Question

How will the information historians get from old newspapers be different from that found in police reports?

Answer 1

• Official records of British administration had written information pertaining to investigations, agreements, policy decisions, plans, and every instruction. It led to the creation of an administrative culture of reports, notings, and memos.
• Feelings were expressed by Poets and novelists, reformers and leaders wrote to spread their ideas; issues were debated in public and newspapers were published.
• To help us understand what people of a country thought we need to look at other sources like popular booklets which were sold in bazaars, autobiographies of important personalities, accounts of travellers and pilgrims, diaries of people.
• Police records do not help us understand what the people of a country think.
• Police records help us understand what the officials thought.
• Official records help us understand what the officials wanted to preserve for posterity, and what they were interested in.
• It was the literate people who produced these sources, however it is more difficult to understand the thoughts of the peasants and tribals and how they lived their lives.