Evaluate the efforts made by the British in India to impose censorship on the press.

(i) By the 1820's, the Calcutta supreme court passed certain regulations to control press freedom and the country began encouraging publication of newspapers that would celebrate British rule

(ii) In 1835, faced with urgent petitions by editors English and vernacular newspapers, governor-general bentick agreed to revise press laws.

(iii) 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 the government kept regular track of the vernacular 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 could be confiscated.