Abstract
The swadeshi and boycott movement,1 and the revolutionary movement were a part of the Information Empire in which the telegraph was an essential factor. The particular moment and nature of articulation of swadeshi was the product of rapid informational change. Telegraph rates and press rates were crucial to its rise. This chapter shows how imperialism created the technological environment which facilitated the growth of its opposite: nationalism. The telegraph strike was as much a political crisis for the government as was the swadeshi and subsequent revolutionary movements. Both were part of a global information order, though each claimed independence from each other. The international representation of Indian nationalism was followed by its articulation in India. The lowering of telegraph rates and the loosening of Reuters grip over Indian news facilitated this nationalism. For nearly a century British India was ‘destined to play a central and highly profitable part in the Reuters empire within the British Empire’.2 Reuters monopolised the supply of news to both English and vernacular papers3 until further reductions in rates allowed more regional news reporting to emerge. Traditional historiography is discussed in this chapter to show how fresh insights can be gained by analysing communication systems and the information order.
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Notes
Donald Read, The Power of News: The History of Reuters Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 63.
For a discussion of the intellectual origins of the movement see C.A. Bayly, Origins of Nationality in South Asia: Patriotism and Ethical Government in the Making of Modern India Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998.
V.I. Lenin, The Heritage We Renounce London: NA 1897, p. 74.
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S. Sarkar, The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal 1903–1908 Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1973.
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R.K. Ray, Social Conflict and Political Unrest in Bengal 1875–1927 Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1984
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Gopal Haider, ‘Revolutionary Terrorism’, in Atul Chandra Gupta (ed.), Studies in the Bengal Renaissance Calcutta: National Council of Education, 1958, p. 242; cited in David M. Laushey, Bengal Terrorism and the Marxist Left 1905–1942 Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay, 1975, p. 7.
John Morley, Rousseau vol. I [1712–78], London: Macmillan and Co., 1910.
George MacMunn, The Underworld of India London: Jarrolds, 1933, p. 135.
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Cf. F.C. Isemonger and J. Slattery (comp.), Confidential: An Account of the Ghadr Conspiracy 1913–15 Lahore: Government Printing, 1919. NL.
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© 2010 Deep Kanta Lahiri Choudhury
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Choudhury, D.K.L. (2010). Swadeshi and Information Panic: Functions and Malfunctions of the Information Order, c. 1900–12. In: Telegraphic Imperialism. The Palgrave Macmillan Transnational History Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230289604_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230289604_9
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