The Long, Deep Press Gag

P Kharel

June 25, 1975. Shortly before midnight, the Indira Gandhi government ensured that power supply to Delhi’s Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg was cut off. The objective was to prevent publication of most newspapers whose presses were located there. The locality was to the Indian capital what Fleet Street was to the British until Rupert Murdoch stepped in to break the Fleet Street status, thanks to his support and proximity to Margaret Thatcher, the United Kingdom’s first woman prime minister.     

The midnight raids saw thousands of political leaders arrested and also seized newspaper copies set for distribution in various cities. The reason for the unusual events? A state of emergency clamped just before midnight. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi went on air to sternly inform the Indian public that President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed had declared the Emergency on account of “imminent security threats” to the nation. 

Gandhi’s Emergency was in full swing. For two days, newspapers could not be published. When they did return to the sales stalls, their look and contents were enforced a drastic change. Some sections of the press were not prepared to take things lying down. 

Press protest

The Indian Express, and, to an extent, The Statesman, were among those that dared to defy the mood and desire of the Gandhi regime. The Express left its editorial space blank to register its protest loud and clear. It prodded fence sitters in the newspaper fraternity to inch toward carrying cryptic contents that just about managed to remain off the censorship hook but indicated its opposition to the rampant constraints on the Fourth Estate.

That gives a hint of what Emergency rule entails for the press and the public alike. Press censorship and seizures of papers are not rare in the press history of South Asian countries. The post-World War II decades reiterate this again and again. The 27-month (1975-77) uninterrupted censorship clamped by draconian laws invoked by a heartless authoritarian regime in India is regularly recalled by scholars. 

There are reasons why that long nightmare in the world’s most populous region is revisited regularly. In India, for instance, the National Emergency has been declared thrice. The first one was the longest from 1962 to 1968, triggered by the Indo-China brief border war and the Jawaharlal Nehru cabinet assessed that “the security of India” as “threatened by external aggression”. Three years later, an Emergency was announced in 1971, when India went to “liberate” the people of East Pakistan and paved way for the emergence of a new independent state of Bangladesh. 

Indira Gandhi attributed 1975 to 1977 Emergency to “internal disturbance”, when a relatively weak and compliant Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was the Gandhi-backed president. Gandhi tried assuring the rest of India, when she went addressed the nation on the state-owned All India Radio early morning the next day. By that time, hundreds of political leaders, activists and other influential people known to be very critical of the Congress Party were rounded up.

Although Gandhi and her meek cabinet members justified the drastic action on grounds of “internal disturbance” and “foreign hands” in fomenting trouble in the country, her objective was to stave off growing criticism and street demonstrations over rampant corruption, high rate of unemployment, food shortages and trade union riots across the country. Jaya Prakash Narayan’s reconstruction, total revolution in Gujarat and student movement in some states had exerted immense pressure on the Gandhi government.

But the hammer on Gandhi fell when the long pending a case filed at Allahabad high court was awarded the verdict that declared her election to parliament null and void. She was found spending more than the law allowed in the course of her Raebareli elections in 1971. As a result, Gandhi’s lost her seat. The Supreme Court had held that Gandhi could attend parliament sitting but her right to vote was suspended pending the court decision on her appeal. Gandhi’s last straw too was sinking when Jaya Parakash Narayan and opposition leaders organised massive rallies demanding her resignation. 

Extensive media coverage of the opposition rallies and widespread public debates on Gandhi and her government completely unnerved Gandhi, who had banked on the hope that her role in Sikkim’s merger in India less than two months earlier and the 1971 emergence of Bangladesh would enable her to continue in office. That, however, was not to be, as subsequent events underscored. Most newspapers preferred not to link her continuation in office to the Bangladesh-Sikkim events. A few did. Khushwant Singh, the editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India, was among the few noted names that extolled Gandhi’s leadership in contributing to enhancing national pride and development endeavours. He lauded Gandhi as the Goddess “Durga astride a tiger”. 

Of note

Occasionally, Singh could afford to make an exception by allowing a controversial view to be planted. Well acquainted with Shyam Bahadur KC, who was The Rising Nepal’s chief reporter at that time, Singh asked him to write an opinion piece on Nepal-India ties in a “candid” manner. KC’s write-up was published without any basic changes but with the heading Singh personally supplied: “What Irks a Nepali about India”. 

Overnight, KC’s professional stock in Nepal’s corridors of power and intellectual community soared like firecrackers shooting skywards during festivities. About the reactions from the Indian establishment, Singh wrote to KC that the article had created a stir in the ruling class, “but I like to needle them with such controversy”. Thanks to his proximity to the Gandhi coterie, Singh get away with such rare adventure. In the overall appreciation of his loyalty, Gandhi rewarded him with a seat at the upper house of parliament when her Congress (I) party staged a stunning electoral comeback in the 1979 general elections. 

For those adhering to the World Press Freedom index 2022 published by Reporters without Border, India is ranked 150th out of 180 countries, that is below, Bhutan’s 33rd, Nepal’s 76th and the Maldives’ 87th positions but above Pakistan’s 155th and Bangladesh’s 162nd   placements.  

(Professor Kharel specialises in political communication.)