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Viewpoint: What India's first newspaper

says about democracy
0 22 September 2018 f 0 '# ~ < Share

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India's first newspaper, founded in 1780, held up a mirror to British rule in

India. It can also teach us about how tyrants work and how an independent
press can stop them, writes journalist and historian Andrew Otis.

Known as Hicky's Bengal Gazette after its intrepid founder, James Augustus Hicky,
the newspaper notoriously dogged the most powerful men in India.

It dug into their private lives and accused them of corruption, bribery and abuse of
rights. Among many claims, it accused the then ruler of British India, Governor
General Warren Hastings, of bribing the chief justice of India's Supreme Court

It alleged that Hastings and his top aides launched illegal wars of conquest, taxed
the people without representation and suppressed freedom of speech.

The newspaper also reported on the lives of Europeans and the Indian poor - often
news that its competitors would have ignored It bonded with those at the lowest
levels of colonial society, especially the soldiers who fought and died in the wars
waged by the British East India Company.

At the height of its power, the Company controlled large parts of India with its own
anned forces. But it was disbanded after Indian soldiers in its anny revolted against
the British in 1857.

The newspaper, 1n fact, called on the soldiers to mutiny, arguing that their throats
were "devoted to the wild chimeras of a madman", a reference to Hastings.

But soon the criticisms became too much for the government to stand. Those in
power sought to discredit those who held them accountable

The East India Company funded a rival newspaper to control the narrative, while
Hastings' surrogates resorted to ad hominem attacks, calling the newspaper
"insolent" and referring to its wrrters as "prtiful scoundrels"

Finally, when one of its anonymous wnters argued that the "people are no longer
bound to obey" when the government no longer consults their welfare, the East
India Company moved to shut it down.

Hastings repeatedly sued Hicky himself for libel Hicky stood little chance in front of
a bribed judiciary.

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He was found guilty and, despite printing his newspaper from jail for another nine
months, the Supreme Court issued a special order to seize his printing press,
shuttering India's first newspaper for good.

Eventually the allegations of abuse of power and rights made ii back to England.
Anned with reports from Hicky's Bengal Gazette, the members of parliament
launched an investigation.

This resulted in the recall and impeachment of both Hastings and the Chief Justice
of India at the time

The reports in Hicky's Bengal Gazette, and later, in the British newspapers, were
instrumental in building public pressure against corruption.

Like in the case of India's first newspaper, authoritarian leaders today seek to
suppress the press. The source of their power is to convince enough of the public
to believe them. and not what they read in the press

Politicians who want to be dictators are not new But why are they so dangerous
now?

They have new tools to sow divisions between citizens. Facebook, WhatsApp,
Twitter and other forms of social media have created "filter bubbles" in which
people consume and share content they already agree with.

■ How Shelley's Indian 'disciple' changed copyright law

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The result is that people across the world are increasingly divided into tribes as
social media allows politicians to communicate directly with their citizens.

For instance, US President Donald Trump often lashes out at the news media with
tweets, denigrating them as "fake news" and as "enemies of the people".

Social media has also had a deadly effect in India, where a recent spate of mob
lynchings were l inked to child abduction rumours spreading over WhatsApp.

Online trolls 1n India have also backed a Hindu nationalist agenda. Activists and
journalists in the country were arrested in August and, in the fallout, many on
social media termed them "anti-national" and said they were against the ruling
Bharaliya Janata Party-led government.

In such a tumultuous atmosphere, it is time for companies like Google, Facebook

and Twitter to be accountable for their effect on society and to follow ethics
guidelines that newspapers have followed for decades. Social media companies
bear a responsibility to foster connections and dialogue - not division and hate

Dictators such as Hastings have come and gone. But these men set the stage for
the subjugation of India. They created the polttical structure upon which British rule
began. Through them, a subcontinent that ls home to hundreds of millions came to
be ruled by a company of a couple of hundred men.

They gained legitimacy not only through the sword, but by controlling what others
could write about them.

Now we have democratically elected politicians who wield social media in the same
way, using ii to degrade the value of a free press and pit citizens against each
other

The fight between Hastings and Hicky is not that different from the fight we face
today The only thing that has changed is the tools used to fight.

Andrew OUs is the author of Hicky's Bengal Gazette: The Untold Story of India's
First Newspaper, published by Westland.

Related Topics
India Press freedom