Social Science (087) — AI-generated practice question

The wartime censorship measures during World War I and II were part of a continuous pattern of colonial suppression of the Indian press that spanned over a century.

Early approach: Before 1798, the East India Company was not greatly concerned with censorship. Initial restrictions targeted Englishmen who criticised Company misrule — revealing that control was driven by self-interest, not principle.

Hardening attitude: After 1857, as vernacular newspapers became assertively nationalist, the government passed the Vernacular Press Act (1878), modelled on Irish Press Laws, giving extensive powers to censor, warn, seize presses, and confiscate machinery.

Wartime repression: Under the Defence of India Rules (WWI), 22 newspapers had to deposit securities; 18 shut down rather than comply. The Rowlatt Committee (1919) strengthened penalties further. In WWII, the Defence of India Act censored war-related reports; ~90 newspapers covering the Quit India Movement were suppressed in 1942.

Overall pattern: The colonial state consistently viewed a free press as a threat to its authority. Every moment of nationalist assertion — 1857, Tilak's Kesari (1908), Quit India (1942) — triggered tighter controls. Gandhi rightly identified crushing the press as attacking Swaraj itself.

Source: Print Culture and the Modern World, Chapter 5 — Print and Censorship

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What examiners look for:

• Chronological development of press restrictions (not just wartime facts)
• Specific examples: Vernacular Press Act, Defence of India Rules, WWI securities, Rowlatt, WWII suppression of 90 papers
• Linking wartime measures to the broader colonial attitude — this is the analytical demand of "evaluate"
• Gandhi's quote or Tilak's case strengthens the answer
• Don't just list facts — make the evaluative point that wartime laws were an intensification, not an exception, of routine colonial press control