Print Culture and the Modern World

Very cheap small books were brought to markets in nineteenth-century and sold at crossroads, allowing poor people travelling to markets to buy them. Public libraries were set up from the early twentieth century, expanding the access to books. These libraries were located mostly in cities and towns, and at times in prosperous villages.
From the late nineteenth century, issues of caste discrimination began to be written and these writings were read by people all over India.
This brought about awareness among the poor who were now able to assert themselves.
Kashibaba, a Kanpur mill worker, wrote and published Chhote Aur Bade Ka Sawal in 1938 to show the links between caste and class exploitation.
By the 1930s, Bangalore cotton mill workers set up libraries to educate themselves, following the example of Bombay workers. These were sponsored by social reformers who tried to restrict excessive drinking among them, to bring literacy and to propagate the message of nationalism.
Many poor people also got employment in the print industry.