| Great Personalities |
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| Biographies of Great Indians & Hindus |
RAJA RAMMOHAN ROY |
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| The First
EditorAs soon as we get up in the morning, we
eagerly wait for the newspaper. No sooner is the paper delivered than every one wants to
read it.
Times were when the number of newspapers was very small. And even those few were in English. There was not a single newspaper in any Indian language! It was Rammohan Roy who first published a newspaper in an Indian language. Newspapers are absolutely necessary to reform the people. It is possible to make thousands of people understand many things in their own language. Rammohan made the newspaper the means of bringing home his views to many people. ‘Atmiya Sabha’ used to publish a weekly called ‘Vangal Gazette’. Besides, Rammohan was himself bringing out a newspaper in Persian called ‘Miratul- Akhbar’ (the Mirror of News) and a Bengali weekly called ‘Sambad Kaumudi’ (the Moon of Intelligence). In those days, items of news and articles had to be approved by the government before being published. So, there was no freedom of the press. Rammohan protested against this control. He argued that newspapers should be free and that the truth should not besuppressed simply because the government did not like it. Newspapers should have the right to uphold the truth. It needed much courage to speak out like this 150 years ago, when India was under the British rule. The press secured freedom by the constant efforts of Rammohan. In his articles in the papers, Rammohan explained his views and replied to his opponents. He made his words very carefully. He made his comments with tolerance and without wounding anybody’s feelings. He thus set a good example to later editors of newspapers. |
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