NEW DELHI: The dreaded ‘midnight knocks, with which the “Indian Express” was familiar in the 1975 emergency, have ominously returned. On Sunday night, a two member team of censors of the Prime Department of the Chandigarh Administration, ‘working under orders of the Punjab ‘government which is under Central rule, moved into the offices of the Chandigarh edition of the “Indian Express”. The censors ordered the desk to show them each news item which was scheduled to appear on the front page of Sunday morning’ sedition, ‘and the other pages. They made it ‘learn that the items could be released for printing only subject to their approval, However, they left after killing one of the news items.

On Saturday night also ,a team of censors, led by an executive ‘magistrate, had stormed into the Chandigarh office of the daily when the pages were about to be released for printing. The censors, after having forcibly inspected the news items, specifically demanded the deletion of two items. One of these was a statement issued by the Akali Dal (Mann) which rebutted the Union Home Minister, ‘S .B. Chavan’s allegation regarding nexus among Pakistan, militants and the Akalis boycotts the coming poll. The rebuttal pointed at the fact that the Congress (I) had decided to boycott the assembly poll earlier 1st year, but that atone could not make the Congress(I) liable for the charge of complicity with Pakistan,

The second intent which the censors got spiked on Saturday Sunday night released to a similar statement issued by the Babbar Khalsa.

‘On Sunday, the “Indian Express” submitted a protest note to the Punjab Governor, Surendra Nath, giving full details of the action taken by the censorship authorities. In the capital, the Prime Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao was also promptly apprised of the matter.

But censorship was in operation ‘on Sunday night also.

However, the press, fully aware of the gravity of the situation in Punjab, has been responsive enough to the pol. The “Indian express” in particular has supported the poll decision editorially, recognizing the importance of eliciting the verdict of the people through legitimate democratic channels at this perilous hour.

But the government, it seems, has decided to ride rough shod over the accepted democratic norms, of which the freedom of the press is an integral part It seems that the ‘Home Minister has become oversensitive to criticism of his manner of holding the Punjab elections. Last week, he invited a group of editors to his office and suggested to them that they might underplay news items relating to the protests by government employees, and teachers, from other states against their deployment on poll duty in Punjab. The editors took his suggestion in the right spirit. However, by censoring the statement issued by the Akali Dal (Mann), and similar statements from others, the government is denying the people the right to Protest, in a legal manner, against a statement issued by one of its ‘main functionaries. The statement ‘was in fact based on the logical apprehension of a section that after having dissolved as many as nine democratically elected state governments in Punjab, the Center might not be able to instill, into the new government the much needed credibility. The dissemination of ‘such a statement could hardly be a threat to law and order, though that was precisely the ground used by the local administration to use ‘censorship.

‘The action of the government, instead of cooling down the situation in Punjab, can only be a shot in the arm for the militants who, are craving to find excuses for describing the election as unlawful, though it is not so.

Article extracted from this publication >> February 28, 1992