Late in the evening of 26th June, 1975, less than two days after the Emergency had been imposed, the premises of the newspaper The Motherland were raided by the police. “The days that followed were some of my most challenging as a journalist,” writes veteran journalist Kedar Nath Gupta in his recently released memoir Ink, Saffron and Freedom.
Gupta’s memoir, penned with daughter Manoranjana Sinh (also a journalist), is a personal history of Delhi and India which fills many gaps in the popular perception of post-independence history. Its narratives, presented along different themes, span a gamut: tales from partition riots, a nuanced history of the foundation and evolution of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, accounts of activism and agitations from independence to today, a fresh, if experienced, look at the growth of modern Indian media and the rise of what Gupta calls ‘Modi 3.0’. But one of his most telling chapters, recounting his days with The Motherland is one on emergency, titled ‘No Bending for Some, Crawling for Others’.
The chapter chronicles the precursors to the emergency, including the judgment delivered by Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha, barring Indira Gandhi from holding elected office for six years, the appeal to this filed in the Supreme Court and the daily protests led by Jayaprakash Narayan and Morarji Desai which followed. It also recreates, vividly, arrests such as those of George Fernandes (lodged in Tihar Jail for the Baroda Dynamite Conspiracy) and Nanaji Deshmukh (a fluke— the police had mistaken intelligence that he was Krishna Lal Sharma, and then thought he was an NRI Businessman). The chapter has moments of humour as well. “There were some politicians who Indira Gandhi never considered a threat, and didn’t bother placing under surveillance,” Gupta writes. “This cold dismissal of their relevance was quite a blow to their egos. Acharya JB Kripalani, for instance, eventually threw a tantrum at Rajghat, demanding that he be arrested. Like a mother placating a hysterical child, Indira submitted and had him thrown behind bars.”
But the majority of the chapter is taken up by what the Emergency meant for the Indian press. This was defined most poignantly by newly framed ‘guidelines’, the first one being that the press self-censor any news which could be deemed “plainly dangerous”. If papers were in doubt about what would fall under the wide and discretionary ambit of “plainly dangerous”, they were to contact the nearest ‘press advisor’, a position created during the Emergency, solely for censoring the news. “This reliance upon press advisors,” writes Gupta. “Essentially materialised into a relationship wherein all newspapers across the country eventually needed the press advisor’s permission to publish just about everything in their papers.”
In the next 21 months, according to the expectedly conservative figures provided by the Ministry of Home Affairs, over 7000 journalists were put behind bars. But Gupta also draws attention to those who weren’t arrested but faced the loss of livelihood as a result of the Emergency. “Many papers suffered lockouts almost overnight,” he writes. Also: “Journalists aren’t just faceless professionals cut off from the real world. They have families of their own, and in many cases, these families too suffered the consequences of Gandhi’s clampdown.”
Gupta writes of The Motherland being a paper the politicians of Delhi starting their day with, “with a cup of tea”, praying they wouldn’t find their names on the front pages, “accused of having their palms greased”, hoping to see “no mention of their departments and offices”. The opposition would “scavenge its stories to look for hot new takes and issues to raise in Parliament”. After the imposition of Emergency, the paper was only able to stay afloat long enough to publish an afternoon supplement on the arrest of its editor KR Malkani, along with opposition leaders Jayaprakash Narayan, Lal Krishna Advani and Atal Behari Vajpayee.
After its closure Gupta was interviewed by NBC to understand the impact of Gandhi’s clampdown of press freedom. They were particularly keen to hear how The Motherland was able to bring out its special supplement despite the Emergency being imposed. They followed Gupta around for two days as he wandered between the Press Information Bureau, his former office, and his home, “devoid of work”. Gupta writes that immediately after the interview was televised in America the Indian Ambassador to the USA brought it to the notice of Delhi and Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting VC Shukla directed all foreign correspondents working in India at the time to either conform to the newly framed guidelines or leave the country. Gupta recounts a conversation with his old friend Mark Tully, who recalled that “a majority of the foreign press left the country barring one or two who agreed to toe ridiculous censorship norms”.
“The scars that I carry should serve as a reminder of the importance of a free press in upholding the pillars of democracy,” Gupta, now in his nineties, writes. “They should remind the next generation of journalists that the pen will always be mightier than the sword.”