The other side of the Emergency as witnessed by a news reporter

With the imposition of press censorship throughout the country, a lot of attention was on The Indian Express and how it would face the challenge. It was indeed a tough period for independent journalism, having to take on authoritarianism.

I remember an early issue of The Indian Express, which had a blank page or two to avoid submitting its contents to the censor officer. But such protests were few. Later, it became business as usual.

Use of flongs

The Press Information Bureau (PIB) was a wing of the Information Department. Its office in Shastri Bhavan in Chennai had to clear the contents before newspapers could go ahead with printing. In those days, there were no private TV channels as we have today. We had only the Doordarshan and All India Radio was the only radio service available. There were no FMs.

In those days, printing was done after content was converted into hot, lead pieces, and then a flong was made from usually pulped paper or cardboard, to make moulds for a stereotype matrix. This was the intermediate step before the press took over the process of printing. In brief, flong was a paper mould.

Perfected in France in the late 1700s and then used extensively through the 19th century, flong allowed printers to set a portion of a page of type and engravings, and press (or beat) a kind of paste-infused paper into the surface. Flong originally was a form of papier-mâché. When dried, the flong could be lifted off and then be used as a mould to create a metal printing plate, known as a stereotype.

The flongs would be the size of a broadsheet newspaper. These flongs would have to be taken to the PIB office for prior approval. Once the PIB censor officer cleared the flong, it would be brought back to the IE office for printing.

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The Chennai office did not want to take the risk of including any material that would be considered offensive or directed against the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi or the Congress government at the Centre. So much so, on most days, following the submission of the flong, a censor officer of the PIB would take a cursory glance at the flong.

Transporting the flong

After that came the PIB clearance, and thereafter the flong would be transported to the IE office for printing.

The responsibility of carrying the flong to Shastri Bhavan and back fell on the young reporters. I had joined The Indian Express only a few months before the Emergency was imposed. Naturally, like the youngest cricketer in the team gets to field in the dangerous position of short-leg or silly-point, the young reporters had to carry the burden (the flongs) to the PIB office.

I remember carrying the flongs at night.

The transport that was made available to us were the newspaper delivery vans. While there was a seat next to the driver (this was taken by his assistant) in the front, I had to sit in the rear side of the van (which had no seat or railing), and we would sway from side to side every time the vehicle turned right or left.

It was a delicate balancing act as I had to carry the flongs, without any support, even while swaying with the movement of the van. I could not allow any damage to happen to the flongs. Indeed, the flongs were considered to be more important than the reporter.

At the PIB office, I had to wait for some time till the censor officer cleared the contents of the page. Then would begin the return journey.

On some days, the last page was cleared in the morning, sometimes around 5.30 am or 6 am. The other newspapers would have already made their way to the newsstands, while the Express was yet to be printed. On a few days, I carried back the cleared flong at 7 am or 7.30 am from the PIB office while almost the entire press and production team would wait near the gate for the van to enter the complex, and then rush to carry out the printing process.

On those days, the newspaper would reach the newsstands only around 10 am, even in the city. The less said about the suburbs, the better.

With Express taking no chances with content on almost all days, the censor officer would have no work. The pages would be cleared without any change. Once the pages were cleared at 5 am, the return journey would take another 30 minutes, and the printing process would start at 5.45 pm or so.

Clever strategy

I then hit upon a secret plan. I would tell the production team that when the censor officer would clear the last page, and there was no correction for sure, I would call the production unit, and tell them, "I am leaving for the office now and will be there in half an hour."

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This was a code I had worked on. So, I would ask permission from PIB officer to make a call, deliver this coded message that "I am leaving for the office now." The production unit got the message that there was no change and would start printing immediately, and they would save 30 to 45 minutes in the process. This was considered crucial.

The strategy worked. On most days, the clearance for the last page would come around 1.30 am to 2 am. So, when the office could start printing immediately on receiving this coded message, we minimised the delay and the damage.

In terms of news, the office adopted a policy of self-censorship. So, there was hardly any major cuts and changes.

The Emergency by itself did not cause any major cases of hardship in day-to-day life.

In fact, in south India (where there was no case of excess except for an officer who took it out on DMK leader M K Stalin due to personal enmity), there was no controversy relating to family planning operations, unlike in north India. There was general appreciation that trains were running on time, that government employees were reporting on time, and generally available, while the Janata meal was introduced in hotels for just Re 1. In fact, that used to be my meal every day.

Emergency orders

The restriction on the number of guests at a wedding lunch or dinner may not have been relished by some but for the hapless parents of the bride, struggling to raise money for wedding expenses, this order must have come as a relief. The idea was to cut down lavish expenses and ostentatious expenditure. I, for one, believe, this should be restored to save many middle-class and lower middle-class families from penury and death.

Late Congress leader K Kamaraj, who was then part of Congress (O), was not arrested, though many senior leaders of the party in other parts of India were detained.

This was obviously because Indira Gandhi had a soft corner and tremendous respect for Kamaraj, who was responsible for her becoming a Prime Minister. Also, Kamaraj and his followers were leaning more towards the Indira Congress (the two parties even aligned in Pondicherry elections), and the Pondicherry arrangement was a precursor to an alliance or merger in Tamil Nadu. (This happened later after the death of Kamaraj in 1975.) This was perhaps one reason why the number of arrests was low in Tamil Nadu.

News of the decade

I had the curious experience of preparing a report along with V N Sami in the Indian Express, revealing the sensational news at that time that Indira Gandhi was planning to revoke the Emergency, free the jailed leaders and hold fresh elections to the Lok Sabha.

This exclusive was not just what we call BREAKING NEWS today, but the news of the decade at least!

The sensational story was sent to the Delhi editorial desk for clearance. For two days, we waited for Express to carry the report and break the news to the entire nation. There was no sign of the report or any indication of its fate.

On the third day, to our utter shock and dismay, the report appeared on page one as banner report from IE Delhi, with a Delhi dateline that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had decided to revoke the Emergency, that the jailed leaders would be freed, and that elections to the Lok Sabha would be held at the earliest!

This story carried the byline of a prominent editor in Delhi, and reading between the lines, I am sure you can get his name.

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This eminent editor not only used this story but also some other exclusive stories sent from different parts of the country by Express correspondents, which were not published then, but formed part of his book, a bestseller, and probably had the editor laughing all the way to the bank.

Election results

The election results were a paradox. The Congress swept the South but suffered a huge defeat in the North. There were no electronic voting machines then, and the manual count would take a long, long time. Around 1.30 am., when the Chennai edition was completed with whatever results had come, and printing was on, I was hanging around in the editorial. No one was watching the good old teleprinter, which provided all the agency news.

I picked up the agency paper roll and found an agency report declaring that Indira Gandhi had lost the election in Rae Bareli.

Master, (Mr C P Seshadri to outsiders, but Master to the Express family), the Express Assistant Editor in charge of the editorial in Chennai, was still around. I alerted him about Indira Gandhi's defeat. He immediately got a Lino operator to come, two lines were prepared hurriedly, with a brief headline - Indira Gandhi loses - and a text stating that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was defeated in the Rae Bareli constituency of Uttar Pradesh. These two lines were inserted even though printing had commenced.

A few 100 copies had been printed, but all the copies that were printed later managed to carry the news of Indira Gandhi's defeat. That was a marvellous feat in the nick of time.

The Cold Room

Master patted me on the back and said, "Hey, you are a reporter, but it is good to have you around in the editorial!"

Remember, the Editorial was called the Cold Room by the reporters, as some of them felt the sub-editors were cold and remorseless in dealing with reporters' creativity and copies. (Of course, the Cold Room was also cold as it had air-conditioners, unlike reporters who had to sweat it out in their room.)

So, coming from the editorial head, Master, who always had a good word for a good job, it was some compliment indeed!

A mixed bag

The Emergency was itself a mixed bag. I was astounded by a scene near the Royapettah police station in Chennai one fine morning, when thousands had turned up at the police station, and there was a queue about a mile long to collect their bicycles stashed near the police station.

The crowd waited, excitedly and even animatedly, for their turn to recover their bicycles, which had been mortgaged with a moneylender. This could happen because a government order promulgated during the Emergency prohibited usurious rates of interest and enabled recovery of material pledged with moneylenders. Bicycles were just one of the items that people could lay their hands on again.

Talking of bicycles, Tamil poet Kannadasan, who, for some reason, had tremendous influence with the powers-that-be in Delhi though he was a close associate of Congress(O) leader K Kamaraj. He made an impassioned and simple plea to allow people to travel doubles on a bicycle, which was the main mode of transport of the poor. And, the government, to the surprise of many, gave its approval!

Highlights

There were special occasions like the opportunities to meet Kamaraj and Kannadasan; the strain in the ties between the Congress and the DMK, which had supported Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, especially after the Allahabad court verdict against her; Chief Minister M Karunanidhi's speech at Kalaivanar Arangam, giving his first reaction on the declaration of Emergency; Indira Gandhi's massive rally on the sands of the Marina.

The Thanjavur merger conference of the top leaders of the Congress(O) and the Ruling Congress at Thanjavur, after the death of Kamaraj; the dismissal of the DMK government; a meeting addressed by former chief of Army Staff, Sam Maneckshaw; the crackdown on the Meivazhisalai hermitage near Trichy leading to the seizure of a large amount of diamonds and gold bricks, and how many of the Ananthars went into hiding; after the declaration of Emergency.

ADMK leader MGR announced a change in the party name to All India Anna DMK, perhaps to demontrate that it was not a regional party like the DMK and the visits to remote, hilly areas where bonded labour were freed.

Dismissal of DMK govt

DMK was shocked when their government was dismissed on January 31, 1976. People welcomed the regular attendance of government employees in their offices, with the staff by and large available at their seats, trains were generally on time, and the Rupee one-janata meal was popular.

The Valluvar Kottam was constructed by Chief Minister Karunanidhi as his dream project, dedicated to the Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar but his government was dismissed in January 1976. In April 1976, the President of India, during President's rule in the State, declared it open while ironically, Karunanidhi was not even invited to the function.

Sarkaria Commission

I spent several days covering the Sarkaria Commission appointed to go into the acts of omission and commission by DMK leaders.

The sittings were at a remote corner of the city on Greenways Road, with no hotels nearby. It wasn't easy to get even a cup of tea nearby. It was an ordeal to grab lunch at a distant hotel and get back to the venue in time for the afternoon session. We had to walk nearly a mile to reach a small-time restaurant.

Reporters and photographers were not provided office transport and had to fend for themselves. Filing reports from the districts, too, was quite a task. We had to rush to nearby post offices and send telegrams as our reports. Later, telex was available, but these forms of communication were obviously primitive compared to the Internet, laptops and mobile phone gadgets of these days to send text, photo or video.

The Congress was still popular in the South, making a virtual sweep in the ensuing Lok Sabha elections held after the withdrawal of the Emergency.

The AIADMK-Congress-CPI combine won 34 of the 39 seats, in AP Congress won 41 out of 42, in Karnataka 26 out of 28, while in Kerala, the Congress-led United Front secured all the 20 seats, and the Congress won the lone seat in Puducherry, making a total of 122 seats for the Congress and its allies. This was in sharp contrast to the North, where there was a wave against the Congress, largely due to reports of coercion in the family planning drive.

People seemed to welcome the regular attendance of government employees in their offices, with the staff by and large available at their seats, trains were generally on time. Government employees were scared to seek bribes. This was the other side of the Emergency.

I have completed 50 years in journalism, covering the various phases that the country has gone through, including the draconian Emergency. I would say the Emergency was a mixed bag, received somewhat well by the poor and the lower middle-class, but severely opposed by the rich and the powerful.

Political arrests

There were not many political arrests in Tamil Nadu barring a few lower-rank functionaries of the DMK.

The main opposition leaders, like Kamaraj and Karunanidhi, were not detained. Prominent among those arrested during the Emergency were TR Baalu and MK Stalin of the DMK. There were some cases of ill-treatment in prison, resulting in some deaths, but these were largely attributed to the personal vendetta of some local police personnel and not due to instructions from higher-ups in Delhi.

The Justice Ananthanarayanan Commission that went into Emergency excesses in Tamil Nadu did not have a large number of cases to deal with. I know since I covered the Commission proceedings as well, in the post-Emergency situation.