Has The Media Took Lessons From “The Emergency”?

The leaders in power today are implementing the same rhetoric which Indira Gandhi justified for curbing the press.

History is crammed with instances where the role of media has been downplayed and made instead a propaganda tool for the regime of the day. The emergency period was one such.

On 25 June 1975, just a few minutes before the clock struck midnight, a state of national emergency was proclaimed. The power supply of the Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg in New Delhi, the newsprint hub, was cut off so as to delay or cause cancellation of the print for next day edition.

The newspapers that were submitted to the censors at Press Information Bureau, New Delhi for ‘pre-censorship’ were returned so late at night that they could only be sold before 8 am in the morning, when there were hardly any takers for them.

The tactics the Indira government used to curb press freedom and to manipulate it were by financial chastisement on those which wrote seditious articles; hence blocking government advertising to fund them, shotgun merger of the news agencies like PTI–UNI in English and Samachar Bharati–Hindusthan Samachar in Hindi, and the use of fear-arousal techniques on newspaper publishers, journalists and individual shareholder by direct reprisals if the press ignored the threats and warnings of the government which eventually left some major publications financially drained. Not just that, each newspaper was categorized and graded on the basis of its servility to the government. Any publication which received “A” insinuated a friendly approach in its writings and hence more capable for receiving government ads while “B” hinted hostility to the government and so on and so forth.

This lead to a media blackout. Till this time, those which were dissenting tooth and nail were just a drop in the ocean. The Indian Express was placed in the ‘continuously hostile’ category while The Statesman was placed under the ‘B’ category, otherwise hostile.

The Indian Express Delhi edition on June 28, 1975 carried a blank first editorial and The Financial Express reproduced in large type Rabindranath Tagore’s poem “where the mind is without fear and the head held high” concluding with the prayer “into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake.”

The government expelled foreign correspondents. Seven foreign correspondents were expelled and 29 others were banned from entering India. The Centre withdrew accreditation of 54 Indian journalists including six photographers and two cartoonists. Most of them were active in New Delhi and known for their critic of the government policies and action. More than 250 journalists had been put behind the bars during Emergency.

Resemblance to the present context

The reasons cited by Indira Gandhi for why the steps she took to muzzle the press were all justified were based on some major assumptions.

First, economic productivity and social justice are more important than civil liberties and freedom of expression.

Second, the press in India was acting in a manner that seriously hindered the state in its efforts to promote economic productivity and social justice.

Third, a drastic contraction of civil liberties and press rights will advance the state’s ability to promote those causes.

Much alike to what the central government currently in power thinks, that press is a hindrance to national development and if only it could report stories more “positively”, the country’s situation will prosper accordingly.

And much alike to how even at present, the mainstream media is relying on government and private ads to generate revenue or should I say what is merely “a race of financial superiority”.

While also identical to how the journalists back then were booked under MISA, and now it is UAPA — just the medium has changed!

Press needs to be financially independent

During emergency, the press crawled unwillingly in front of the government. But based on what the current media insinuates, it seems as if journalism has become a means to be wealthy, by keeping the grassroots suppressed. Private ownerships of media companies and advertisements used for gathering funds has proved to be a wrong tactic way before because it has undertones of control within it — not by the people, but by the government or even businesses. And when they both join hands, nothing resides, but a plutocracy. And by resorting to such immoral means, the media is nothing but digging its own grave.

As Gandhi popularly stated about the press and advertisement relationship, “Advertisements are inserted by people who are impatient to get rich, in order that they may gain over their rivals.”

At the end, I feel obliged to ask, will we only keep degrading our standards with years to come? Aren’t we even capable to protest when it is an indirect curbing, and not a state of emergency?

There is still hope

Now that many news channels on OTT platforms have risen in number, they are using the public-funded model to gain financial stability. The model that Pro Publica followed, now is grabbing eyeballs in India too with some famous news companies like Newslaundry and The Wire.