters of the Roman
alphabet and devised a way of moving them
around so as to compose different words of the
text. This came to be known as the moveable
type printing machine, and it remained the basic
print technology over the next 300 years.
Books could now be produced much faster than
was possible when each print block was
prepared by carving a piece of wood by hand.
The Gutenberg press could print 250 sheets
on one side per hour.
Fig. 5 – A Portrait of
Johann Gutenberg,
1584.
Printing block
placed over
paper
Frame
Screw
Handle
Platen
India and the Contemporary World
158
Fig. 7 – Pages of Gutenberg’s Bible, the first printed book in Europe.
Gutenberg printed about 180 copies, of which no more than 50 have
survived.
Look at these pages of Gutenberg’s Bible carefully. They were not just
products of new technology. The text was printed in the new Gutenberg
press with metal type, but the borders were carefully designed, painted and
illuminated by hand by artists. No two copies were the same. Every page of
each copy was different. Even when two copies look similar, a careful
comparison will reveal differences. Elites everywhere preferred this lack of
uniformity: what they possessed then could be claimed as unique, for no
one else owned a copy that was exactly the same.
In the text you will notice the use of colour within the letters in various
places. This had two functions: it added colour to the page, and highlighted
all the holy words to emphasise their significance. But the colour on every
page of the text was added by hand. Gutenberg printed the text in black,
leaving spaces where the colour could be filled in later.
New words
Compositor – The person who composes the
text for printing
Galley – Metal frame in which types are laid
and the text composed
Fig. 8 – A printer’s workshop, sixteenth century.
This picture depicts what a printer’s shop looked like in the
sixteenth century. All the activities are going on under one roof.
In the foreground on the right, compositors are at work, while
on the left galleys are being prepared and ink is being applied on
the metal types; in the background, the printers are turning the
screws of the press, and near them proofreaders are at work.
Right in front is the final product – the double-page printed
sheets, stacked in neat piles, waiting to be bound.
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Print Culture
3 The Print Revolution and Its Impact
What was the print revolution? It was not just a development, 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.
Let us explore some of these changes.
3.1 A New Reading Public
With the printing press, a new reading public emerged. 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.
Access to books created a new culture of reading. Earlier, reading
was restricted to the elites. Common people lived in a world of oral
culture. They heard sacred texts read out, ballads recited, and folk
tales narrated. Knowledge was transferred orally. People collectively
heard a story, or saw a performance. As you will see in Chapter 8,
they did not read a book individually and silently. Before the age of
print, books were not only expensive but they could not be produced
in sufficient numbers. Now books could reach out to wider sections
of people. If earlier there was a hearing public, now a reading public
came into being.
But the transition was not so simple. Books could be read only by
the literate, and the rates of literacy in most European countries
were very low till the twentieth century. How, then, could publishers
persuade the common people to welcome the printed book? To do
this, they had to keep in mind the wider reach of the printed work:
even those who did not read could certainly enjoy listening to books
being read out. So printers began publishing popular ballads and
folk tales, and such books would be profusely illustrated with pictures.
These were then sung and recited at gatherings in villages and in
taverns in towns.
Oral culture thus entered print and printed material was orally
transmitted. The line that separated the oral and reading cultures
became blurred. And the hearing public and reading public became
intermingled.
New words
Ballad – A historical account or folk tale in
verse, usually sung or recited
Taverns – Places where people gathered to
drink alcohol, to be served food, and to meet
friends and exchange news
You are a bookseller advertising the availability
of new cheap printed books. Design a poster
for your shop window.
Activity
India and the Contemporary World
160
New words
Protestant Reformation – 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
3.2 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. Through the printed message, they could
persuade people to think differently, and move them
to action. This had significance in different spheres
of life.
Not everyone welcomed the printed book, and those
who did also had fears about it. Many were
apprehensive of the effects that the easier access to
the printed word and the wider circulation of books,
could have on people’s minds. It was feared that if
there was no control over what was printed and
read then rebellious and irreligious thoughts might
spread. If that happened the authority of ‘valuable’
literature would be destroyed. Expressed by religious
authorities and monarchs, as well as many writers
and artists, this anxiety was the basis of widespread
criticism of the new printed literature that had began
to circulate.
Let us consider the implication of this in one sphere
of life in early modern Europe – namely, 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. Luther’s translation of the New Testament sold 5,000
copies within a few weeks and a second edition appeared within
three months. Deeply grateful to print, Luther said, ‘Printing is the
ultimate gift of God and the greatest one.’ Several scholars, in fact,
think that print brought about a new intellectual atmosphere and
helped spread the new ideas that led to the Reformation.
Fig. 9 – J.V. Schley, L’Imprimerie, 1739.
This is one of the many images produced in early modern
Europe, celebrating the coming of print. You can see the
printing press descending from heaven, carried by a goddess.
On two sides of the goddess, blessing the machine, are
Minerva (the goddess of wisdom) and Mercury (the messenger
god, also symbolising reason). The women in the foreground
are holding plaques with the portraits of six pioneer printers of
different countries. In the middle ground on the left (figure
encircled) is the portrait of Gutenberg.
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Print Culture
3.3 Print and Dissent
Print and popular religious literature stimulated many distinctive
individual interpretations of faith even among little-educated working
people. In the sixteenth century, Menocchio, 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, Menocchio 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.
New words
Inquisition –A former Roman Catholic court
for identifying and punishing heretics
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
Satiety – The state of being fulfilled much
beyond the point of satisfaction
Seditious – Action, speech or writing that is
seen as opposing the government
Fear of the book
Erasmus, a Latin scholar and a Catholic reformer,
who criticised the excesses of Catholicism but kept
his distance from Luther, expressed a deep anxiety
about printing. He wrote in Adages (1508):
‘To what corner of the world do they not fly,
these swarms of new books? It may be that one
here and there contributes something worth
knowing, but the very multitude of them is hurtful
to scholarship, because it creates a glut, and even
in good things satiety is most harmful ... [printers]
fill the world with books, not just trifling things
(such as I write, perhaps), but stupid, ignorant,
slanderous, scandalous, raving, irreligious and
seditious books, and the number of them
is such that even the valuable publications lose
their value.’
Source
Source A
Fig. 10 – The macabre dance.
This sixteenth-century print shows how the fear of printing was
dramatised in visual representations of the time. In this highly
interesting woodcut the coming of print is associated with the end
of the world. The interior of the printer’s workshop here is the site
of a dance of death. Skeletal figures control the printer and his
workers, define and dictate what is to be done and what is to be
produced.
Write briefly why some people feared that the development of
print could lead to the growth of dissenting ideas.
Discuss
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162
4 The Reading Mania
Through 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 everincreasing numbers.
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. 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.
New words
Denominations – Sub groups within a religion
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
Chapbook – A term used to describe pocketsize books that are sold by travelling pedlars
called chapmen. These became popular from
the time of the sixteenth-century print revolution
Box 2
In 1791, a London publisher, James Lackington,
wrote in his diary:
The sale of books in general has increased
prodigiously within the last twenty years. The
poorer sort of farmers and even the poor country
people in general who before that period spent
their winter evenings in relating stories of witches,
ghosts, hobgoblins … now shorten the winter
night by hearing their sons and daughters read
them tales, romances, etc. If John goes to town
with a load of hay, he is charged to be sure not
to forget to bring home Peregrine Pickle’s
Adventure … and when Dolly is sent to sell her
eggs, she is commissioned to purchase The
History of Joseph Andrews.’
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Print Culture
4.1 ‘Tremble, therefore, tyrants of the world!’
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 books
create, and become enlightened in the process. Convinced of the
power of print in bringing enlightenment and destroying the basis
of despotism, Mercier proclaimed: ‘Tremble, therefore, tyrants of
the world! Tremble before the virtual writer!’
4.2 Print Culture and the French Revolution
Many historians have argued that print culture created the conditions
within which French Revolution occurred. Can we make such
a connection?
Three types of arguments have been usually put forward.
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
This is how Mercier describes the impact of the
printed word, and the power of reading in one
of his books:
‘Anyone who had seen me reading would have
compared me to a man dying of thirst who was
gulping down some fresh, pure water … Lighting
my lamp with extraordinary caution, I threw
myself hungrily into the reading. An easy
eloquence, effortless and animated, carried me
from one page to the next without my noticing
it. A clock struck off the hours in the silence of
the shadows, and I heard nothing. My lamp began
to run out of oil and produced only a pale light,
but still I read on. I could not even take out time
to raise the wick for fear of interrupting my
pleasure. How those new ideas rushed into my
brain! How my intelligence adopted them!’
Quoted by Robert Darnton, The Forbidden BestSellers of Pre-Revolutionary France, 1995.
Source
Source B
New words
Despotism – A system of governance in which
absolute power is exercised by an individual,
unregulated by legal and constitutional checks
India and the Contemporary World
164
Why do some historians think that print culture created the basis for the French Revolution?
Discuss
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.
How do we look at these arguments? There can be no doubt that
print helps the spread of ideas. But we must remember that people
did not read just one kind of literature. If they read the ideas of
Voltaire and Rousseau, they were also exposed to monarchical and
Church propaganda. They were not influenced directly by everything
they read or saw. They accepted some ideas and rejected others.
They interpreted things their own way. Print did not directly shape
their minds, but it did open up the possibility of thinking differently.
Fig. 11 – The nobility and the common people before the French Revolution, a
cartoon of the late eighteenth century.
The cartoon shows how the ordinary people – peasants, artisans and workers – had a
hard time while the nobility enjoyed life and oppressed them. Circulation of cartoons
like this one had an impact on the thinking of people before the revolution.
Imagine that you are a cartoonist in France
before the revolution. Design a cartoon as it
would have appeared in a pamphlet.
Activity
165
Print Culture
Box 3
5 The Nineteenth Century
The nineteenth century saw vast leaps in mass literacy in Europe,
bringing in large numbers of new readers among children,
women and workers.
5.1 Children, Women and Workers
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. 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 became important as readers as well as writers. Penny
magazines (see Fig. 12) 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 bestknown 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.
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.
Thomas Wood, a Yorkshire mechanic, narrated
how he would rent old newspapers and read
them by firelight in the evenings as he could not
afford candles. Autobiographies of poor people
narrated their struggles to read against grim
obstacles: the twentieth-century Russian
revolutionary author Maxim Gorky’s My Childhood
and My University provide glimpses of such
struggles.
Fig. 12 – Frontispiece of Penny Magazine.
Penny Magazine was published between 1832 and 1835
in England by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge. It was aimed primarily at the working class.
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166
5.2 Further Innovations
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. 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.
Printers and publishers continuously developed new strategies
to sell their product. Nineteenth-century periodicals serialised
important novels, which gave birth to a particular way of writing
novels. In the 1920s in England, popular works were sold in
cheap series, called the Shilling Series. The dust cover or the
book jacket is also a twentieth-century innovation. With the
onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s, publishers feared a
decline in book purchases. To sustain buying, they brought
out cheap paperback editions.
Look at Fig. 13. What impact do such
advertisements have on the public mind?
Do you think everyone reacts to printed material
in the same way?
Activity
Fig. 13 – Advertisements at a railway station in England, a lithograph by Alfred Concanen, 1874.
Printed advertisements and notices were plastered on street walls, railway platforms and public buildings.
167
Print Culture
6 India and the World of Print
Let us see when printing began in India and how ideas and information
were written before the age of print.
6.1 Manuscripts Before the Age of Print
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.
Manuscripts, however, were highly expensive and fragile. They had
to be handled carefully, and they could not be read easily as the
Fig. 15 – Pages from the Diwan of Hafiz, 1824.
Hafiz was a fourteenth-century poet whose collected works are known as Diwan. Notice the
beautiful calligraphy and the elaborate illustration and design. Manuscripts like this continued
to be produced for the rich even after the coming of the letterpress.
Fig. 14 – Pages
from the Gita
Govinda of
Jayadeva,
eighteenth century.
This is a palm-leaf
handwritten
manuscript in
accordion format.
India and the Contemporary World
168
Fig. 16 – Pages from the Rigveda.
Handwritten manuscripts continued to be produced in India till much after
the coming of print. This manuscript was produced in the eighteenth
century in the Malayalam script.
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.
6.2 Print Comes to India
The printing press first came to Goa with Portuguese missionaries
in the mid-sixteenth century. 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.
The English language press did not grow in India till quite late even
though the English East India Company began to import presses
from the late seventeenth century.
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.
As late as 1768, a William Bolts affixed a notice
on a public building in Calcutta:
‘To the Public: Mr. Bolts takes this method of
informing the public that the want of a printing
press in this city being of a great disadvantage in
business ... he is going to give the best
encouragement to any ... persons who are
versed in the business of printing.’
Bolts, however, left for England soon after and
nothing came of the promise.
Source
Source C
169
Print Culture
7 Religious Reform and Public Debates
From the early nineteenth century, as you know, 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.
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.
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. All through the
nineteenth century, a number of Muslim sects and seminaries
appeared, each with a different interpretation of faith, each keen
on enlarging its following and countering the influence of its
opponents. Urdu print helped them conduct these battles in public.
Among Hindus, too, print encouraged the reading of religious texts,
especially in the vernacular languages. The first printed edition of
New words
Ulama – Legal scholars of Islam and the sharia
( a body of Islamic law)
Fatwa – A legal pronouncement on Islamic
law usually given by a mufti (legal scholar) to
clarify issues on which the law is uncertain
India and the Contemporary World
170
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.
Religious texts, therefore, reached a very wide circle of people,
encouraging discussions, debates and controversies within and
among different religions.
Print did not only stimulate the publication of conflicting opinions
amongst communities, but it also connected communities and people
in different parts of India. Newspapers conveyed news from one
place to another, creating pan-Indian identities.
Why Newspapers?
‘Krishnaji Trimbuck Ranade inhabitant of Poona intends to publish a Newspaper in the Marathi Language with a view of
affording useful information on every topic of local interest. It will be open for free discussion on subjects of general utility,
scientific investigation and the speculations connected with the antiquities, statistics, curiosities, history and geography of
the country and of the Deccan especially… the patronage and support of all interested in the diffusion of knowledge and
Welfare of the People is earnestly solicited.’
Bombay Telegraph and Courier, 6 January 1849
‘The task of the native newspapers and political associations is identical to the role of the Opposition in the House of
Commons in Parliament in England. That is of critically examining government policy to suggest improvements, by removing
those parts that will not be to the benefit of the people, and also by ensuring speedy implementation.
These associations ought to carefully study the particular issues, gather diverse relevant information on the nation as well
as on what are the possible and desirable improvements, and this will surely earn it considerable influence.’
Native Opinion, 3 April 1870. Source
Source D
171
Print Culture
8 New Forms of Publication
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.
By the end of the nineteenth century, a new visual
culture was taking shape. 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. Poor wood engravers who made
woodblocks set up shop near the letterpresses, and
were employed by print shops. 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.
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 criticising imperial rule.
Fig. 17 – Raja Ritudhwaj rescuing Princess Madalsa
from the captivity of demons, print by Ravi Varma.
Raja Ravi Varma produced innumerable mythological
paintings that were printed at the Ravi Varma Press.
India and the Contemporary World
172
8.1 Women and Print
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. 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.
But not all families were liberal. Conservative Hindus believed
that a literate girl would be widowed and Muslims feared that
educated women would be corrupted by reading Urdu romances.
Sometimes, rebel women defied such prohibition. We know the
story of a girl in a conservative Muslim family of north India
who secretly learnt to read and write in Urdu. Her family wanted
her to read only the Arabic Quran which she did not understand.
So she insisted on learning to read a language that was her own. In
East Bengal, in the early nineteenth century, Rashsundari Debi, a
young married girl in a very orthodox household, learnt to read in
the secrecy of her kitchen. Later, she wrote her autobiography
Amar Jiban which was published in 1876. It was the first full-length
autobiography published in the Bengali language.
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. A woman in a
Tamil novel expressed what reading meant to women who were
so greatly confined by social regulations: ‘For various reasons, my
world is small … More than half my life’s happiness has come
from books …’
While Urdu, Tamil, Bengali and Marathi print culture had developed
early, Hindi printing began seriously only from the 1870s. Soon, a
large segment of it was devoted to the education of women. In
Fig. 18 – The cover page of Indian Charivari.
The Indian Charivari was one of the many
journals of caricature and satire published in
the late nineteenth century.
Notice that the imperial British figure is
positioned right at the centre. He is
authoritative and imperial; telling the natives
what is to be done. The natives sit on either
side of him, servile and submissive. The
Indians are being shown a copy of Punch, the
British journal of cartoons and satire. You can
almost hear the British master say – ‘This is
the model, produce Indian versions of it.’
Source
Source E
In 1926, Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossein, a
noted educationist and literary figure, strongly
condemned men for withholding education from
women in the name of religion as she addressed
the Bengal Women’s Education Conference:
‘The opponents of female education say that
women will become unruly … Fie! They call
themselves Muslims and yet go against the basic
tenet of Islam which gives Women an equal right
to education. If men are not led astray once
educated, why should women?’
173
Print Culture
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.
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. 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.
Fig. 20 – An Indian
couple, black and white
woodcut.
The image shows the
artist’s fear that the
cultural impact of the
West has turned the
family upside down.
Notice that the man is
playing the veena while
the woman is smoking a
hookah. The move
towards women’s
education in the late
nineteenth century
created anxiety about the
breakdown of traditional
family roles.
Fig. 19 – Ghor Kali (The End of the
World), coloured woodcut, late
nineteenth century.
The artist’s vision of the destruction
of proper family relations. Here the
husband is totally dominated by his
wife who is perched on his shoulder.
He is cruel towards his mother,
dragging her like an animal, by the
noose.
India and the Contemporary World
174
8.2 Print and 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.
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 were too overworked and lacked the education to
write much about their experiences. But 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. 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.
Look at Figs. 19, 20 and 21 carefully.
¾ What comment are the artists making on the
social changes taking place in society?
¾ What changes in society were taking place to
provoke this reaction?
¾ Do you agree with the artist’s view?
Activity
Fig. 21 – A European couple sitting on chairs,
nineteenth-century woodcut.
The picture suggests traditional family roles. The
Sahib holds a liquor bottle in his hand while the
Memsahib plays the violin.
175
Print Culture
9 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 Britsh 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, 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. 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.
Despite repressive measures, nationalist newspapers grew in numbers
in all parts of India. 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.
Box 4
Sometimes, the government found it hard to
find candidates for editorship of loyalist papers.
When Sanders, editor of the Statesman that had
been founded in 1877, was approached, he
asked rudely how much he would be paid
for suffering the loss of freedom. The Friend
of India refused a government subsidy, fearing
that this would force it to be obedient to
government commands.
Box 5
The power of the printed word is most often
seen in the way governments seek to regulate
and suppress print. The colonial government kept
continuous track of all books and newspapers
published in India and passed numerous laws to
control the press.
During the First World War, under the Defence
of India Rules, 22 newspapers had to furnish
securities. Of these, 18 shut down rather than
comply with government orders. The Sedition
Committee Report under Rowlatt in 1919 further
strengthened controls that led to imposition of
penalties on various newspapers. At the outbreak
of the Second World War, the Defence of India
Act was passed, allowing censoring of reports of
war-related topics. All reports about the Quit India
movement came under its purview. In August
1942, about 90 newspapers were suppressed.
Source
Source F
Gandhi said in 1922:
‘Liberty of speech ... liberty of the press ...
freedom of association. The Government of India
is now seeking to crush the three powerful
vehicles of expressing and cultivating public
opinion. The fight for Swaraj, for Khilafat ...
means a fight for this threatened freedom
before all else ...’
India and the Contemporary World
176
Discuss
Project
1. Why did some people in eighteenth century Europe think that print culture would bring
enlightenment and end despotism?
2. Why did some people fear the effect of easily available printed books? Choose one example
from Europe and one from India.
3. What were the effects of the spread of print culture for poor people in nineteenth century India?
4. Explain how print culture assisted the growth of nationalism in India.
Find out more about the changes in print technology in the last 100 years. Write about the
changes, explaining why they have taken place, what their consequences have been.
Discuss
Write in brief
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 for liberty of speech, liberty of the
press, and freedom of association.
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
3. What did the spread of print culture in nineteenth century India mean to:
a) Women
b) The poor
c) Reformers
Write in brief
Project