The Press Act of 1908 was

legislation Legislation is the process or result of enrolling, enacting, or promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law it may be known as a bill, and may be broadly referred ...

promulgated in

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

imposing strict

censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governmen ...

on all kinds of publications. The measure was brought into effect to curtail the influence of Indian vernacular and English language in promoting support for what was considered radical Indian nationalism. this act gave the British and Arabic men rights to imprison and execute anyone who writes radical articles in the newspapers. It followed in the wake of two decades of increasing influence of journals such as '' Kesari'' in Western India, publications such as ''

Jugantar Jugantar or Yugantar ( ''Jugantor''; lit. ''New Era'' or ''Transition of an Epoch'') was one of the two main secret revolutionary trends operating in Bengal for Indian independence. This association, like Anushilan Samiti, started in the g ...

'' and '' Bandemataram'' in Bengal, and similar journals emerging in the United Provinces. These were deemed to influence a surge in nationalist violence and revolutionary terrorism against interests and officials of the Raj in India, particularly in Maharashtra and in Bengal. A widespread influence was noted amongst the general population which drew a large proportion population of youth towards the ideology of radical nationalists such as

Bal Gangadhar Tilak Bal Gangadhar Tilak (; born Keshav Gangadhar Tilak (pronunciation: eʃəʋ ɡəŋɡaːd̪ʱəɾ ʈiɭək; 23 July 1856 – 1 August 1920), endeared as Lokmanya (IAST: ''Lokamānya''), was an Indian nationalist, teacher, and an independence ...

and

Aurobindo Ghosh Sri Aurobindo (born Aurobindo Ghose; 15 August 1872 – 5 December 1950) was an Indian yogi, maharishi, and Indian nationalist. He also edited the newspaper ''Bande Mataram''. Aurobindo studied for the Indian Civil Service at King' ...

, and towards secret revolutionary organisations such as

Anushilan Samiti () was an Indian fitness club, which was actually used as an underground society for anti-British revolutionaries. In the first quarter of the 20th century it supported revolutionary violence as the means for ending British rule in India. The ...

in Bengal and ''Mitra Mela'' in Maharashtra. This peaked in 1908, with the attempted assassination of a local judge in Bengal, and a number of assassinations of local Raj officials in Maharshtra. The aftermath of Muzaffarpur bombings saw Tilak convicted on charges of sedition, while in Bengal a large number of nationalists of the Anushilan Samiti were convicted. However, Aurobindo Ghosh had escaped conviction. With defiant messages from journals such as ''Jugantar'', the propvisions of the 1878 Vernacular Press Act were revived.

Herbert Hope Risley Sir Herbert Hope Risley (4 January 1851 – 30 September 1911) was a British ethnographer and colonial administrator, a member of the Indian Civil Service who conducted extensive studies on the tribes and castes of the Bengal Presidency. He ...

, in 1907, declared, ''"We are overwhelmed with a mass of heterogeneous material, some of it misguided, some of it frankly seditious,"'' in response to a deluge of imagery associated with the

Cow Protection Movement The cow protection movement is a predominantly Hindu religious and political movement aiming to protect cows, whose slaughter has been broadly opposed by Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Zoroastrians and Sikhs. While the opposition to slaughter o ...

. These concerns led him to draft the major substance of the 1910 Press Act.

Provisions

The main instruments of control imposed by the Press Act were financial securities which were vulnerable to confiscation in the event of any breach of the exceptionally wide provisions of the legislation. Proprietors being obliged to deposit 500 to 5000 Rupees as the Magistrate saw fit. Customs and postal officers were given authority to detain and examine suspected matter, and local governments were authorized to declare forfeit any newspaper, book, or document, or empower the police to search and seize the same. The bill defined press offences as attempts to incite murder or anarchical outrages, to tamper with the loyalty of the Army or the Navy, to excite racial, class and religious animosity and hatred and contempt of the Government or a native prince, to incite criminal intimidation and interference with law and order, and to intimidate public servants with threats of injury.

References

{{Reflist Legislation in British India 1910 in India 1910 in British law 1910s in British India