Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses the nexus of information and state building in nineteenth-century India through the lenses of colonial regulations which governed the access of the public to official intelligence.

Paper long abstract:

Information gathering and distribution have been linked to processes of modern state formation in various parts of the world. Channels of communication between the state and its subjects have been particularly important in enabling the smooth functioning of administrative structures, as well as the consolidation and perpetuation of political power. In nineteenth-century India, much official intelligence reached its intended audiences through publication in official gazettes and the newspaper press and was transmitted with the help of new technologies of communication like electric telegraphs, steamers and railways. The present paper focuses on the nineteenth century, a period of expansion and consolidation of British colonial rule in India, and discusses the nexus of information and state building through the lenses of colonial regulations which governed the public's access to official intelligence. The paper traces the evolution of contemporary debates regarding the right of the public to access official intelligence and discusses them in the context of various attempts by the colonial state to systematize and centralize the distribution of official information to the public, in the form of official gazettes, Editors' Rooms and the institution of the Press Commissioner. The paper also highlights the challenges posed by electric telegraphy in monitoring the flow of information and examines the imperatives which motivated the colonial state to seek control of the distribution of intelligence to the public in India and 'at Home'.