Chapter 5 — Print Culture and the Modern World

Chapter 5, 'Print Culture and the Modern World', covers the development of printing technology from hand printing in China and East Asia starting AD 594, to Gutenberg's invention of the movable-type printing press in the 1430s, and the spread of print to Europe and India. It examines how printing transformed access to knowledge, created new reading publics, influenced religious and political movements, and shaped modern societies.

According to the chapter, the earliest kind of print technology was developed in China, Japan, and Korea. Books in China were first printed by rubbing paper against inked woodblocks from AD 594 onwards. The oldest known printed book is the Buddhist Diamond Sutra from AD 868.

Johann Gutenberg was a German inventor who developed the first known printing press in the 1430s at Strasbourg, Germany. He adapted existing technology, drawing on knowledge of olive presses and stone polishing, to create movable metal type for the 26 letters of the Roman alphabet. The first book he printed was the Bible, producing about 180 copies over three years. The Gutenberg press could print 250 sheets per hour on one side, revolutionizing book production.

Before printing, books were expensive, rare, and took a long time to produce by hand. The printing press reduced the cost of books dramatically because the time and labour required to produce each copy came down, and multiple copies could be produced with greater ease. This allowed books to flood the market, reaching much wider audiences. Between 1450 and 1550, about 20 million copies of printed books were produced in Europe; by the sixteenth century, this number rose to about 200 million copies.

The print revolution was not just a new way of producing books; it transformed people's lives by changing their relationship to information and knowledge, influencing their perceptions, and opening new ways of looking at things. It created a new reading public, reduced book costs, and enabled the mass circulation of ideas. Print led to debates that influenced the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, and later the French Revolution.

In 1517, Martin Luther wrote his Ninety Five Theses criticizing the Roman Catholic Church and posted a printed copy on a church door in Wittenberg. His writings were immediately reproduced in vast numbers and read widely, leading to division within the Church and 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. Luther said, 'Printing is the ultimate gift of God and the greatest one.'

The printing press first came to Goa with Portuguese missionaries in the mid-sixteenth century. Jesuit priests learnt Konkani and printed several tracts. By 1674, about 50 books had been printed in Konkani and Kanara languages. Catholic priests printed the first Tamil book in 1579 at Cochin and the first Malayalam book in 1713. English-language printing in India began privately when James Augustus Hickey started the Bengal Gazette in 1780, the first newspaper in English in India.

The Vernacular Press Act was passed in 1878, modelled on Irish Press Laws. It gave the colonial government extensive rights to censor reports and editorials in vernacular (Indian language) newspapers. The government kept regular track of all vernacular newspapers published in different provinces. If a report was judged seditious, the newspaper was warned, and if the warning was ignored, the press could be seized and printing machinery confiscated. This was a response to nationalist newspapers that reported on colonial misrule.

Print enabled intense debates around religious issues. Rammohun Roy published the Sambad Kaumudi from 1821 to spread reform ideas, while the Hindu orthodoxy commissioned the Samachar Chandrika to oppose his opinions. Muslim scholars used cheap lithographic presses to publish Persian and Urdu translations of holy scriptures and religious newspapers. The Deoband Seminary, founded in 1867, published thousands of fatwas. Religious texts in vernaculars reached wide circles of people, encouraging discussions and debates within and among different religions.

Women became important as both readers and writers in the nineteenth century. Journals began carrying writings by women and explained why women should be educated. Despite opposition from conservative families, rebel women defied prohibitions. Rashsundari Debi, from a conservative Muslim family in East Bengal, learnt to read in secret in her kitchen and later wrote her autobiography 'Amar Jiban' (1876), the first full-length autobiography published in Bengali. By the early twentieth century, journals written for and sometimes edited by women became extremely popular, discussing women's education, widowhood, widow remarriage, and the national movement.

From the late nineteenth century, issues of caste discrimination were written about in many printed tracts and essays. Jyotiba Phule, a 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 and Periyar (E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker) wrote powerfully on caste, and their writings were read by people all over India. Local protest movements and sects created popular journals and tracts criticizing ancient scriptures and envisioning a new and just future. Workers in factories, such as Kashibaba and Sudarshan Chakr, also wrote about their experiences and caste-class exploitation.

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