How did the print media affect the women in India?
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 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.
• 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.
Explain the factors which were responsible for creating a virtual reading mania in Europe. [CBSE 2014]
Or
How did a new reading public emerged with the printing press ? Explain. [CBSE 2010 (D)]
Or
Explain any three reasons for an increase in reading mania in Europe in the 18th Century. [CBSE Sept. 2011]
The printing press is the most powerful engine of progress and public opinion is the force that will sweep despotism away". Who said these words ?
Why did some people fear the effect of the easily available printed books ? Choose one example from Europe and one from India. [CBSE Sept. 2011]
Or
Explain the role played by print in bringing about a division in the Roman Catholic Church. [CBSE Sept. 2011]
Or
Explain the role played by print in the spreading of Protestant Reformation. [CBSE 2012, 2013]
Not everyone welcomed the printed books, and those who did also had fears about it.' Explain by giving examples.
Why did people in the eighteenth century Europe think that print culture would bring enlightenment and end despotism? [CBSE 2011]
Write short notes to show that you know about:
(a) The Erasmus's idea of the printed book.
(b) The Vernacular Press Act. [CBSE Sept. 2011, 2012]
What did the spread of print culture in the nineteenth century India mean to :
Reformers
Name any four languages in which Indian manuscript was prepared before the age of print.
"Woodblock print came to Europe after 1295". Give any three reasons to explain the above statement. [CBSE Sept. 2010]
Write short notes to show what you know about:
a) The Gutenberg Press
b) Erasmus's idea of the printed book
c) The Vernacular Press Act
c) The Vernacular Press Act
Name an Act which was passed by the British government to keep a regular track of the vernacular newspapers.
How did the oral culture enter print and how was the printed material transmitted orally ? Explain with suitable examples. [CBSE 2008 (F), Sept. 2012]
Or
How did the printers manage to attract the people, largely illiterate, towards, printed books ? [CBSE Sept. 2012]
Who was the major producer of printed material in China ? For what purpose this material was used ?
Name the printing presses which published numerous religious texts in vernaculars from the 1880s.
’Liberty of speech … liberty of the press … freedom of association. The government of India is now seeking to crush the three powerful vehicles of expressing and cultivating public opinion, the fight for swaraj, for Khilafat … means a fight for this threatened freedom before all else….’
Who said these words ?
What were the effects of the spread of print culture for poor people in nineteenth century India?
Print popularised the ideas of the Enlightenment thinkers.' Explain. [CBSE 2014]
Or
How did ideas about science, reason and rationality find their way into popular literature in the 18th century Europe ? [CBSE Sept. 2010]