MEDIA STUDIES
Spin doctors of the Empire
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The relationship between the Fourth Estate and the processes of imperialism is established beyond doubt in Reporting the Raj, says SEVANTI NINAN.
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SHORTLY after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, Horniman, the English editor of the Bombay Chronicle, was deported for publishing what George Lloyd, the Governor of Bombay called "very inflammatory articles." Samples of his writing had been sent to London, causing alarm. They seemed to undermine the British Government's efforts at rigorous censorship thus far. The deportment underscored how crucial news management had become by then for the Raj.
Given India's present climate of media saturation, a book on the relationship between press and empire will strike a resonance, underscoring as it does the symbiotic relationship between politics and media. News management as we know it had historical origins, Chandrika Kaul, author of Reporting the Raj, tells us. Covering the period from 1880 to 1922, this volume is the work of a teacher of modern history, trawling existing research and newspaper archives to come up with a fascinating picture of how those who ruled India from distant shores worried about coverage, spin, and news mediation almost as much as Tony Blair, embattled over British involvement in Iraq, might do today.
The book begins by setting the stage: developments in communications technologies towards the close of the 19th Century had their impact on how Britain wielded power over its colonies. The expansion of the press, the emergence of news agencies like Reuters, and the dramatic fall in the cost of telegraphic communication by the 1920s led to expanding communication between Fleet Street and India. Kaul floats the notion of an imperial village, much like Marshall McLuhan's global village, made possible by developing systems of communication which linked Britain and empire more efficiently. "Ideas and cultural values were transmitted around the world, linking metropolis and periphery in a dynamic relationship and bringing into existence an informed public opinion on imperial affairs — in the colonies as well as in London."
Reuters was a particularly significant agent in the development of such a village. British newspapers which could not afford their own correspondents used its dispatches. Even the provincial papers in England, which, as the book shows, fed voraciously off stories from the empire. The company received government patronage and subsidies and obligingly distorted coverage to suit the purposes of British officials and a succession of viceroys. And because much of Fleet Street relied so much on Reuters which had a dominant position as a news source on the subcontinent, its distortions had a major impact on the perceptions of Indian events.
At the turn of the century the nexus between press and politics in England was significant. A study of the 1910 general elections had found that at least 17 metropolitan dailies had backed political parties. Fleet Street by the early 20th Century was predominantly Conservative in affiliation, and it was only in Sunday papers that the liberals had a lead. There were also an awful lot of journalists in Parliament, "partly because journalism helped pay the bills of an impecunious MP." By 1906 one study found that professed journalists formed the third largest occupational group in the House of Commons, after law and the services.
Kaul presents four case studies to illustrate how the press became a part of its policy calculations for Britain, and posits Edwin Montagu, secretary of state heading the India Office, as one of the key figures in shaping the book's thesis. A former member of parliament and a Jewish Liberal who was terribly keen on India, Montagu was convinced of the need to enlist the press, and by extension public opinion, in securing support for the India Office's initiatives regarding India.
Montagu and Chelmsford authored reforms for India seeking to promote self-governing institutions in that country, which then had to be sold to the British public. Liberal newspapers such as The Times and the Guardian could be counted upon, not so the Conservative papers. But the editor of the Observer, J.L. Garvin was won over, and wrote lengthy leaders in support of the intended reforms. These were duly sniped at by the Conservative Morning Post which opposed the reforms package.
Another case study concerns Fleet Street, the government, and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Before its occurrence there was already restlessness about the delayed and censored information from India; after the event, orchestrated censorship went into action, particularly from the officials in India and when it continued, Montagu himself became critical of it. Fleet street attacked it, and also attacked the fact that Montagu himself had received no detailed account of General Dyer's action. Kaul documents the alarm expressed by several newspapers.
A third case study looks at Edward, the Prince of Wales' tour of India which began in late 1921 and the exertions of the government in arranging appropriate publicity. Meanwhile Mahatma Gandhi was leading agitations to oppose the visit. Though these were reported, Montagu hastened to influence the interpretation of these reports, and The Times, the Mail and the Morning Post fell in line. For the British public back home they produced colourful reports of pomp and pageantry, and sketched Indian loyalty to the monarchy. Gandhi's non-cooperation movement, overall, emerged in negative light. But ironically, by the end of it all, if there was a sceptic of the coverage back home it was Edward on his return, who felt the extent of boycotts and protests had been glossed over. He complained strongly to Montagu that people back home were being given the wrong impression about his visit.
Meanwhile, as the struggle against British rule gathered momentum, the Indian leadership developed skills in using the press to further their cause. Kaul only mentions this, she does not document it. Her thesis is on mediation by the British government at home, and this is painstakingly done, describing personalities both in the British press and government, and quoting extensively from newspaper coverage. Apart from the daily press she looks at the role played by quarterlies such as Round Table.
Press management during the First World War is also seen as an important precursor to the attempts at news mediation that would follow as opposition within India to British rule picked up steam. The author says they helped to establish formal relations between Whitehall and the press. Soon after the outbreak of conflict "governments discovered that the press was going to play a vital part, and began to show a solicitude for editors and writers which was both new and flattering." Overall though, she says, the press managed to also perform the function of an opposition during the war.
The relationship between the fourth estate and the processes of imperialism is established several times over in this book. But whether the British press was indeed a central institution of the Raj as she asserts, is something for future historians to debate.
Reporting the Raj: The British press and India, c. 1880-1922, Chandrika Kaul, Manchester University Press, 2003.
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