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- Printing also gave rise to demand of writers.
- As more and more people began to read, they wanted to see glimpses of their own lives in the books they read.
- New literary forms like literature, lyrics, short stories, essays about socio political matters also entered the picture.
- With setting up of new printing presses, visual images could be easily reproduced in large numbers, this gave rise to PAINTINGS.
- Painters like Raja Ravi Varma produced images for mass circulation.
- Even the poor began buying , Cheap Prints and Calendars to decorate the walls of their houses.
- By 1870s, caricatures and cartoons began to be published in newspapers and journals commenting about socio political issues.
WOMEN AND PRINT :
- Women began reading enormously in middle class homes.
- Liberal husbands and fathers began educating women in their homes.
- Women began going to schools set up in cities and towns after the mid 19th century.
- Journals began to be published highlighting the importance of educating women.
- Some Journals even carried syllabus and suitable reading material which could be used for home based schooling.
- Not all families were liberal.
- Conservative Hindus believed a literate girl would be widowed and Muslims feared educated women would be corrupted by reading Urdu romances.
- In 19th century, Rashsundari Debi , a young married girl in a very orthodox household, learnt to read in the secrecy of her kitchen.
- She wrote her autobiography AMAR JIBAN in bengali language, which was published in 1876.
- From 1860s, bengali women like Kailashbashini Debi began writing experiences of women.
- They wrote about how women were imprisoned at home, kept in ignorance, forced to do hard domestic labour and treated unjustly by family.
- In the 1880s, Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai from Maharashtra wrote with passionate anger about miserable lives of upper caste Hindu women, mainly widows.
- Hindi printing began much later in 1870s, after Urdu, Tamil, Bengali and Marathi print culture had already developed.
- In the 20th century, journals written and edited by women became very popular.
- The journals discussed issues like Women’s education, widowhood, widow remarriage and national movement.
- Some journals discussed fashion and brought entertainment .
- In Punjab too, literature was widely printed from early 20th century.
- Ram Chaddha published ISTRI DHARM VICHAR to teach women how to be obedient wives.
- Khalsa Tract Society also published booklets about how to be good wives, they were written in the form of dialogues.
- In Bengal, an area in central Calcutta- the BATTALA was devoted to printing of popular books.
- In Battala, one could find cheap editions of religious scriptures and literature.
COVER OF AMAR JIBAN BY : RASHSUNDARI DEBI.
PRINT AND POOR PEOPLE :
- In the 19th century, very cheap small books were brought to markets.
- Public libraries were set up expanding the access to books.
- Libraries were set up in cities, towns and at times in prosperous villages.
- For rich patrons, setting up a library was a way of acquiring prestige.
- From late 19th century, issues of caste discrimination also began to be written.
- Jyotiba Phule, Maratha Pioneer of ‘ low caste’ movements, wrote about injustices of caste system in his GULAMGIRI(1871).
- In the 20th century, B.R. Ambedkar in Maharashtra and
- E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker( Periyar) wrote powerfully on caste . Their writings were read all over India.
- Kashibaba, a Kanpur millworker, wrote and published CHHOTE AUR BADE KA SAWAL, in 1938 to show links between caste and class exploitation.
- Poems of Sudarshan Chakr, a Kanpur millworker, were published in SACCHI KAVITAYAN in 1955.
