Print Culture & the Modern World

Activity (Marco Polo's Letter)

Q1. Imagine that you are Marco Polo. Write a letter from China to describe the world of print which you have seen there.

Answer:

Dear Friend,

I write to you from China, where I have witnessed a most remarkable invention – the art of printing. Here, books are not written by hand as they are in our country, but are produced by rubbing paper against the inked surface of woodblocks. This allows many copies of the same text to be made with great speed and accuracy.

The Chinese have been using this technique for centuries. From AD 594 onwards, books have been printed in this manner. The imperial state itself is the major producer of printed material, especially textbooks for the civil service examinations. Skilled craftsmen can duplicate the beauty of calligraphy with remarkable accuracy.

By the seventeenth century, as urban culture bloomed, print was used for much more than official purposes. Merchants use it to collect trade information, and reading has become a leisure activity. People read fictional narratives, poetry, autobiographies, anthologies, and romantic plays. Even women are reading and publishing their poetry and plays.

I am bringing this knowledge back with me, and I believe it will transform the world of books in Europe as it has here.

Your friend,
Marco Polo

Activity (Bookseller's Poster)

Q1. You are a bookseller advertising the availability of new cheap printed books. Design a poster for your shop window.

Answer:

Poster Title: "NEW CHEAP BOOKS FOR ALL!"

Content:

• Penny chapbooks – just one penny each!
• Ballads and folk tales, beautifully illustrated.
• Almanacs and ritual calendars for everyday use.
• Romances and histories printed on four to six pages.
• Books for children, women, and workers.
• Come one, come all – reading is for everyone!

Slogan: "Books for the poor, books for the rich – knowledge for all!"

Discuss (Fear of Print)

Q1. Write briefly why some people feared that the development of print could lead to the growth of dissenting ideas.

Answer:

Some people feared that the development of print could lead to the growth of dissenting ideas because:

• Print created the possibility of wide circulation of ideas, introducing a new world of debate and discussion.
• Even those who disagreed with established authorities could now print and circulate their ideas, persuading people to think differently and move them to action.
• It was feared that if there was no control over what was printed and read, rebellious and irreligious thoughts might spread.
• If that happened, the authority of 'valuable' literature would be destroyed.
• Religious authorities and monarchs, as well as many writers and artists, expressed this anxiety as the basis of widespread criticism of the new printed literature.
• The Roman Church, troubled by such effects, imposed severe controls over publishers and booksellers and began to maintain an Index of Prohibited Books from 1558.

Discuss (Print Culture and the French Revolution)

Q1. Why do some historians think that print culture created the basis for the French Revolution?

Answer:

Some historians think that print culture created the basis for the French Revolution because of three types of arguments:

1. Popularisation of Enlightenment ideas: Print popularised the ideas of Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire and Rousseau. Their writings provided a critical commentary on tradition, superstition, and despotism. They argued for the rule of reason rather than custom and attacked the sacred authority of the Church and the despotic power of the state, eroding the legitimacy of a social order based on tradition. Those who read these books saw the world through new, questioning, critical, and rational eyes.
2. New culture of dialogue and debate: 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.
3. Outpouring of literature mocking royalty: By the 1780s, there was an outpouring of literature that mocked the royalty and criticised their morality. Cartoons and caricatures 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.

However, it is important to remember that people did not read just one kind of literature. They accepted some ideas and rejected others, interpreting things their own way. Print did not directly shape their minds, but it did open up the possibility of thinking differently.

Activity (Cartoonist in France)

Q1. Imagine that you are a cartoonist in France before the revolution. Design a cartoon as it would have appeared in a pamphlet.

Answer:

Cartoon Description:

The cartoon would show the nobility and clergy living in luxury while the common people – peasants, artisans, and workers – struggle under heavy burdens.

• Left side: A fat nobleman and a rich bishop are seated at a table loaded with food and wine, laughing and enjoying themselves.
• Right side: A poor peasant family is shown working in the fields, with a tax collector demanding money and grain from them.
• Background: The Bastille prison looms in the distance, symbolising royal despotism.
• Caption: "While the rich feast, the poor starve!"

Activity (Advertisements and Public Mind)

Q1. 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?

Answer:

Impact of advertisements on the public mind:

• Printed advertisements and notices plastered on street walls, railway platforms, and public buildings make products appear desirable and necessary.
• They try to shape the minds of people and create new needs.
• They make the public aware of new products and persuade them to buy.
• They create a consumer culture by constantly reminding people of what they should want.

Do all people react to printed material in the same way?

No, not everyone reacts to printed material in the same way. People interpret things their own way. They accept some ideas and reject others. Their reactions depend on their education, social background, personal experiences, and existing beliefs. For example, a rich person might be persuaded to buy a new product, while a poor person might ignore it. Similarly, a nationalist might read a newspaper to learn about colonial misrule, while a loyalist might read it to support the government.

Activity (Figs. 19, 20, 21 – Social Changes)

Q1. Look at Figs. 19, 20 and 21 carefully. Ø What comment are the artists making on the social changes taking place in society? Ø What changes in society were taking place to provoke this reaction? Ø Do you agree with the artist's view?

Answer:

Ø What comment are the artists making on the social changes taking place in society?

• Fig. 19 (Ghor Kali – The End of the World): The artist shows a husband dominated by his wife, who is perched on his shoulder, while he drags his mother like an animal. The comment is that traditional family relations are being destroyed.
• Fig. 20 (An Indian couple): The artist shows an Indian couple where the man plays the veena while the woman smokes a hookah. The comment is that the cultural impact of the West has turned the family upside down.
• Fig. 21 (A European couple): The artist shows a European couple sitting on chairs, with the Sahib holding a liquor bottle and the Memsahib playing the violin. The comment is that traditional family roles are being replaced by Western habits.

Ø What changes in society were taking place to provoke this reaction?

• The move towards women's education in the late nineteenth century created anxiety about the breakdown of traditional family roles.
• Western education and cultural influence were changing the behaviour and aspirations of Indians.
• Women were beginning to assert themselves and take on roles beyond the home.
• The print culture was spreading new ideas about modernity, tradition, religion, politics, society, and culture.

Ø Do you agree with the artist's view?

I do not entirely agree with the artist's view. While it is true that social changes were taking place, the artists seem to be reacting with fear and anxiety, presenting a negative picture of change. Women's education and Western influence also brought positive changes, such as greater freedom, equality, and the questioning of oppressive traditions. The artists' view reflects the conservative fear of change rather than a balanced assessment of its effects.

Write in Brief

Q1. 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.

Answer:

a) Woodblock print only came to Europe after 1295:

• China already had the technology of woodblock printing.
• In 1295, Marco Polo, a great explorer, returned to Italy after many years of exploration in China.
• 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.

b) Martin Luther was in favour of print and spoke out in praise of it:

• In 1517, 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.
• Luther's writings were immediately reproduced in vast numbers and read widely.
• This led 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.'

c) The Roman Catholic Church began keeping an Index of Prohibited books from the mid-sixteenth century:

• 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.

d) Gandhi said the fight for Swaraj is a fight for liberty of speech, liberty of the press, and freedom of association:

• 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.
• 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 ...'

Q2. 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

Answer:

a) The Gutenberg Press:

• Johann Gutenberg developed the first-known printing press in the 1430s at Strasbourg, Germany.
• He was the son of a merchant and grew up on a large agricultural estate. He learnt the art of polishing stones, became a master goldsmith, and acquired the expertise to create lead moulds used for making trinkets.
• 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.
• The Gutenberg press could print 250 sheets on one side per hour.
• This came to be known as the moveable type printing machine, and it remained the basic print technology over the next 300 years.

b) Erasmus's idea of the printed book:

• Erasmus was a Latin scholar and a Catholic reformer who criticised the excesses of Catholicism but kept his distance from Luther.
• He expressed a deep anxiety about printing in his book Adages (1508).
• He wrote: '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.'

c) The Vernacular Press Act:

• 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.

Q3. What did the spread of print culture in nineteenth century India mean to: a) Women b) The poor c) Reformers

Answer:

a) Women:

• Women's reading 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.
• From the 1860s, a few Bengali women like Kailashbashini Debi wrote books highlighting the experiences of women.
• In the 1880s, Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai wrote with passionate anger about the miserable lives of upper-caste Hindu women, especially widows.
• In 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.

b) The poor:

• 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 access to books.
• From the late nineteenth century, issues of caste discrimination began to be written about in many printed tracts and essays.
• Jyotiba Phule wrote about the injustices of the caste system in his Gulamgiri (1871).
• In the twentieth century, B.R. Ambedkar and E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker (Periyar) wrote powerfully on caste, and their writings were read by people all over India.
• Kashibaba, a Kanpur millworker, wrote and published Chhote Aur Bade Ka Sawal in 1938 to show the links between caste and class exploitation.
• By the 1930s, Bangalore cotton millworkers set up libraries to educate themselves.

c) Reformers:

• From the early nineteenth century, there were intense debates around religious issues.
• Printed tracts and newspapers not only spread new ideas but shaped the nature of the debate.
• A wider public could now participate in public discussions and express their views.
• Rammohun Roy published the Sambad Kaumudi from 1821 and the Hindu orthodoxy commissioned the Samachar Chandrika to oppose his opinions.
• The ulama used cheap lithographic presses, published Persian and Urdu translations of holy scriptures, and printed religious newspapers and tracts.
• The Deoband Seminary published thousands of fatwas telling Muslim readers how to conduct themselves in their everyday lives.
• Among Hindus, print encouraged the reading of religious texts, especially in vernacular languages.

Discuss

Q1. Why did some people in eighteenth century Europe think that print culture would bring enlightenment and end despotism?

Answer:

Some people in eighteenth-century Europe thought that print culture would bring enlightenment and end despotism because:

• 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.
• Mercier proclaimed: 'Tremble, therefore, tyrants of the world! Tremble before the virtual writer!'
• Print popularised the ideas of Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire and Rousseau, who argued for the rule of reason rather than custom and attacked the sacred authority of the Church and the despotic power of the state.
• Print created a new culture of dialogue and debate, where all values, norms, and institutions were re-evaluated and discussed by a public aware of the power of reason.

Q2. Why did some people fear the effect of easily available printed books? Choose one example from Europe and one from India.

Answer:

Some people feared the effect of easily available printed books because:

• It was feared that if there was no control over what was printed and read, rebellious and irreligious thoughts might spread.
• If that happened, the authority of 'valuable' literature would be destroyed.
• Religious authorities and monarchs, as well as many writers and artists, expressed this anxiety as the basis of widespread criticism of the new printed literature.

Example from Europe:

• Erasmus, a Latin scholar and Catholic reformer, expressed deep anxiety about printing in his Adages (1508). He wrote: 'To what corner of the world do they not fly, these swarms of new books? ... [printers] fill the world with books, not just trifling things ... 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.'
• The Roman Catholic Church imposed severe controls over publishers and booksellers and began to maintain an Index of Prohibited Books from 1558.

Example from India:

• Conservative Hindus believed that a literate girl would be widowed.
• 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.

Q3. What were the effects of the spread of print culture for poor people in nineteenth century India?

Answer:

The effects of the spread of print culture for poor people in nineteenth-century India were:

• 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 access to books. These libraries were located mostly in cities and towns, and at times in prosperous villages.
• 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.
• 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.

Q4. Explain how print culture assisted the growth of nationalism in India.

Answer:

Print culture assisted the growth of nationalism in India in the following ways:

• Spread of nationalist ideas: Newspapers reported on colonial misrule and encouraged nationalist activities. They conveyed news from one place to another, creating pan-Indian identities.
• Public debates: Printed tracts and newspapers not only spread new ideas but shaped the nature of the debate. A wider public could now participate in public discussions and express their views.
• Religious reform and debate: Print stimulated the publication of conflicting opinions amongst communities, but it also connected communities and people in different parts of India.
• Nationalist newspapers: Despite repressive measures, nationalist newspapers grew in numbers in all parts of India. They reported on colonial misrule and encouraged nationalist activities.
• Militant protest: Attempts to throttle nationalist criticism provoked militant protest. 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 widespread protests all over India.
• Gandhi's view: 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 ...'
• Visual culture: By the end of the nineteenth century, a new visual culture was taking shape. 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.
• Caricatures and cartoons: By the 1870s, caricatures and cartoons were being published in journals and newspapers, commenting on social and political issues. There were imperial caricatures lampooning nationalists, as well as nationalist cartoons criticising imperial rule.

Project

Q1. 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.

Answer:

Changes in print technology in the last 100 years:

Conclusion: The changes in print technology have been driven by the need for faster, cheaper, and better-quality printing. The consequences have been profound: print reached wider sections of society, literacy increased, and information became more accessible. In the twenty-first century, digital media has transformed print culture once again, making information instantly available across the globe.