Static GK Quiz: Newspapers of the Freedom Struggle

The correct answer is A, Bengal Gazette. The Bengal Gazette, also called the Calcutta General Advertiser and popularly known as Hicky's Gazette, was started by James Augustus Hicky in 1780 and is the first newspaper published in India. It attacked senior officials of the East India Company and was suppressed within two years. Option B is wrong because Samachar Darpan, brought out from Serampore in 1818, is the first newspaper in an Indian language, Bengali, but not the first newspaper in the country. Option C is wrong because Bombay Samachar, started in Gujarati in 1822 by Fardunjee Marzban, is the oldest newspaper in India still in print, a different distinction. Option D is wrong because Udant Martand of 1826 is the first Hindi newspaper. All four carry a first, so read the stem closely.

The correct answer is B, Jugal Kishore Shukla. Udant Martand was brought out from Calcutta on 30 May 1826 by Jugal Kishore Shukla as a weekly, and it is the first newspaper in Hindi; 30 May is observed as Hindi Journalism Day on that account. The paper closed within about a year and a half for want of subscribers. Option A is wrong because Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi founded the Hindi weekly Pratap at Kanpur in 1913 and died in the Kanpur riots of 1931. Option C is wrong because Raja Ram Mohan Roy edited Sambad Kaumudi in Bengali and Mirat-ul-Akhbar in Persian. Option D is wrong because Madan Mohan Malaviya was associated with the Leader of Allahabad and with Hindi journalism later in the century, not with Udant Martand. The paper is also remembered for proving that a Hindi readership existed before any Hindi daily could be sustained.

The correct answer is B, Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Tilak, along with G. G. Agarkar, started the Marathi weekly Kesari and the English weekly Mahratta in 1881. The articles in Kesari brought him two sedition trials, and in 1908 he was sentenced to six years' transportation, which he served at Mandalay in Burma, where he wrote the Gita Rahasya. Option A is wrong because Gopal Krishna Gokhale, the moderate leader and Tilak's chief opponent within the Congress, was associated with the Sudharak rather than with these two papers. Option C is wrong because Bipin Chandra Pal founded Bande Mataram in 1906, which Aurobindo Ghosh edited. Option D is wrong because Dadabhai Naoroji started the Gujarati paper Rast Goftar in 1851 and later the journal Voice of India. Kesari still appears in questions as the paper through which Tilak gave the slogan that freedom is our birthright.

The correct answer is C, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. Azad launched the Urdu weekly Al-Hilal in 1912 to carry the nationalist argument to Urdu readers and to oppose the separatist politics of the time. When the paper was proscribed under the press laws he started Al-Balagh in 1915. Option A is wrong because Mohammad Ali Jauhar founded the English weekly Comrade in 1911 and the Urdu daily Hamdard in 1913. Option B is wrong because Zafar Ali Khan edited the Urdu paper Zamindar from Lahore, which was also repeatedly penalised. Option D is wrong because Syed Ahmad Khan, the founder of the Aligarh movement, belongs to an earlier generation and is associated with the journal Tahzib-ul-Akhlaq, not with Al-Hilal. Azad later became the first Education Minister of independent India. The title Al-Hilal means the crescent, and the paper's circulation was large enough for the government to treat it as a serious threat.

The correct answer is A, Raja Ram Mohan Roy. Ram Mohan Roy brought out Mirat-ul-Akhbar in Persian from 1822, besides the Bengali Sambad Kaumudi from 1821, and he closed the Persian journal in protest when the Licensing Regulations of 1823 required a licence to print. He also petitioned against those regulations, which is why he is counted among the first defenders of press freedom in India. Option B is wrong because Devendranath Tagore led the Brahmo Samaj after Roy and is associated with the journal Tattvabodhini Patrika. Option C is wrong because Harish Chandra Mukherjee edited the Hindu Patriot, which exposed the oppression of indigo planters in Bengal. Option D is wrong because Fardunjee Marzban started the Gujarati paper Bombay Samachar in 1822. Sambad Kaumudi is also the paper through which Roy campaigned against sati before its abolition in 1829.

The correct answer is B, Lord Lytton. The Vernacular Press Act was passed in 1878 under Lord Lytton and applied only to newspapers printed in Indian languages, not to English papers, which is why it was called the Gagging Act. The Amrita Bazar Patrika escaped it by turning itself into an English paper overnight. Option A is wrong because Lord Ripon is remembered for repealing the Act in 1882, along with the Local Self Government Resolution and the Hunter Commission on education. Option C is wrong because Lord Curzon's name goes with the partition of Bengal in 1905 and the Indian Universities Act of 1904. Option D is wrong because Lord Dufferin was Viceroy when the Indian National Congress was founded in 1885. Lytton is also associated with the Delhi Durbar of 1877 and the Arms Act of 1878.

The correct answer is C, Mohammad Ali Jauhar. Mohammad Ali Jauhar founded the English weekly Comrade at Calcutta in 1911 and shifted it to Delhi, and he started the Urdu daily Hamdard in 1913; he was later a leader of the Khilafat movement and president of the Congress at its Coconada session in 1923. Option A is wrong because Motilal Nehru founded The Independent at Allahabad in 1919. Option B is wrong because Pherozeshah Mehta founded the Bombay Chronicle in 1913, which B. G. Horniman edited and for whose reporting of Jallianwala Bagh Horniman was deported. Option D is wrong because Aurobindo Ghosh edited Bande Mataram, the English daily founded by Bipin Chandra Pal in 1906, and also wrote for Karmayogin. Comrade is also remembered for the article Choice of the Turks, which led to the paper being penalised and its editor interned.

The correct answer is B, Dr B. R. Ambedkar. Ambedkar launched the Marathi fortnightly Mooknayak, meaning leader of the voiceless, in 1920 to argue the case of the depressed classes, and he followed it with Bahishkrit Bharat in 1927 and Janata in 1930. Option A is wrong because Jyotirao Phule, the earlier social reformer of Maharashtra, founded the Satyashodhak Samaj in 1873 and wrote Gulamgiri, but Mooknayak came long after his death in 1890. Option C is wrong because Shivram Mahadev Paranjpe edited the Marathi weekly Kal, known for its indirect, allusive attacks on the government. Option D is wrong because G. G. Agarkar worked with Tilak on Kesari and Mahratta and later edited Sudharak, parting from Tilak over the priority of social reform. Mooknayak was supported in its first year by Shahu Maharaj of Kolhapur, a detail that sometimes appears as a separate question.

The correct answer is B, Charles Metcalfe. As acting Governor-General, Charles Metcalfe repealed the Licensing Regulations of 1823 through the Press Act of 1835, often called the Metcalfe Act, and freed Indian newspapers from the need for a licence; for this he is called the Liberator of the Indian Press. Option A is wrong because Lord William Bentinck is remembered for the abolition of sati in 1829 and for the suppression of thuggee, not for press reform. Option C is wrong because Macaulay, though he drafted the press regulation of 1835 as a member of the council and wrote the famous Minute on Education, is not the one given this title. Option D is wrong because Lord Hastings, Governor-General from 1813, relaxed pre-censorship in 1818 but the licensing rules returned in 1823.

The correct answer is B, Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi took over the English weekly Young India and the Gujarati weekly Navajivan in 1919 and used them to explain satyagraha, the Rowlatt agitation and the non-cooperation movement; in 1933 he began Harijan. He carried no advertisements in his papers so that they would stay independent, and his first paper had been Indian Opinion, started in South Africa in 1903. Option A is wrong because Jawaharlal Nehru wrote widely but is linked to the National Herald, founded in 1938. Option C is wrong because Lala Lajpat Rai is associated with the journals People and Vande Mataram of Lahore. Option D is wrong because Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel is not identified with a paper of this kind. Navajivan also gave its name to the Navajivan Trust at Ahmedabad, which still publishes Gandhi's writings.