Press Information Bureau

Origin and Evolution of PIB

The newspaper publication first started in India in the eighteenth century. The English East India Company responded by suppressing supply of information to the Press. J.A Hicky, who brought out the first English newspaper in India  -- the Bengal Gazette-- in January 1780, had to undergo prosecution and imprisonment. Giving out information to the Press was also regarded as derogatory to the Government’s prestige.

In 1836, the then Governor General, Lord Auckland started the practice of giving editors a digest of the intelligence received from Kabul and the North West Frontier. But it was discontinued soon afterwards.

It was nearly 100 years after the establishment of the first newspaper in India and after the passage of the Vernacular Press Act of 1878 that the first Press Officer was appointed to give official information to the press. With the repeal of the Vernacular Press Act in 1881, the post was also abolished.

The need to disseminate information about the activities of the Government was felt following the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. The British Indian Army fought the war on the Western Front and in France, Belgium and the Middle East. Over a million ‘Sepoys’ served in various war theatres. About 50,000 of them were killed or reported missing. It became necessary for the British Indian Government to keep people of India informed about the progress of the War. To perform this task, a number of publicity boards were set up throughout the country with the Central Publicity Board at the headquarters

The Central Publicity Board, which was under the Home Member, had on it the representatives of the Army, the Foreign and Political Department and three newspaper correspondents. Sir Stanley Reed of the Times of India organized and conducted the work of the Board till March 1919. At the request of the then Viceroy and Governor General, Lord Chelmsford, he prepared a memorandum on the composition of a publicity department. However, he encountered opposition and red tape at every step during his conduct of the work of the Board.

The Government of India Act, 1919, required that a report on India be prepared every year for presentation to the British Parliament in London. To meet the requirement, the machinery created for dissemination of information about the war effort was converted into a cell, the responsibility of which was to compile a report for the British Parliament. This Cell was set up in the Home Department in June 1919 under Dr. L.F. Rushbrook Williams of Allahabad University who was designated as Officer on Special Duty. Prof. Williams had earlier worked with Sir Stanley Reed on the Central Publicity Board. The main task of the Cell was to prepare the annual volume - India. This cell, in some way, is the origin of the Press Information Bureau.

Towards the end of 1920, the Cell became the Central Bureau of Information and the designation of the Officer on Special Duty was changed to Director. Prof Rushbrook Williams, who was appointed as Director of the Central Bureau of Information, described the working of the Bureau in his evidence before the Press Laws Committee of 1921. In reply to a question, he said: “This department, which for the sake of convenience is a sub-section of the Home Department, is really a link between the Government and the Press. The most important part of the duties of myself and my colleagues is to examine the current Press, both English and vernacular, with the objective of finding out topics in which the public is interested and on which it requires information, and of finding out matters in connection with which the action of the Government is criticized. Our duty is then to extract the more important of these statements and to bring them to the notice of the Departments concerned with the request that more information about a given subject should be published because the public is interested; or that particulars should be given about this matter because the public is in doubt; or that explanations should be furnished about that matter because the public is dissatisfied.” On June 1, 1923, the Central Bureau of Information was put on a permanent footing as the Bureau of Public Information.

A significant incident took place in the mid-thirties when the Bureau Director had to apologize to Dr. Rajendra Prasad, who later became the first President of independent India. The annual report on the Moral and Material Progress of India published by the Director of Public Information for the year 1934 cast some aspersions on the manner in which funds raised by the Congress for earthquake relief in Bihar had been disbursed. Dr. Rajendra Prasad, who was in charge of the relief work at the time, contested it and established that regular accounts had been maintained and published from time to time. The then Director, Mr. Stephens apologized and withdrew the charges.

Following the enactment of the Government of India Act, 1935, the colonial Government found it necessary to set up a machinery for dissemination of information.

The necessity to define the role of the public information mechanism arose when the Round Table Conferences in London led to the authorities in Britain appreciating the problems of the Indian Press. The Director of Information in the India Office, Mr. A.H. Joyce visited India in 1935 and again in 1936 to settle problems of the Indian Press and to reorganize the Bureau of Public Information. Some of the principles laid down by him such as presenting material in the form required by the Press, excluding any material of a communal nature, and rigorous exclusion of political or controversial material still hold true.

Mr. Joyce laid down detailed procedure for the issue of official releases, the provision of background material, answering queries of journalists and the holding of press conferences. He emphasized the importance of maintaining objectivity while preparing material for issue by the Bureau. The principles enunciated by him for an official publicity organization, incorporated in his Memorandum on Relations with the Press (May 7, 1935) and on Government Publicity (October 4, 1937) were the basis of the Bureau’s work for a long time afterwards.

The basis of the Bureau’s functions, as visualized by him, were:

• To present material in the form required by the Press i.e. as news stories
• To exclude rigorously “ puffs” for government activities
• To provide an “agency” news service, reporting facts without comment
• To exclude any material of a criminal nature
• Rigorous exclusion of political or controversial material, except when attributable to a definite source, as in a speech by a member of the Executive Council or in a
• Communiqué issued over the signature of a Department.

The principles were accepted by the Government and a modern publicity organization, manned for the first time by technical personnel, came into being in 1938. The designation of the head of the organization was changed from Director to Principal Information Officer. The Bureau of Public Information was to serve as the channel for the flow of information from all departments of the Government of India and there was to be, “as far as practicable, equal treatment for the Press as a whole in the supply of general information.”

The Bureau of Public Information also secured a ruling that the Bureau would not engage in personal publicity of the Members of the Viceroy’s Executive Council when they made political speeches or statements not connected with the work of the Government.

Throughout World War II, the Bureau of Public Information shouldered a dual responsibility. On the one hand, it was engaged in regularly advising the Government in London on various matters concerning publicity. On the other, it secured more and more space in the Press for factual information, so as to scotch both rumour and wrong speculation about the war and about Government policies.

The main principles of the Bureau’s working were laid down during the war period. As the Bureau dealt with all Departments of the Government of India, it was in a position to consider questions of publicity from the point of view of the Government as a whole and hence able to function as the main coordinating agency for Government publicity.

It was during this period that a press clipping service relating to departmental activities and political matters was also started. Photo publicity was expanded and supply of photo and ebonoid blocks to the second line Indian newspapers was taken up.

Shri J. Natrajan became the first Indian in 1941 to be appointed Principal Information Officer. The organization’s name was changed to the Press Information Bureau in 1946.

Upon the attainment of Independence, the scope of the Bureau underwent further changes. The Bureau was not only to give factual information on the policies, programmes and activities of the Government but was also entrusted with the additional and more delicate task of interpreting those facts and Government policies.

Information work concerning the activities of the Armed Forces, previously controlled by the Armed Forces Headquarters, also came under the administrative control of PIB. The designation of the Director of Public Relations of the Armed Forces was changed as the Armed Forces Information Officer.

With the gradual expansion and diversification of the work of PIB, the post of the Principal Information Officer was elevated to the rank equivalent to the Special Secretary to the Government of India and the designation changed to Principal Director General (Media & Communication).