When the Press Was Silenced: 200 Journalists Jailed Under Indira Gandhi’s Emergency Rule

Forty years ago, The nation was placed under a state of emergency, when Indira Gandhi was in government. During this time, an attempt was made to control the media as well. Censorship was imposed on newspapers, journalists were arrested and imprisoned, and news agencies were forcibly merged. In this way, Indira Gandhi's government tried to control public discourse. According to government figures, during the emergency declared by President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed on the recommendation of Indira Gandhi, more than 200 journalists were put in jail along with opposition leaders. These were the journalists who refused to work according to the government.

The government combined four news organizations—Press Trust of India, United News of India, Hindustan Samachar, and Samachar Bharati—to form one news agency called "Samachar," according to PTI CEO M K Razdan. He recalled how news reporting was strictly monitored, and an IPS officer posted at the PIB ensured that only pro-government news reached the newspapers. Journalists were forced to praise Sanjay Gandhi and his family planning programme involving forced sterilisation of men and reduce opposition news to a few paragraphs," Razdan said.

During the emergency period, Senior journalist S. Venkat Narayan was the editor of 'Onlooker' Magazine. He explained that any manuscript he wanted to publish had to be sent to Harry D'Penha, the chief censor officer at PIB, for approval. 'The Motherland' and The Indian Express's Kuldeep Nayar and KR Malkani were among the editors jailed for printing sensational stories about Indira Gandhi and her son Sanjay, as well as material that was sympathetic to socialist leader Jayaprakash Narayan.

The printing facilities of Navjivan Press, established by Mahatma Gandhi, were stopped. The weekly 'Himmat', edited by Mahatma Gandhi's grandson Rajmohan Gandhi, was asked to deposit a large sum due to some allegedely objectionable news. Narayan, who was working with 'The Sunday Times' in London, incurred the displeasure of Indira Gandhi's information advisor HY Sharda Prasad for reviewing a book written by Kuldeep Nayar. Nayar compared the behavior of the then Prime Minister toward her cabinet ministers to that of a headmistress toward schoolchildren.

Journalist Stopped at Airport

"I found some Delhi Police officers waiting for me at the airport when I returned to India after a three-month scholarship with The Sunday Times," remembered Narayan. They searched my luggage to ensure I had not brought anything objectionable material into the country. In order to postpone or cancel newspaper editions, the government cut off the electricity to the offices of newspapers on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg in New Delhi on June 26 and 27.  Additionally, the government stopped running ads in publications that criticised its policies.

Newspaper Under Govt Lock

There were four publications in Goa during the Emergency, according to Dharmanand Kamat, who was employed in the news service department of All India Radio in Goa at the time. Their owners were either industrialists or people involved in the printing press business. Everyone followed the government line. AK Chakravarti, who worked as the Delhi correspondent of Nagpur-based daily 'Hitvad', says, "Clashes with PIB officials were a daily affair, as newspapers had to seek permission to publish the next day's edition." The government had also warned newspapers against leaving the column blank. The Indian Express had left the editorial blank in its edition of June 28, 1975. Rajdan described how 'Samachar', which was created by combining four news agencies under duress, covered the Emergency.  "Reporters had to be careful not to anger the government," Rajdan stated. For example, there was a big rally of Jayaprakash Narayan in Delhi's Ramlila Maidan. 'Samachar' had to condense it into a few paragraphs, while many newspapers showed it prominently."