History of Newspapers in India
Newspapers in India started with William Bolts, an ex-employee of the British East India Company who attempted to start the first newspaper in India in 1776.
Then, in 1789, James Augustus Hicky started Bengal Gazette, a two-sheet newspaper that publicized the private lives of the “sahibs” of the Company. In the newspaper, Hicky even dared to mount scurrillious attacks on the Governor-General and Chief Justice, for which he was sentenced to one year in prison and fined Rs.5, 000, which finally drove him to penury. These were the first tentative steps of journalism in India.
B. Messink and Peter Reed were pliant publishers of the India Gazette, unlike their infamous predecessors. The colonial establishment started the Calcutta Gazette. It was followed by another private initiative, the Bengal Journal.
The Madras Courier was started in 1785 in the southern stronghold of Madras. Richard Johnson, its founder, was a government printer. Madras got its second newspaper when, in 1791, Hugh Boyd, who was the editor of the Courier quit and founded the Hurkaru. Tragically for the paper, it ceased publication when Boyd passed away within a year of its founding.
It was only in 1795 that competitors to the Courier emerged with the founding of the Madras Gazette followed by the India Herald. The latter was an “unauthorized” publication, which led to the deportation of its founder Humphreys. The Madras Courier was designated the purveyor of official information in the Presidency.
In 1878, The Hindu was founded, and played a vital role in promoting the cause of Indian independence from the colonial yoke. It’s founder, Kasturi Ranga Iyengar, was a lawyer, and his son, K. Srinivasan assumed editorship of this pioneering newspaper during the first half of the 20th century.
Bombay, surprisingly was a late starter. The Bombay Herald came into existence in 1789. Significantly, a year later a paper called The Courier started carrying advertisements in Gujarati.
The first media merger of sorts happened with The Bombay Gazette, which was started in 1791, merging with The Bombay Herald the following year. Like, The Madras Courier, this new entity was recognized as the publication to carry “official notifications and advertisements”.
Compared with many other developing countries, the Indian press has flourished since independence and exercises a large degree of independence. In 2001, India had 45,974 newspapers, including 5364 daily newspapers published in over 100 languages. The largest number of newspapers were published in Hindi (20,589), followed by English (7,596), Marathi (2,943), Urdu (2,906), Bengali (2,741), Gujarati (2,215), Tamil (2,119), Kannada (1,816), Malayalam (1,505) and Telugu (1,289). The Hindi daily press has a circulation of over 23 million copies, followed by English with over 8 million copies.