What Was Sambad Kaumudi? Ram Mohan Roy's Reform Newspaper

Though Bhabani Charan Bandyopadhyay was nominally in charge of the weekly until its thirteenth issue, Roy was its promoter and, for all practical purposes, its editor. Harihar Dutta and later Gobinda Chandra Kongar also edited the paper.

A Newspaper Against Sati

The paper's defining cause was the campaign against Sati. Sambad Kaumudi regularly editorialised against the practice, denouncing it as barbaric and un-Hindu.

It did not stop at social issues. The weekly called for reform of Hindu society and also raised political and administrative questions, which is why it worried both the British and Hindu orthodoxy. That campaign eventually found success when Lord William Bentinck enacted the Bengal Sati Regulation of 1829, outlawing the practice.

Mirat-ul-Akhbar: Reaching a Different Audience

Roy did not rely on a single language. In April 1822, he started a Persian weekly, Mirat-ul-Akhbar, which circulated widely among educated Indians and officials familiar with Persian. The name means "Mirror of News".

Using both Bengali and Persian allowed Roy to reach two very different readerships, the local Bengali public and the administrative and educated classes of the time.

The 1823 Crackdown

Roy's newspapers grew into powerful tools for building an informed public capable of questioning authority. That alarmed Acting Governor-General John Adam.

On April 4, 1823, the colonial government passed a Press Ordinance requiring a licence to publish journals. In protest, Roy closed Mirat-ul-Akhbar the same day. Its final issue listed his criticisms of the Ordinance. He also submitted a memorandum to the Supreme Court arguing for freedom of the press in India.

Sambad Kaumudi, which had already paused publication in October 1822 due to lack of patronage, resumed in April 1823 after a licence was granted under the new regulation.

Why It Matters: The Birth of Press Freedom as an Issue

Roy's protest was the first against media restrictions in India, and he chose to close his paper rather than submit. From that point, press freedom itself became a political issue in the country.

The restrictions he opposed did not last forever. Governor-General Charles Metcalfe later repealed the 1823 regulations through the Press Act of 1835, earning the title "Liberator of the Indian Press."

Timeline at a Glance

Nearly two centuries later, Sambad Kaumudi is remembered as more than an early Bengali weekly. It showed that a newspaper could shape public opinion on a social evil, and Roy's decision to shut Mirat-ul-Akhbar rather than accept licensing made him one of the first defenders of a free press in India.