Question

What did the spread of print culture in the nineteenth century India mean to:

a) Women b) The poor c) Reformers

Answer 1

a) Women

• Due to print, the feelings and lives of women were written in an intense and vivid manner.
• In middle-class homes, there was a huge increase in women’s reading.
• After the mid-nineteenth century, when women’s schools were established in towns and cities, liberal fathers and husbands started educating their womenfolk.
• Many journals that were published started explaining the reasons why women must be educated and those journals also started publishing writings of women.
• For the purpose of home-based schooling, these journals also carried suitable reading topics and syllabus.
• There was also fear among conservative Muslims that literate girls would be corrupted by reading urdu romances. There was fear among Conservative Hindus that a literate girl would be widowed.
• In some cases, such prohibitions were defied by women who were rebellious.
• In the early nineteenth century, Rashsundari Debi was a young married girl, in an orthodox household, in East Bengal. In the secrecy of her kitchen she learned to read.
• Later, in 1876, her autobiography Amar Jiban was published.
• From the 1860s, books were written by a few Bengali women like Kailashbashini Debi bringing to light the bitter experiences of women – about how they were treated unjustly by the people they served, how they forced to do difficult domestic labour, how they were forcefully retained in ignorance, on how they felt imprisoned at home.
• In present-day Maharashtra, in the 1880s, the unhappy lives of upper caste Hindu women, with more focus on widowed women; were brought to the notice of the world with the passionate writings of Pandita Ramabai and Tarabai Shinde.
• Print culture developed early in Marathi,Bengali, Tamil, Urdu, whereas only from 1870s serious printing in Hindi started. Quickly, a large portion of it was concentrated towards the education of women.

b) The Poor

• Poor People started having easy access to books.
• Small books which were very cheap were sold at crossroads, once they were brought to the markets of Madras town in the nineteenth century.
• The access to books was expanded when public libraries were set up in the early twentieth century.
• Public libraries were also located in villages which were prosperous, but mostly these public libraries were located in towns and cities.
• In many printed essays and tracts, the issues of caste discrimination were written and highlighted from the late nineteenth century.
• In Maharashtra, in the twentieth century, B.R.Ambedkar wrote about the problems associated with castes, which were read by people all over India.
• In Madras, in the twentieth century, powerful writings on the issues of caste were written by E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker, which was read by people all over India. He was popularly known as Periyar.
• Injustices of the caste system were written by Jyotiba Phule in his Gulamgiri. It was written in 1871. Jyotiba Phule was a pioneer of the low caste protest movement. He was a Marathi.
• Following the example of Bombay workers, by 1930’s libraries were set up by Bangalore mill workers with the objective of educating themselves.
• These libraries were promoted by social reformers who wanted to propagate the message of nationalism, bring literacy, and restrict excessive drinking among the workers.
• Factory workers lacked the education, hence they were unable to write much about their experiences. In addition the factory workers were too overworked.

c) Reformers

• Around religious issues there were intense debates from the early nineteenth century.
• Regarding beliefs of different religions a variety of new interpretations were offered by different groups. There were confrontations regarding the changes happening in the colonial society.
• Reformers questioned the existing practices and wanted to bring reform in the society. Other people criticised the views of reformers. Print and public was the place where these debates were raging on.
• Nature of the debates were shaped by the newspapers and Printed tracts in addition to spreading news ideas.
• Libraries were promoted by social reformers who wanted to propagate the message of nationalism
• In Maharashtra, in the twentieth century, B.R.Ambedkar wrote about the problems associated with castes, which were read by people all over India.
• Injustices of the caste system were written by Jyotiba Phule in his Gulamgiri. It was written in 1871. Jyotiba Phule was a pioneer of the low caste protest movement. He was a Marathi.
• In Madras, in the twentieth century, powerful writings on the issues of caste were written by E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker, which was read by people all over India. He was popularly known as Periyar.