History of Press

In his lecture this time, Mr. Vikas Pathak tried to trace the continuities between pre and post independent media. He said that the freedom of press became one of the legacies of Freedom Struggle under Article 19(1) (a) of fundamental rights (Freedom of Press). This challenge of freedom of expression was taken by Motilal Nehru and C.R Das.

In 1931, there was a Karachi Congress session of INC. In this congress, Nehru drafted a resolution to be passed. The fundamental rights included in this resolution included the freedom of expression. On the other side, there was British position which was against this resolution. So, Simon Commission on the other hand said that there would be no bill of rights. After that, a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) was formed that looked into Government of India Act 1935.

Mr. Pathak said that one crucial right among the fundamental rights is the freedom of expression. However, fundamental rights can also be amended by 2/3^rd of the majority in the parliament.

So, the fundamental rights are a legacy of freedom struggle. However, some restrictions are imposed on these rights and the court of law decides the case. Mr. Pathak gave example of the cartoonist Aseem Trivedi who was booked under a law for spreading disaffection (article 124 a). Mr. Pathak raised an interesting question over the freedom of expression in media. He asked that whether Indian media or press restricts the right to freedom of expression to feed certain corporate or political interests.

Coming to the Emergency phase in India from 1973 to 1977, Mr. Pathak talked about its effect on Indian media and press. He talked about the famous JP movement which began in Gujarat by Nav Nirman Samiti in 1974. The movement got its stronghold when allegations of corruption were put against Chimanbhai Patel, the then CM of Gujarat. At that time, the people wanted Mr. Patel to resign. At the same time, Chhatra Sangharsh Samiti (under ABVP) became active in Bihar. Jayaprakash Narayan, who was a freedom fighter, was asked to lead a massive campaign against the ruling party.

Speaking on the background of Jayaprakash Narayan, Mr. Pathak said that during the freedom struggle, JP played a crucial role in leading the underground freedom and became a social leader later. JP’s movement was much deeper than the recent Anna Hazare anti-corruption campaign and was carrying a historical legacy too. In June 1974, a historical rally called as Patna Gandhi Rally was organized in Delhi with the slogan of ‘Sampoorna Kranti’. The rally saw around 7.95 lakh people turning up and this was a huge response.

However, another destabilizing factor around this time was railway strike for the railway employees done by the trade unionist George Fernandes. A petition was filed against the then PM Mrs. Indira Gandhi which was an immediate factor to kick the Emergency. Justice Jagmohanlal Sinha upheld 2 charges against Mrs. Indira Gandhi. All this took place at such a time when the mood against Indira was swelling. At that time, Ramnath Goenka of Indian Express was very close to Jayaprakash Narayan.

A barrister named Siddhartha Shankar Ray was asked to draft an ordinance that an internal emergency is being proclaimed in the parliament. So, once this ordinance was signed by the then president Mr. Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, all the electricity lines were cut off in Delhi area to contain any news paper of agency from publishing the news of Emergency. Only one newspaper named Motherland brought up the news of Emergency being imposed. After this, Mrs. Indira Gandhi announced on All India Radio (AIR) that because of certain destabilizing forces in the country, an Emergency has been put up.

This sudden Emergency rule invoked a lot of protests in the country. Prominent leaders and journalists were arrested and put to jail who opposed this step. Student leaders from Delhi University were also arrested. However, the resolution was carried and emergency was clamped. In this way, the constitution was amended to aid Mrs. Gandhi.

After 19 months, Mrs. Indira Gandhi called for fresh elections. In between, Sanjay Gandhi became very powerful and carried a 5 point development program. Under such programs, sterilization programs were introduced to curb the high population growth problem in certain parts of the country. In some areas, forced sterilization programs lead to anti-sterilization movements such as in Muzaffarnagar where a huge mass of Muslim population was targeted. This news was censored by Mrs. Gandhi.

Talking about the effect of Emergency on the print media, Mr. Pathak said that the newspapers like The Hindu and Times of India became pro-emergency. But, Indian Express remained anti- emergency. At that time, V.C Shukla became the new Information and Broadcasting minister. So, in order to contain Indian Express form being anti- Emergency, he threatened Mr. Goenka. However, Indian Express came up with blank pages as a protest against the suppression of right to freedom of expression. The Emergency phase left a deep mark on Indian Press as many journalists were sent to jail and a number of newspapers came to an abrupt halt.             

History of Press

There were basically three kinds of newspapers during freedom struggle:

1) Critique of British

2) Social reforms

3) Combating communalism.

For Gandhi journalism was not an end in itself but a means to an end. (Social service)

Post independence scenario - There was a break from pre-independence.

 Ø  Robin Jeffrey said he studied Indian Capitalism through Indian Press and he described how Indian Press becomes capitalist enterprise.

 Ø  Nehruvian states claimed certain trend of socialist state and though there was mixed economy, all the big industries were in public sectors.

 Ø  Audit Bureau Circulation (ABC) was formed in 1948 in Bombay. Newspapers, advertising body, News Agencies came together and they find out exact number of the copies sold of each newspaper. There is a Chartered Accountant within each newspaper who does auditing.

 Ø  ABC also tells us which product is sold in which region .For example number of Malayalam newspapers sold in Mumbai will tell the number of malayalis staying there.

 Ø  RNI (Registrar for Newspapers in India.) was formed in 1953 and newsprints are allocated via RNI. The number of circulation decides the number of newsprints.

 Ø  DAVP allocates advertisements of central government via RNI.

 Ø  Jeffrey says in early years of independence, there was some kind of state control over freedom of Press.

 Ø  First National Readership Survey took place in 1970 and the second survey took place in 1978.

 Ø  There was a jump of 47% in readership in period between 1970-78.The most important reason of rise in readership was the emergency of1975-77.There were three important reasons for rise in readership:

1) The people wanted to know what happened during and after emergency and thus readership rose.

2) Green Revolution

3) Increasing Indian diaspora abroad which brought money to India and moreover people wanted to follow and know the trend going on abroad.

 Ø  Huge jump in newspapers and a large quantum of this are in smaller towns. This signified that regional newspapers were rising and people in smaller towns had more purchasing power .Moreover there is a language pride. For example Bengal Government wants to have Bengali Newspaper.

 Ø  From 1982 onwards, middle class started purchasing  TV in large numbers ,so TV started competing with newspapers for advertisements. There were anticipations that newspapers survival would be very difficult now. Pre 1980s there was national media only but after 1980s it became localised also. For example Eenadu in Tamil Nadu started its publication in vishakhapatnam instead of Hyderabad to beat Anandprabha.They circulated their copies for free for the first seven days and within four years it became the best selling newspaper.

History of Press (Mr. Vikas Pathak)

Mr. Vikas Pathak’s second lecture on the ‘History of Press’ centered on many aspects that played a decisive role in our nationalist struggle against British occupation. He first explained to us the role that print capitalism played in the creation of ‘imagined communities’ (a concept credited to Benedict Anderson) and how newspapers created the foundations of such a community. He then articulated the difference between a Pre-Modern and a Modern State and the reasons for the semi-hegemonic nature of Colonial India. Then, borrowing from Antonio Gramsci’s theory of ‘war of position’, he gave us a synopsis of Gandhi’s book ‘Hind Swaraj’ that chronicles the ideological struggle that he and scores of other faced to reverse the hegemony of the State pre-independence. The lecture was concluded with a detailed analysis of the Nationalist Press of India and how it united the people to fight for freedom.