Serampore Missionaries

 Serampore Missionaries

Serampore missionaries were a group of Baptist missionaries from England who settled down at Serampore in Bengal. The credit for starting the first vernacular newspaper in the country goes to this missionary group. Their publications included: 

Dig Darshan was started in 1818 as a monthly magazine in Bengali. This journal carried reports of political activities, but it carefully avoided political controversies. Notices, articles relating to history and political news items were published in this paper. The name of Dig Darshan was changed to SamacharDarpan in 1819 and it was published until 1840. It become a bilingual weekly in 1829. It collected news from many places in Bengal and nearby places. Information not available elsewhere could be found in it. 

The Friend of India was a monthly magazine in English started on April 30, 1818. It stopped publication in 1827 due to financial constraints. The basic objectives of these papers were to aid conversion to Christianity and to support the views of the British administrators in India. But it should be kept in mind that news about India and Indians occupied the largest amount of space in these publications.