In 1822, he started a couple of periodicals to spread his ideas and to support a particular faction- the 'colonizers'- within the European community. It was in this latter context that he protested an Ordinance placing restrictions on the Press. Later, he travelled to London and helped convince Britishers that they had both a moral duty as well as an economic interest in conquering more and more of the country and ruling over it as they thought fit. He forcefully argued that Britishers should be allowed to come to India and settle there as planters or other types of Colonists. In 1833, the British Parliament, which he had lobbied, granted this wish of his.
So long as the British were paramount in India; so long as 'settlers' were exploiting Natives; it was obvious that the Raj would not permit freedom to the Vernacular Press. Less obvious but predictable nonetheless was the role that the English Press would play during the Raj in terms of promoting the commercial interests of Whites to the detriment of the Native population.
It should be remembered Roy was not merely a partisan of British Rule. He was also the enemy of many within his own Community. Any restriction on the Liberty of the Press would handicap him in attacking his Indian enemies. The novel aspect of Roy's thinking is that being ruled by a foreigner is not 'oppressive' or 'degrading'. But showering abuse on one's own people was conducive to reducing 'oppression' and 'degradation'.
Roy, Tagore & c, were playing for high stakes. They wanted to become the top 'Brahmins' of the region while getting very very rich working with the British, flattering their new masters, and helping the European Colonist by saying 'as an Indian Native, I testify that the poor Indians will benefit most from becoming virtual slaves to British planters'. Roy used his newspapers for this end. He appealed to the King in Council for the repeal of an Ordinance under which a White editor had been forced out of India for criticizing the Administration but which could not harm Roy or the one or two other Natives involved in bringing out Periodicals by reason of the fact that they were greedy scheming toadies and lickspittles.
A scholar sympathetic to Roy writes-
It was because of Liberty of the Press that no reform of Indigo planting or many other such abuses was allowed to occur. Otto Trevelyan, in 'Letters of a Competition Wallah', published 6 years before Gandhi's birth, condemns the cruelty of the 'Settlers' who, like American carpet-baggers, had descended like locusts on the cow-belt after the suppression of the Mutiny. But the problem persisted because the 'Free Press' championed the indigo planters. Even in the Nineteen Twenties and Thirties, the 'Free Press' poured scorn on the Natives and demanded draconian action be taken against their leaders.
Why do some historians pretend Roy was a champion of Liberty of the Press? The facts are to the contrary. The existence of British power meant that Indians were a subject population. Moreover, it was clear that the Brits were getting rich by extorting money from the Natives. This was oppression. This was degradation. But Roy wanted more of it, not less of it. Sadly, the Brits would want to suppress his crazier tirades against his fellows. Why? Because it would create a backlash. Thus Roy wanted a Press such that he could use his Wealth to blackguard his Hindu rivals to his heart's content. The problem was that if he did so, someone might stick a knife in his hide. Still, Roy hoped to promote his own Sect while oppressing that of others by fooling the Christians that he was a sort of Trojan Horse of theirs.
A Bengali scholar writes-
Greed blinded Roy & Tagore. They were intelligent. They got rich. But they were traitors to their nation as it was conceived at that time. So as to rob the peasant, they leagued themselves with foreigners.
Ram Guha takes a different view in an article for Scroll.
In 1824, the Government of Bengal (which was then in the hands of the East India Company) issued an Ordinance placing strict curbs on the freedom of the press.Only White people (including Armenians) produced any periodicals prior to 1822 when Roy started two journals- one in Bengali and one in Persian. The conservative Hindus may have retaliated- but we don't have much information about their publications.
Scholars agree that no Native publication had criticized the Administration. It was White editors who got in trouble and were deported. A Native could have been bankrupted and jailed or transported for seditious libel.
This gave the government the powers to cancel a newspaper’s licence without any explanation.This was a government which could kill you and grab your property without any explanation- unless you were White. This Ordinance was aimed at the English malcontent not the Native whose life and property were wholly at the mercy of the Administration.
Guha pretends otherwise.
The Ordinance provoked outrage among the intelligentsia of Calcutta, active in editing and publishing periodicals in English as well as in Bengali.There was no Indian edited English periodicals at that time. Vernacular periodicals did not criticize the Government, though they did attack each other. There were only 4 in total, two of which were run by Roy. The fact is, the only editor who suffered was an Englishman who was deported.
A petition to the government asking it to rescind the Ordinance was drafted by Ram Mohun Roy, who obtained the signatures of some other Indians (including several members of the Tagore family) before sending it off to the authorities.This was rejected. Still it may have raised Roy's profile a little. But the thing was ridiculous. Roy was pretending he was not a nigger from an enslaved country. He waffled on as if British Rule had restored the immemorial law of the Indian soil which the Turks had rudely displaced. The guy founded the Brahmo Samaj which is supposed to venerate the Truth. In which case, if Brahmo's revere Roy, they should also revere the Brits. He wrote 'Divine Providence at last, in its abundant mercy, stirred up the English nation to break the yoke of those tyrants [Muslim kings], and to receive the oppressed Natives of Bengal under its protection'. Thus Brahmo 'reform' of Hinduism is based on getting Hindus to understand that God wants them to be slaves of White Christians from a distant isle.
I had read Ram Mohun’s petition many years ago, and was prompted to go back to it recently in the wake of a growing spate of attacks on journalists in India today.There were plenty of attacks on journalists two years ago in Mamta's Bengal which is where Roy was from. Why didn't Guha go running to Roy to discover that the only cure is getting Whitey to come back and rule Calcutta?
His words make for sobering reading at a time when the government of independent India has become as hostile to a free press as was its colonial predecessor.No. Roy's words make for hilarious reading. A free press would have said 'Whitey be robbing us blind. Kill Whitey'. The Brits knew it. The Indians knew it. This wasn't exactly 'aaj ka taza khabar'. Anyway, Newspapers didn't matter in the slightest. Their circulation was miniscule.
Thanks to Roy's pretence that unscrupulous White merchants in India were actually benefactors of the Natives, 'liberal legislation' allowed Whites to default on their debts thus ruining the 'banian' Native money-lenders who had trusted them. Amia Bagchi writes-
Guha is a professional historian. He must know all this. Yet he writes-
Let us hear Ram Mohun directly. In his petition to the East India Company, the great liberalwho very generously gave away his country
urged the British rulers not to be “disposed to adopt the political maxim so often acted upon by Asiatic Princes, that the more a people are kept in darkness, their Rulers will derive the greater advantages from them.”Did Roy not get that he himself was Asiatic? India was part of Asia, not Europe. Asiatic Princes chopped people's heads off without due process. That's how Asiatic people were ruled. Darkness and Light were irrelevant. Knowing you'd get you head chopped off if the Prince suspected your loyalty was all that counted.
What Roy was actually saying was 'not only must Britain rule India, White Britons must also come and own big estates so that the Natives can rise up by becoming their slaves. Obviously, if there are White Colonists, then the Administration must truckle to them. Their Newspapers would issue the orders and the Bureaucrats would obey.
“It is well known”, he continued, “that despotic Governments naturally desire the suppression of any freedom of expression which might tend to expose their acts to the obloquy which ever attends the exercise of tyranny or oppression.”A despot is of the same race as the subject. Bengal was ruled by foreigners who were interested in transferring wealth to their own nation. Roy's great contribution to India was his testimony to the British Parliament which led White indigo planters and other such to gain the right to settle in India under the terms of the 1833 Charter. What a wonderful legacy!
Let us look at the contribution of Roy's own periodical. Subbhas Bhattacharya writes-
It is important to note that Roy & Tagore didn't just want British Rule to continue. They wanted European settlers to colonize vast tracts of agricultural land while reducing the native population to thinly disguised slavery.
Guha says nothing of the purpose to which Roy dedicated the
‘Unrestrained liberty of publication’which he wanted.
Instead, he observes-
Ram Mohun hoped that the new rulers would be more open-minded than those who had preceded them.To be fair, the Brits were more open-minded than the Muslims. If your skin was brown, they didn't let your being of their own Religion stand in the way of treating you like shit.
As he put it: “Every good Ruler, who is convinced of the imperfection of human nature... must be conscious of the great liability to error in managing the affairs of a vast empire; and therefore he will be anxious to afford every individual the readiest means of bringing to his notice whatever may require his interference. To secure this important object, the unrestrained Liberty of Publication is the only effectual means that can be employed.”This was obviously false. Newspapers cost money. Their contributors are prejudiced, ignorant and stupid. What is important is that everybody can approach the Courts.
The free flow of information, argued Ram Mohun here, was imperative for good governance.But Newspapers can as easily contribute to the flow of disinformation and promote misgovernment.
If a Ruler wished to govern wisely, and well, he should allow, indeed encourage, his subjects to bring to his attention examples of maladministration from different parts of the country, so that his government could correct them.This is done through the Courts and petitions and so forth.
Here, this 19th-century liberalcretin
strikingly anticipated the arguments of his 20th-century successor,the equally anti-national cretin
Amartya Sen. In his book, Poverty and Famines (1981), Sen argued that famines were far less likely to take place in democracies than in authoritarian regimes,despite the fact that Sen's homeland had two big famines because of the transition to Democracy. Elected Bengali politicians, it turned out, were crappier than what went before.
because if food scarcities did arise in any particular district or province, they would be quickly reported in the press, compelling the government to rush supplies to regions which urgently required them.How come this didn't happen either in 1943 or 1974? The answer is that newspapers if not owned by the same politicians profiting by the famines are nevertheless easy to bribe or intimidate. Sen praises the Calcutta Statesman's reporting on the '43 famine. But that newspaper did not name and shame the Bengali politicians involved. Why? They feared retribution. So they shifted the blame to White Civil Servants in Delhi who, by Law, had no power over Food in Bengal.
No democracy had experienced the sort of serious mass famine that totalitarian China did in the early 1960s, when lower level party officials were too scared to bring shortages in their districts to the attention of their bosses in Beijing.Has this cretin never heard of the Bangladesh famine of 1974?
The words (and works) of both Ram Mohun Roy and Amartya Sen arestupid lies not
compellingly relevant to the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. For, instead of treating a free press as a valuable source of news that can help them contain the pandemic quicker and more effectively, many governments have treated journalists with undisguised hostility.revealed once again that the UN is stupid and useless
In a recent report, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
expressed alarm at the clampdown on the freedom of expression in Asia during the Covid-19 crisis. In India, noted the report, several journalists and at least one doctor had been charged for their public criticism of the authorities’ response to Covid-19. In Mumbai, the police went so far as to pass an order prohibiting “any person inciting mistrust towards government functionaries and their actions taken in order to prevent spread of the Covid-19 virus and thereby causing danger to human health or safety or a disturbance to the public tranquillity”.In other words, the Indian Government is perfectly sensible and able to take tough decisions. Guha thinks that since that UN guy is White, all brown people should clamor to lick his arse. After all, isn't that what Roy did?
Warning that such repression would hinder rather than help effective public policy, the report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights remarked: “In these times of great uncertainty, medical professionals, journalists, human rights defenders and the general public must be allowed to express opinions on vitally important topics of public interest, such as the provision of health care and the handling of the health and socio-economic crisis, and the distribution of relief items.”They are allowed to express 'opinions'. But they, like everybody else, must observe the law or face the consequences.
The report further observed: “This crisis should not be used to restrict dissent or the free flow of information and debate.But it may be used to write worthless virtue signalling shite.
A diversity of viewpoints will foster greater understanding of the challenges we face and help us better overcome them.And writing worthless virtue signalling shite will cause the COVID virus to feel such disgust with the human species that it will steer clear of them.
It will also help countries to have a vibrant debate on the root causes and good practices needed to overcome the longer-term socio-economic and other impacts. This debate is crucial for countries to build back better after the crisis.”What 'debate' can Goo-ha-ha contribute to?
It is unlikely that these words will be read or heeded in the corridors of power in New Delhi, or in our state capitals either. Indeed, a report released earlier this week by the Delhi based Rights & Risks Analysis Group documents cases of some 55 journalists who have faced harassment and intimidation from the State or from political thugs because of their reporting on the pandemic.This 'Rights & Risks Analysis Group' is headed by Suhas Chakma- whose people want Bengalis and other foreigners out of their ancestral land. On his blog I find this-
Addressing the gathering, Suhas Chakma said, “Under international law, tribal people whose social, cultural and economic conditions distinguish them from other sections of the national community, and whose status is regulated wholly or partially by their own customs or traditions or by special laws or regulations are identified as ‘indigenous’ people. It is on this legal premise that the Government of India had ratified the International Labour Organization’s Convention No.107 relating to the Indigenous and Tribal Populations on September 29,1958. “To term, every original inhabitant group as “indigenous” is nothing but the perversion of the term ‘indigenous people’. By this logic, Englishmen would be indigenous people of England and Germans would be indigenous people of Germany,” he added.Either Suhas Chakma is at a 'less advanced' stage of human culture and intelligence or else he is not indigenous. It is because of absurd, racist, language of that sort that the 1958 ILO Convention has been superseded.
Why is Guha quoting Chakma's outfit? Is it because, having a quoted a White Man- whom Divine Providence has put above us desis (according to Roy)- he wants to quote someone who is, according to Racist ideology, beneath us?
These journalists have been arrested, had first information reports filed against them, or been physically assaulted. By going after these particular individuals, the state intends to send out a message to all other journalists; be silent or acquiescent, or else we’ll go after you too.Jailing criminals, perhaps beating them first, sends the message- obey the law. It works extremely well in India with 'presstitutes'. But Guha and his ilk help Modi by babbling racist shite. So Amit Shah will be sorry to see him locked up.
Of these 55 documented cases, 11 are in Uttar Pradesh (under the Bharatiya Janata Party’s rule), six in Jammu and Kashmir (ruled directly by the Centre), and five in Himachal Pradesh (also ruled by the BJP). However, states ruled by parties other than the BJP are also well represented, with Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Odisha and Maharashtra having four cases each.So there is biased documentation from a biased and 'developmentally backward' outfit headed by a guy who doesn't even have a Wikipedia entry. He may have some salience as an 'interlocutor' in the turbulent North East- but that's as far as it goes.
These journalists have been charged, booked or arrested under provisions of the Indian Penal Code originally drafted in colonial times, such as Sections 124A (sedition), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, etc.), 182 (false information), 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 505(2) (statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill-will between classes) and so on. Ironically, it was under these same provisions that the British raj once jailed such great journalist-patriots as Lokmanya Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi.The Indian Constitution declares all Indian law to be autochthonous. Thus, from the Legal point of view, these are not Colonial laws. They arise out of the soil of India. There is no irony whatsoever in the law being applied to illegal acts. Unlike Roy, Tilak and Gandhi did not want Whitey to rule India. Whitey jailed them. But Whitey no longer rules India. People who want Whitey to come back could get jailed now if they start telling seditious lies.
As this column goes to press on Friday morning, reports come in of a fresh FIR filed by the Uttar Pradesh government, against a journalist of the website, Scroll.in, who had written a series of well-documented reports on the sufferings of the poorer citizens of Varanasi during the lockdown.Really? Did the F.I.R say 'the accused wrote about suffering of the poor. This is against the law.'? No.
Scroll itself reports as follows- The police, the FIR states, acted on a complaint filed by Mala Devi, a resident of Varanasi’s Domari village. Sharma had interviewed Mala as part of a series from Varanasi district on the impact of the lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Domari village has been adopted by the prime minister under the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana. In the interview, Mala told Scroll.in she was a domestic worker and experienced food distress during the lockdown since she did not have a ration card.
However, according to the FIR, Mala Devi in her complaint to the police alleged Sharma misrepresented her comments and identity. She claimed she was not a domestic worker, but worked as a sanitation worker at the Varanasi city municipality through “outsourcing”.
“During the lockdown, neither me or anyone in my family faced any problems,” the FIR quotes her. “By saying that me and children went hungry, Supriya Sharma had made fun of my poverty and caste.”
The problem here is that Scroll should not have run the story till they had checked that Mala Devi would back it up. Whatever the truth of the matter, the fact is either the journalist is lying or the interviewee is lying. But a good Journalist does not publish testimony from an unreliable person.
Varanasi happens to be the prime minister’s constituency, and the naked attempt to suppress the truthBut Mala Devi is the complainant. Obviously, she wants to be bought off. The journalist is high caste. Scroll has plenty of money. The draconian anti SC/ST atrocities act applies. Scroll has to pay up. Mala Devi gets some money. The Press remains Free though it does have to pay a little to a poor person whom it tried to exploit.
about what is happening there chillingly recalls Ram Mohun Roy’s words, that “it is well known that despotic Governments naturally desire the suppression of any freedom of expression”.By contrast to which, Divine Providence arranges for Hindus to be robbed and ruled over by White Christians which is why they should be granted the freedom to express their profound gratitude and to demand that the law be changed so some nice White people can come and colonize vast tracts of land and institute a sort of disguised slavery over brown people.
Indeed, such governments are motivated by the belief that “the more a people are kept in darkness, their Rulers will derive the greater advantages from them”.Guha is a historian. He keeps his readers in darkness of the fact that Roy used 'the liberty of the Press' to demand White people come and tyrannize over brown people. Guha derives great advantage from this. We now think he is funnier than Ranajit Guha who migrated from India to the UK in 1959.
Every year, the organisation, Reporters Without Borders, compiles a press freedom index. In 2009, India’s rank was 105. A decade later, it has fallen much further, to 142. It is small consolation that some of our neighbours rank even lower (Pakistan at 145, Bangladesh at 151), particularly when other neighbours rank quite a lot higher (Nepal at 112, Sri Lanka at 127).That index is shit. My neighbor is a veteran journalist born and bred in Kingston. The reason he lives in London is because he would be killed in Jamaica. I don't think he's published anything there for 20 years. Yet Jamaica is way ahead of the UK according to this stupid index.
My personal experience confirms this independent assessment of India’s slide. In the 30 years that I have been writing for newspapers and websites,your readers have witnessed your regression to a state of primal narcissism
I have seen the pressures on proprietors and editors steadily increase. Once, proprietors were more nervous about offending important advertisers than powerful politicians; now it is absolutely the reverse.Why? Voters, like subscribers, like NaMo. Repeating stupid lies about him gets our gorge up.
Our prime minister is no friend of the freedom of the pressOn the contrary. He is its biggest beneficiary. Had the non Gujju press not painted him as a genocidal maniac he wouldn't have turned into Gujarat's longest serving, most successful, C.M. What is truly extraordinary is that I- a guy whose novels display my love of the Dynasty in a manner I now find embarrassing- a fucking Tambram with a deep seated hatred of Vajapeyi or Murli Manohar Joshi type 'shuddh' Hindi spouting nitwits- I have become a bakth because of Iyer cretins like Guha, Varadarajan, Mani Shankar etc. Modi is simply smarter and a better communicator.
– but nor are most (or even all) chief ministers. For some years now, threatening calls to editors from politicians have become ubiquitous across India. And now intimidatory FIRs against journalists are becoming ubiquitous too.This is the other side of the PIL culture.
There remain some brave, independent newspapers and websites active in India, many fearless and tireless journalists too.Where? I want to read about BJP Ministers being caught taking bribes. Instead I get nonsense about how a Judge was murdered by fellow Judges because he wouldn't take a bribe. Why not simply say they sodomized him before killing him in some artful manner such that death appeared to be by natural causes?
But overall the situation is bleak. The Indian press is less free, more vulnerable to state intimidation than at any time since the Emergency. Were Ram Mohun Roy alive today, he would be prompted to write a fresh petition on the subject to those in power –Demanding Whitey rule India- i.e. Sonia must become P.M- because that is what 'Divine Providence' wants so as to save brown people from ruling themselves democratically. Incidentally, Roy wasn't a fan of the 1832 Reform Bill.
although it would most likely be met with a resounding silence, or perhaps even with an FIR charging the writer with sedition.Sedition? No. Derision. This is the fate which meets Guha's too frequent articles. The guy is supposed to be a historian. But he has turned into a gibbering Huccha Venkat yearning for a White Supremacy which not even 'Divine Providence' could sustain in the sub-continent, without Gandhi's help, one hundred years ago.
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