Journalist Kalpana Sharma Talks About Censorship During The Emergency

Brut India

She was a reporter during the Emergency and dealt with press censorship then but does she think it can be compared to press freedom in India today? Brut spoke to independent journalist Kalpana Sharma.

Transcript

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

00:08And when we got to work on the 26th, we had no idea what this meant.

00:13And we were told there's press censorship, we didn't know what press censorship was.

00:17If anybody traveled abroad, they would bring back newspapers and from that you would get

00:21more details of what is actually going on in India because you don't get any other details.

00:51So there's a lot of turmoil in the country at that point, but I think nobody, I mean,

01:03we were all very young then, so we couldn't even think about it.

01:06But even the older people expected that Mrs. Gandhi would go this far as to declare a state

01:12of emergency and with such suddenness, you know.

01:15So I remember we also, you know, ran editorials that were virtually blank because we didn't

01:20know what to say about the emergency.

01:31For them, they were very happy that the streets were clean and the trains were running on

01:34time.

01:35The people who suffered the most were the people who were anyway voiceless.

01:39The people who were the targets of the compulsory sterilization campaigns, the slum dwellers

01:45whose dwellings were just completely demolished overnight and they were not given any alternative.

01:52The amount of people who were out of work even at that time and the poverty that nobody

01:57wrote about.

01:58We couldn't write about it because it was seen as critical.

02:05In the days of print, people would say, oh, but I read it in the newspaper, you know,

02:09which was as if, if it has appeared in the newspaper, it must be true.

02:13Now you don't find that at all, you know, and if you go as a journalist, there's often

02:17hostility when you go to interview people, there's not the kind of respect that many

02:22of us used to get when we used to go to interview people.

02:25But the competition has been raised to the bottom to see who can do the most sensational

02:32and nonsensical story to capture, you know, eyeballs and readers.

02:43Many journalists and media houses do not want to be seen as anti-national.

02:47So they hedge their bets in the way they criticize or investigate things.

02:52So there are some obvious things to be investigated that never get talked about.

02:56And again, as I said, the government doesn't have to do anything, but when it does, it

03:02sends out a chilling message, you know, in UP for instance, just in the last year, around

03:0840, 41 journalists have been either charged or arrested under laws like sedition.

03:13For what?

03:14For writing stories, which were critical of the government or exposing something that

03:18the government has not been able to do.

03:20It takes a lot of courage then for a journalist to decide that despite all this, they're still

03:25going to pursue these stories.

03:27And on top of it, they have to have the backing of their media houses.

03:30So media houses themselves are pulling back from criticizing this government on a whole

03:36manner of things, you know.

03:43Many people say this is another kind of emergency and I always argue and say, no, it is not.

03:48Let us be clear that it is a combination of the politics of today, the kind of government

03:54we have, the kind of laws that we have that are being misused.

03:57I think at all times in a democracy, I mean, we've always said it, speaking truth to power

04:03is the role of the media within a democracy.

04:06I think this, again, an eternal truth that people read about people.

04:12So I think the story of what is happening in our country has to be told through the

04:16voices of the people.

04:18And which means journalists have to use good old shoe leather to get out there and do those

04:24stories and connect, you know.

04:31Check, check, double check, you know, and check again before you write.

04:37To me, the encouraging thing is despite this dismal situation in India today, you still

04:41have the journalists who are doing this, you know.

04:44Many of them are freelance, many of them write for these smaller digital platforms, but because

04:49of social media, you know, the stories travel.

04:53And really, if during censorship, we could still find space to say what we wanted.

04:59I don't see why now, despite all these laws and despite a government that is often seen

05:04as draconian, that this cannot be done.

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