A journalist’s experience during the Emergency

Brut India

The Emergency declared by former PM Indira Gandhi was a topic of contention in Indian politics today. In 2020, a journalist who lived through the Emergency spoke to Brut about her experience.

Transcript

00:00It was literally like on the night of the 25th at midnight, emergency was declared.

00:04And when we got to work on the 26th, we had no idea what this meant.

00:30So there's a lot of turmoil in the country at that point, but I think nobody, I mean,

00:43we were all very young then, so we couldn't even think about it.

00:46But even the older people expected that Mrs. Gandhi would go this far as to declare a state

00:51of emergency and with such suddenness, you know.

00:54So I remember we also, you know, ran editorials that were virtually blank because we didn't

01:00know what to say about the emergency.

01:02If anybody traveled abroad, they would bring back newspapers.

01:06And from that, you would get more details of what is actually going on in India because

01:09you couldn't get any other details.

01:11And we were told there's press censorship, we didn't know what press censorship was.

01:23For them, they were very happy that the streets were clean and the trains were running on

01:26time.

01:27The people who suffered the most were the people who were anyway voiceless.

01:32The people who were the targets of the compulsory sterilization campaigns, the slum dwellers

01:37whose dwellings were just completely demolished overnight and they were not given any alternative.

01:45The amount of people who were out of work even at that time and the poverty that nobody

01:49wrote about.

01:50We couldn't write about it because it was seen as critical.

01:57In the days of print, people would say, oh, but I read it in the newspaper, you know,

02:01which was as if, if it has appeared in the newspaper, it must be true.

02:06Now you don't find that at all, you know.

02:08And if you go as a journalist, there's often hostility.

02:12When you go to interview people, there's not the kind of respect that many of us used to

02:15get when we used to go to interview people.

02:18But the competition has been raised to the bottom to see who can do the most sensational

02:24and nonsensical story to capture, you know, eyeballs and readers.

02:35Many journalists and media houses do not want to be seen as anti-national.

02:40So they hedge their bets in the way they criticize or investigate things.

02:44So there are some obvious things to be investigated that never get involved.

02:49And again, as I said, the government doesn't have to do anything.

02:52But when it does, it sends out a chilling message, you know, if media houses themselves

02:59are pulling back from criticizing this government on a whole manner of things.

03:09Many people say, this is another kind of emergency and I always argue and say, no, it is not.

03:14Let us be clear that it is a combination of the politics of today, the kind of government

03:19we have, the kind of laws that we have that are being misused.

03:23I think at all times in a democracy, I mean, we've always said it, speaking truth to power

03:29is the role of the media within a democracy.

03:32I think there's again an eternal truth that people read about people.

03:38So I think the story of what is happening in a country has to be told through the voices

03:43of the people.

03:44And which means journalists have to use good old shoe leather to get out there and do those

03:49stories and connect, you know, check, check, double check, you know, and check again before

04:00you write.

04:01To me, the encouraging thing is despite this dismal situation in India today, you still

04:07have the journalists who are doing this, you know, many of them are freelance, many of

04:11them write for these smaller digital platforms, but because of social media, you know, the

04:17stories travel.

04:18And really, if during censorship, we could still find space to say what we wanted.

04:25I don't see why now, despite all these laws and despite a government that is often seen

04:30as draconian, that this cannot be done.

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