BPSC 70th CCE Re-exam Prelims General Studies · Question 57 of 142

Correct — A, Confiscation of the printing press if the newspapers published anything that was found objectionable. Read the four options slowly before anything else, because the booklet set the negation in bold italics and that emphasis is invisible in plain text: option (c) is option (a) with the word 'not' inserted, and the insertion reverses the sentence into nonsense. Now the substance. The Vernacular Press Act, 1878 was proposed by Lord Lytton and passed unanimously by the Viceroy's Council on 14 March 1878, modelled on the Irish press laws, in the atmosphere created by the Second Anglo-Afghan War and by the criticism of the 1877 Delhi Durbar held while India was in famine. Its machinery worked in three steps. A district magistrate could require the printer and publisher of any vernacular newspaper to enter into a bond undertaking not to publish matter causing disaffection against the government or antipathy between persons of different religion, caste or race. The printer and publisher could also be required to deposit a security. And if a paper broke the undertaking, the security was forfeited — and, in the words of the standard account of the Act's provisions, 'if the violation happened again, their printing equipment could be confiscated'. Confiscation of the press itself, triggered by publishing objectionable matter, is exactly what option (a) states and exactly what the statute provided. The magistrate's decision was final, with no appeal to any court, which is why the Act was nicknamed the Gagging Act.

• (b)Confiscation of the assets of the newspaper if the newspapers published anything that was found objectionable — Too wide, and wide in a way that matters. What the Act reached were the two things the publisher had put at risk: the security deposit, which was forfeited, and the printing press and printing materials, which could be seized on a repeat offence. It did not authorise a general attachment of a newspaper's assets — its cash, its premises, its subscriptions. The distinction between seizing the means of printing and seizing a business is the whole design of the statute.
• (c)Confiscation of the printing press if the newspapers published anything that was not found to be objectionable — This is option (a) with a 'not' dropped into it, and it says the government could seize a press for publishing material that was found unobjectionable — the opposite of the Act's entire purpose, which was to suppress seditious writing in Indian-language papers. A negation planted inside a long option is the commonest way this paper builds a decoy, and the only defence is to read every option to the end.
• (d)More than one of the above — This needs at least two of the first three statements to be true at once. Option (c) is self-defeating and option (b) overstates the Act's reach beyond the press and the security deposit, so only one statement survives — and an escape option that requires two survivors cannot be taken when there is one.

The Vernacular Press Act belongs to a chain of colonial press controls that runs from the Censorship of Press Act, 1799 and Metcalfe's liberal Press Act of 1835 through the Licensing Act of 1857 to the Newspapers (Incitement to Offences) Act, 1908 and the Indian Press Act, 1910. What sets the 1878 Act apart is that it was openly discriminatory by language. It excluded English-language publications altogether and applied only to publications in Indian languages, on the reasoning that English-reading India was already loyal and the danger lay in papers the officials could not read. The consequence was farcical and revealing: the Amrita Bazar Patrika of Calcutta turned itself into an all-English weekly within a week of the Act's passage and escaped it entirely. Proceedings were instituted instead against Som Prakash, Bharat Mihir, Dacca Prakash and Samachar. Every organised Indian association denounced the measure, and the Indian Association — one of the bodies from which the Indian National Congress grew — was among its loudest critics. Lord Ripon's government reviewed it and repealed it, the Government of India's despatch of 28 February 1881 announcing that the Act would go.

Two habits solve this question and both are transferable. First, when two long options differ by a single word, find the word before you weigh the sense — here it is 'not', and once it is spotted option (c) collapses without any historical knowledge at all. Second, when an option generalises a statutory power ('assets of the newspaper') and another states it precisely ('the printing press'), prefer the precise one, because statutes seize named things. The historical anchor to carry into the hall is the Act's own logic: the government's purpose was to stop the printing, so it went after the printing press and the bond money, not after the newspaper as a business. Beyond that, hold four facts about this Act together — Lytton passed it in 1878, it applied only to Indian-language papers, it allowed no appeal to a court, and Ripon repealed it. The 69th CCE asked for exactly three of those four in statement form and keyed all three correct.

• The Vernacular Press Act, 1878 was proposed by Viceroy Lord Lytton and passed unanimously by the Viceroy's Council on 14 March 1878; it was modelled on the Irish press laws.
• It applied only to publications in Indian languages and expressly excluded English-language publications — the discrimination that drew the sharpest Indian criticism.
• A district magistrate could demand a bond from the printer and publisher against causing disaffection with the government or antipathy between religions, castes or races, plus a security deposit forfeitable on breach; a repeat violation allowed the printing equipment to be confiscated.
• The magistrate's action was final and no appeal lay to a court of law, which earned the statute its nickname, the Gagging Act.
• The Amrita Bazar Patrika escaped the Act by converting into an all-English weekly within a week of its passage; Ripon's government announced the repeal in the Government of India's despatch of 28 February 1881.

• Missing a negation planted in a long option. Option (c) here differs from the correct answer by one word, and the booklet's bold-italic emphasis on that word does not survive into plain text.
• Attributing the Act to Curzon. It is Lytton's, 1878; Curzon came twenty-one years later and is associated with the Universities Act and the Partition of Bengal.
• Forgetting that the Act excluded English-language papers. That exclusion is the reason the Amrita Bazar Patrika could evade it overnight simply by changing language.

BPSC has asked this Act in both available shapes within two editions — the 69th CCE of September 2023 gave three statements about who passed it, what it was nicknamed and who repealed it, while this paper asks what the Act actually authorised, with the trap built inside the option text rather than in the history. UPSC prefers the attribution question: who passed it, who repealed it, or the Act appearing as a wrong option under a different controversy.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Vernacular Press Act, 1878 is remembered as discriminatory chiefly because it

  • (a)Applied only to newspapers published in Bengal
  • (b)Applied only to Indian-language publications and exempted English-language ones
  • (c)Applied only to newspapers owned by Indians
  • (d)Applied only to newspapers critical of the Second Anglo-Afghan War

  Answer(b) Applied only to Indian-language publications and exempted English-language ones — which is why the Amrita Bazar Patrika escaped it by becoming an all-English weekly within a week.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which newspaper famously converted itself into an English-language weekly to escape the Vernacular Press Act, 1878 ?

  • (a)Kesari
  • (b)Som Prakash
  • (c)Amrita Bazar Patrika
  • (d)Bharat Mihir

  Answer(c) Amrita Bazar Patrika — it switched to English within a week of the Act's passage; Som Prakash and Bharat Mihir were among the papers actually proceeded against under it.