DELHI PUBLIC SCHOOL BANGALORE - EAST

SOCIAL SCIENCE (POLITICAL SCIENCE)

PRINT CULTURE AND THE MODERN WORLD (NOTES)

NAME: _________________________ CLASS:X SEC:__________ DATE:
_____________

I. Terms to remember:

1) Almanac: An annual publication giving astronomical data, information about

the movements of the sun and moon, timing of full tides and eclipses, and
much else that was of importance in the everyday life of the people.
2) Ballad: A historical account of a folk tale in verse usually sung or recited.
3) Platen: In letterpress printing, the platen is a board which is pressed onto the
back of the paper to get the impression from the type. At one time, it used to
be a wooden board. Later, it was made of steel.
4) Protestant Reformation: A 16th century movement to reform the Catholic
Church dominated by Rome.
5) Vellum: A parchment made form the skin of animals.
6) Calligraphy: The art of beautiful and stylized writing.
7) Compositor: The person who composes the text for printing.
8) Galley: Metal frame in which types are laid and the text composed.
9) Taverns: Places where people gathered to drink alcohol, to be served food, and
to meet friends and exchange news.
10) Inquisition: A former Roman Catholic court for identifying and punishing
heretics.
11) Heretical: Beliefs which do not follow the accepted teachings of the Church.
Heretical beliefs were severely punished.
12) Satiety: The state of being fulfilled much beyond the point of satisfaction.
13) Seditious: Action, speech of writing that is seen as opposing the government.
14) Denominations: Subgroups within a religion.

II. Very short answers:

15) Define Despotism.

Answer- Despotism is a system of governance in which absolute power is
exercised by an individual, unregulated by legal and constitutional checks.

16) Define Biliotheque Bleue.

Answer - These are low-priced small books printed in France These were
printed on poor quality paper and bound in cheap blue covers.

17) Name the countries where the earliest kind of print technology was developed.
Answer – China, Japan and Korea

18) Name the first book published by Johann Gutenberg.

Answer – Bible

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 19) Who were scribes?
Answer - Scribes were skilled persons who used to write manuscript for the
publishers.

20) When did the first printing press come to India?

Answer -The First Printing press came to Goa with Portuguese missionaries in the
mid-16th century.

21) Define Fatwa.

Answer - A legal pronouncement on Islamic law usually given by a mufti
(legal scholar) to clarify issues on which the law is uncertain.

22) What were Penny Chapbooks?

Answer - Penny Chapbooks were pocket-sized books sold for a penny by paddlers
known as Chapmen.

23) What was Ukiyo?

Answer - Ukiyo means pictures of floating world or depiction of ordinary
human experiences specially urban ones.

III. Short Answer Questions

24) Write a short note on Indian manuscripts.

Answer - India had a very rich and old tradition of handwritten manuscripts –
in Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, and other vernacular languages. Manuscripts were
copied on palm leaves or on handmade paper. Pages were beautifully
illustrated. These manuscripts were bound between wooden covers or sewn
together for preservation. Manuscripts were produced in India even after print
technology was introduced. Manuscripts were expensive and fragile and had to
be handled carefully. It was difficult to read manuscripts as they were written
in different styles.

25) Give a brief description of the first form of print technology.

Answer - The first form of print technology used wooden blocks which were carved
with words or designs. The carvings were in relief. These wooden blocks were inked.
Then paper was rubbed against it. The markings now made an impression on the
paper. The paper was thin and so printing was done only on one side. The papers were
folded and stitched.

26) How did print reach Europe?

Answer - (i) Paper reached Europe through the Silk Route in the 11th century.
(ii) In 1295, Marco Polo, a great explorer, returned to Italy after
many years of exploration in China. He brought with him the
knowledge of woodblock printing.
(iii) Italy began producing with woodblocks, and soon the
technology spread to other parts of Europe

27) Mention any four social values which print culture promoted.
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 Answer - (i) Print culture promoted the application of reasoning and
rationality.
(ii) It created a new culture of dialogue and debate.
(iii) It did open up the possibility of thinking differently.
(iv) It promoted spirit of people’s rule i.e., democracy.

28) What was the Vernacular Press Act?

Answer - Vernacular Press Act was enacted in 1878 to curtail the freedom of the
Indian-language press. Proposed by Lord Lytton, then viceroy of India
(governed 1876–80), the act was intended to prevent the vernacular press
from expressing criticism of British policies.

29) What is the relevance of the chapter ‘Print Culture and the Modern World’?
Answer - Print culture is important because it is a true medium of mass communication
like newspapers, journals and books etc. It also helps in the creation of new ideas,
thoughts, etc via books and magazines, etc.

30) How did the printers manage to attract the people, largely illiterate, towards
printed books?
Answer: The rate of literacy was very low in European countries till the twentieth
century:
• To attract the illiterate common people towards printed books, publishers
realised the wider reach of printed work whereby even those who could not
read could certainly enjoy listening to books being read out.
• So printers began publishing popular ballads and folk tales. Such books would
be profusely illustrated with pictures.
• These were also sung and recited at gatherings in villages and in taverns in
towns.

IV. Long Answer Questions

31) What were the effects of the spread of print culture for the women in the 19th
century India?
Answer – The lives and feelings of women were written with intensity. This
increased the number of women who took to reading. Liberal husbands and
fathers started educating their womenfolk at home and some sent them to
schools. Many journals began carrying writings by women, and explained
why women should be educated. They also carried a syllabus and attached
suitable reading matter which could be used for home-based schooling.
Superstition was a reason for illiteracy among a large population of women.
• Conservative Hindus believed that a literate girl would be widowed.
Muslims feared that educated women would be corrupted by reading Urdu
romances. Social reforms and novels created a great interest in women’s
lives and emotions. Women’s opinions and views were slowly considered
and respected. Stories were written about how women were imprisoned at
home, kept in ignorance, forced to do hard domestic labour and treated
unjustly by the very people they served. Stories about the miserable lives of
upper-caste Hindu women, especially widows also appeared in print. These
stories paved the way for the liberation of the suppressed Indian woman.
Other kinds of literature solely for women soon flooded the markets.
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 • Article on household and fashion lessons for women.
• Articles on issues like women’s education, widowhood, widow remarriage
and the national movement.
• Short stories and serialised novels.
• Folk literature.
In Bengal, an entire area in central Calcutta – the Battala – was devoted to
the printing of popular books. These books were being profusely illustrated
with woodcuts and coloured lithographs. Peddlers took the Battala
publications to homes, enabling women to read them in their leisure time.

32) Explain the following :

a. Martin Luther was in favour of print and spoke out in praise of it.
Answer - Martin Luther was in favour of print and spoke out in praise of it. In
1517 Martin Luther wrote Ninety Five Theses criticising many of the
practices and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church. A printed copy of this
was posted on a church door in Wittenberg. It challenged the Church to
debate his ideas. Luther’s writings were immediately reproduced in vast
numbers and read widely.
This led to a division within the Church and to 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. All this became possible due to printing technology. Deeply
grateful to print, Luther said, “Printing is the ultimate gift of God and the
greatest one. “Several scholars, in fact, think that the print brought about a
new intellectual atmosphere and helped spread the new ideas that led to the
Reformation.

b. The Roman Catholic Church began keeping an Index of Prohibited books

from the mid-sixteenth century.
Answer - The Roman Catholic Church began keeping an Index of
Prohibited Books from the mid-sixteenth century due to the following
reasons :
The print and popular religious literature encouraged many distinctive
individual interpretations of faith even among little-educated working
people. For example, Menocchio, a miller in Italy, after reading some books
available in his locality, reinterpreted the message of the Bible and
formulated a view of God and Creation that enraged the Roman Catholic
Church. Various types of questions were raised against the faith and the
Church. Menocchio was hauled up twice and ultimately executed.
As the Roman Catholic Church was troubled by such writings, it imposed
severe controls over publishers and began to maintain an Index of
Prohibited Books from 1558.

c. Gandhi said the fight for ‘Swaraj is a fight for the liberty of speech,
liberty of press, and freedom of association.

Answer - After the revolt of 1857, as the vernacular press became assertively
nationalist, the colonial government tried to control it. Thus in 1878, the
Vernacular Press Act was passed modelled on the Irish Press Laws. It

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 provided the government with extensive rights to censor reports and
editorials in the vernacular press. Whenever there was a seditious report, the
newspaper was warned and if the warning was ignored, the press was liable
to be seized and the printing machinery confiscated.
When Punjab revolutionaries were deported in 1907, Bal Gangadhar Tilak
wrote with great sympathy about them in his Kesari. This led to his
imprisonment in 1908. There were widespread protests all over India.
During the First World War under the Defence of India Rules, 22 newspapers
had to furnish securities. Of these, 18 shut down rather than comply with
government orders.
Similarly during the Khilafat and Non-Cooperation Movement, the
Government of India was trying to crush the three powerful vehicles of
expressing (Liberty of speech, liberty of press, and freedom of association)
and cultivating public opinion. Thus the fight for Swaraj was a fight for this
freedom than anything else

33. Explain any five reasons for bringing in large number of new readers among
children, women and workers during the late 19 century?
Answer: The five reasons are:

• compulsory primary education;

• women became important as readers as well as writers
• lending libraries became instrumental in educating white collar
workers, artisans and lower middle- class people;
• self educated working novelist were women who defined a new type of
strong woman; and
• best known novelist like Jane Austin, George Eliot defined a new type
of strong woman through their writings.
34. “Print not only stimulated the publication of conflicting opinions amongst
communities, but it also connected communities and people in different parts of
India.” Examine the statement.

• Answer: By the close of the eighteenth century, a number of newspapers and

journals appeared in print. The first newspaper to come out was the weekly Bengal
Gazette, brought out by Gangadhar Bhattacharya.

• Printed tracts and newspapers not only spread new ideas, but they also shaped the
nature of the debate. A wider public could now participate in public discussions and
express their views.

• There were intense controversies between the social and religious reformers and
Hindu orthodoxy over matters like widow immolation, monotheism, Brahmanical
priesthood and idolatry. So that these ideas and thoughts could reach a wider
audience, newspapers were printed in the spoken language of ordinary people.

• Rammohan Roy published the Sambad Kaumudi in 1821 and the Hindu orthodoxy
commissioned the Samachar Chandrika to oppose his opinions. Two Persian
newspapers, Jam-i-Jahan Nama and Shamsul Akhbar were also published.
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 • After the collapse of Muslim dynasties Ulama feared that colonial rulers would
change the Muslim personal laws. To counter this they published Persian and Urdu
translations of holy scriptures and printed religious newspapers and tracts.

• Newspapers and journals not only helped the publication of conflicting opinions but
also connected people and communities in different parts of India. Newspapers
conveyed news from one place to another, creating Pan-Indian identities.

35. Explain the significance of newspapers and journals developed from the early 18th
century.
Answer:
• By the close of the eighteenth century, a number of newspapers and journals appeared
in print.
• Not just the English people, the Indians too began to publish Indian newspapers.
• The first newspaper to come out was the weekly Bengal Gazette, brought out by
Gangadhar Bhattacharya.
• Printed tracts and newspapers not only spread new ideas, but they also shaped the
nature of the debate. A wider public could now participate in public discussions and
express their views.
• There were intense controversies between the social and religious reformers and
Hindu orthodoxy over matters like widow immolation, monotheism, Brahmanical
priesthood and idolatry. So that these ideas and thoughts could reach a wider
audience, newspapers were printed in the spoken language of ordinary people.
• Rammohan Roy published the Sambad Kaumudi from 1821 and the Hindu orthodoxy
commissioned the Samachar Chandrika to oppose his opinions.
• Two Persian newspapers, Jam-i-Jahan Nama and Shamsul Akhbar were also
published.
• Newspapers and journals not only helped the publication of conflicting opinions but
also connected people and communities in different parts of India. Newspapers
conveyed news from one place to another, creating Pan-Indian identities.

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