ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Mahatma Gandhi’s engagement with the print media in the context of mediating conflict and bringing about social transformation in India. Within the larger framework of the struggle for independence, it elucidates how Gandhi made a contextualized use of the Press to reach out to all sections of the people. It examines Gandhi’s media interventions in the specific instances of the conflicts in Champaran, Ahmedabad, Kheda, and Malabar, as well as the struggle against the Rowlatt Act, the Mappila Rebellion, and the Khilafat, non-cooperation, civil disobedience, and Quit India movements. It further examines Gandhi’s engagements with the media in communal conflicts, questions of caste and untouchability, rural development, and the organisation of struggles against the British Government. It elaborates how Gandhi utilized the newspapers that he himself managed and edited — Satyagrahi, Young India, Navajivan, and the Harijan newspapers. The manner in which Gandhi engaged with the mass media on these different occasions forms an integral part of understanding Gandhi in his entirety.
