Technoscience Janastu Wiki - User contributions [en]

.NjM4.NDI

2017-11-03T11:52:29Z

Bhanugs:

<div style="text-align:center;"><span style="color:#262626;">'''INTERVIEW WITH VIRENDRA KAPOOR'''</span></div>

<u>'''INTERVIEWEE'''</u>* Name: Virendra Kapoor
* Occupation: Journalist

<u>'''INTERVIEWER'''</u>* Kai Friese (Kai)
*

<u>'''Medium: Video + Audio recordings'''</u>* Format: Audio .wav
* Language: English with smatterings in Hindi
* Location of Interview: <span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#222222;">Residence, Nizamuddin East</span>
* Date of the interview: 18 February 2016 12:46:04

<u>'''Clip name/DURATION: '''</u>* kf_VKapur_raw.WAV
* Length 00: 49: 44
* Bit rate: 1411kbps
* Size: 307 MB
* Date modified: 18/02/2016

<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">Interview Start</span>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
| style="color:#3482b1;" |
|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">Keywords/ Phrases</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">0:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Interview with Virendra Kapoor on 18 February 2016 in Nizamuddin. Mr Kapoor you could also begin to tell me a little about where you came from and how you began as a journalist.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [VK] We come back...we come from East Punjab but and, you know, the family owned some churning mill, the (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note: unclear word''</span><span style="color:#262626;">), my father's an engineer so he found himself a job here so that we could ...East Punjab obviously didn't have very many educational facilities there as against the West Punjab which went to Pakistan. So we came here in Delhi. I did my B.A. (Hons) in Pol. (Political) Science and M.A. in Political Science. But all along I was interested in politics. And somehow I was drawn to, you know, anti-...that time anti-establishment went only anti-Congress politics.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">1:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So the fresh from college, this new paper </span><span style="color:#262626;">was starting and I went in and met the editor and asked for a job. As in those days there were no... [Kai interjects]</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] This was which year '73?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [VK] This is '71...'71. So he said, 'go back...learn typing.' I said, 'you don't have to hire me. I'll learn typing on the job which....' Then he said, 'if we liked' ... it was a new paper...and there were not very many, you know, aspirants for jobs those days especially (for) a paper associated with Jan Sangh Party because of the appeal of Mrs Gandhi. You know, it took some daring to work for a paper which was totally was styled to ...Jan Sangh was a small ------ </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">1:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai: Had you been active in Jan Sangh?] ------ </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">1:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> No no I was not...I was not. I was certainly not. But I did identify myself with anybody who was against.....  ----- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai adds: the Congress] --- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:05</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ...the Congress or rather Congress meant Indira Gandhi in those days. And I do think that by and large in the student community anti-Congress...anti-Indira Gandhi Movement was very strong because of the kind of things she had done.  </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:24</span><span style="color:#262626;">....the split up, the Congress, the way she split it , bad managed, the opportunistic cynical politics that she followed. I mean she she totally divorced it from all sense of scruples and morals, especially after '69. In any case...that was that and in '74 I ...I because of whatever I was doing and half the time you were noticed in </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Motherland''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> because other papers, afraid of the powers that-be, we won't duck those stories. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] So what kind of stories were you working on?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [VK] I was doing....essentially, you know, as a cub reporter you work on a crime beat and which I did.  And I know I remember scooping out such stories...Nagarwala, the  (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note: unclear word''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) Nagarwala Case if you're familiar because you wrote something which got noticed  or in fact story that I ...that got me the job ...I mean I got a phone call from a new paper</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Financial Exp...Indian Express...financial paper was this murder of, you know, the well-known Delhite, high society eye </span><span style="color:#262626;">surgeon Vidya...no...Dr N. S. Jain (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note: Reference is to </span><span style="color:#000000;">murder of Vidya Jain, 45 by her husband, Narendra Singh Jain in 1973''</span><span style="color:#262626;">). --- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">3:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai: of course of course...in CP…who had his shop in CP.] ---- Yeah Vidya Jain. So and because for seven-ten days the entire city was awed....especially that you know Page 3 Circle in those was noticed. 'Who's killed Vidya Jain?' It turned out her own husband was a party because he wanted to marry the mistress anyway. So this is what I scooped and since this paper was starting, they were looking for someone to cover the Delhi beat. That's why I got into Financial Express. And while in fact one lasting good miles my three years stint at Financial Express was I got interested in economics, you know, financial journalism. And I and now I think that made me a complete journalist otherwise [I was] totally obsessed with covering politics and everything political.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">4:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And then Coomi had already come in and joined the Indian Express. And we (were) working under the same roof. I think I think '74 we got married. And the fact that her brother-in-law was a Jan Sangha leader, </span><span style="color:#222222;">Subramanian Swamy, and since we happened to be at least I subscribed to their anti-Congressism, you know. And I'm not saying that I was political but I was totally anti-Congress in the sense that Mrs Gandhi...thank to Mrs Gandhi...</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#222222;">and then came the Emergency, you know. And I didn’t know any fear at that time. And I couldn't be bothered if they arrested me or they ....but I spoke my mind, which I still continue to do, even in the profession whether as an editor or a reporter I speak the way it is,</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> so it helps ..that it branded me that he (is) difficult to get along ---- [Kai interjects: accommodate]--- because he doesn't listen to, you know, things that all editors have to put up with like play-down a story or kill it or </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> same answers. But a long story short about my own career. I had a dubious distinction of being sacked by two geniuses in journalism- one is a Prabhu Chawala and another is Arun Shourie (AS is the correct name), because I wouldn't take their nonsense. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai]And where was this?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [VK] </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ...When I went to Bombay as </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Free Press''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (Read </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Free Press Journal''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, Bombay) General-Editor. I was very happy there. I still write their articles. I am happy there because nobody tells me what to do or what not to do. I write very freely ... I call a spade a spade. And I mean, but at </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express,''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Shourie </span><span style="color:#262626;">because Shourie had his own little games to play and Shourie but contrary to his image Shourie is a very difficult man. And you know, has lot of prejudices, which I won't put up </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">6:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But in case of Prabhu, Prabhu is a dumb. Prabhu Chawala (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note: Lot of banging in the background''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) Prabhu is illiterate...doesn't have anything </span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">Background of VK</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">-from East Punjab</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">-partition affecting the scope of education in East and west Punjab.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">-father’s background.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">-move to Delhi.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">-VK’s education.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">-Start at Motherland</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">—interview- 1971.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">-problems faced by a paper associated with Jan Sangh Party (JSP)---Mrs Indira Gandhi-</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- VK not active member of JSP</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">-Congress was equated with Mrs Gandhi </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">-Reasons for criticism of Mrs Gandhi---large student community against her.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">Mrs Gandhi splitting the Congress post-1969 </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">-Nature of VK’s work</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----crime beat----cases like--nagarwala ----- murder scandal of Vidya Jain by her husband, a famous eye surgeon-</nowiki></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> got job offer from Indian Express.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Job into Financial Express </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> expansion of VK’s interest in economics</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">-marriage to Comi in ’74.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">-Commonality with Subramanian Swamy over anti-Congressism----Beginning of Emergency</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--VK being fearless & gaining a reputation of stating his mind and not buckling under pressure to change tone.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">-being sacked by </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Prabhu Chawala and Arun Shourie</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">Joining Free Press Journal.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">Arun Shourie…a difficult man</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">Prabhu Chawla…a dumb person</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">6:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] So what was his virtue? (Kai and VK speak simultaneously) What is the secret of his career?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [VK] Fixer!....A fixer...So… So again it was difficult to. Since the 1990 now what...twenty-five years I've been freelancing and that was the worst point. And, you know, media has mushroomed so much...media outlets. So as long as there are people who publish me, I'm very happy. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">7:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Here you're a master of your own time...you write what you want. You’re not obliged to follow anybody's instructions. And there is a place for freelancers now in Indian journalism which was not the case earlier. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">7:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ----[Kai: it used to be terribly difficult] ----</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">7:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And and the growth of regional media or the language media, it's so much that you write one column obviously my language is English, and they get translated (Note: Kai probably makes a similar point but his voice is drowned out by VK's) in Gujarati, Gujarati, Punjabi, Gurmukhi, you know Hindi, so Telegu. So the, you know, keeps your body and soul together...so that's no problem. I mean unless you're Shekhar Gupta and you want to write your own salary check, crore a month or 1 plus 50 lakhs in expenses then of course you look for something else otherwise what's the problem. So that says all about my journalism...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai interjects] But do you...to cut back to the Emergency and what happened to what happened to media...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [VK] Media....what happened to media can be summed up in just one very unforgettable sentence of ...by L. K. Advani ---[Kai also says Advani's in the background] 'When asked to bend, they started crawling.' And crawl they did. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Well ...again...but it......as a general rule but because they're also publications and individuals who were celebrated for standing up-- the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> most obviously? But do you think that somebody....[VK drowns out Kais voice after somebody]</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [VK] They were ...they were.. they were the black sheep. They were lots of black sheep both in Statesman and Express. There were lots of black sheep. But becau...but there also ...don't forget that Express stood up, or Statesman stood up because the owner stood-up.</span>

<span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai agrees] Because of the top...because of Irani..[CR Irani of the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;">]</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [VK] Irani and Ramnath Goenkar...otherwise they would have all crumbled. So it's not that the journalists stood up. Journals...journalists were ready to ...but in any case stabbing each other...I know of a lots of journalists who were my friends before Emergency. During the time of day because </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai interjects: they were scared] ---</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> they were scared. And you were scared that the bastards are writing on you is an informer to the police even in your own office. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> It's there in the Memoir ---- [Kai: Yea, I know] --- So I think that's that's that's says a lot about the Indian character. It’s not in us to stand up to authority. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">10:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I mean pardon my digressing into another side issue....contrary to the myth the British were not driven out the freedom movement. There were other reasons. They could have ruled for another two hundred years. This is the truth.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">10:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But we glorify our freedom fighters and all...they were handful of them. I mean look at the </span><span style="color:#262626;">numbers...sheer numbers and how many stood up. And every time whether it's 1857 or subsequent. They were always </span><span style="color:#262626;">Quislings ...they were willing to....</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Par woh toh har jagah hota hai''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [VK] No no ...we didn't fight ...we didn't fight.  We didn't fight in Emergency, we didn't fight, you know, previously. And as far as, when I say about character...don't forget in the Emergency the point that needs to be noted in fact...I mean it's what the historians, sociologists work it out ...Indira Gandhi could have continued with the Emergency for another two hundred years.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Yeah...many people have said that Sanjay Gandhi said as much.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [VK] No! That's a fact. And the results of the '77 show it that we are not unconcerned unless my own house is under attack I'm not bothered if my neighbour's house is being burnt down. Don't forget that we, even today, will say that South is far more literate than the north Bihari and you know the UP walas. Okay? Where did she get 150 seats? ---From the South! Why?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai]  Well, the impression is that the South didn't suffer as much</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">That's exactly...that's my point. Thank you ...that's my point. That do you have to suffer...that only when I kidnap your son you'll react against the local dada? My son is being kidnapped but you're not bothered! This is the point I make. We don't fight. We don't have that...</span><span style="color:#262626;">I mean </span><span style="color:#262626;">the aggravation....the mere fact that she had snuffed out the rights of every citizen...made them serfs...should have affected everybody across the board. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">12:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Why should there be only a handful of RSS guys or Jan Sangh guys or, you know ten socialists? That's the point I make. Her getting 150 seats is a slap on the Indian character. And subsequently her return is a bigger slap. She got away.</span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Prabhu and Arun all about image.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---VK freelancing since 1990.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--VK happy being freelancer due to mushrooming of media outlets.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">-Impact of regional media and language media on freelance and journalists.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">Work translated into other languages</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">-- Shekhar Gupta </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--About Emergency</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">L.K. Advani’s quote</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Role of </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> and </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> in standing up.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--VK’s point that these two newspapers stood up because of the owners and not on their own free will.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- people snitching to the police and scared.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">VK’s views on Indian character---not to fight or stand up to authority.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">British not driven out by freedom movement</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">Indians being Quislings</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---people didn’t fight Emergency</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Emergency could have been extended for another 200yrs.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Sanjay Gandhi</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---About elections of 1977 result</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--South being the bastion of Mrs Gandhi. South being more literate than Bihar</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">VK on apathy of others and the audacity of Mrs Gandhi without meeting concrete resistance ----snubbing rights </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Only RSS and Jan Sangh people standing up against.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">12:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Slap also goes to the Janta Government?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [VK] People only...No Janta Government...yes...but get anybody else...somebody else... . And I can speak hours on end the Janta </span><span style="color:#262626;">Government and</span><span style="color:#262626;"> the two year limited period did far better than any government. But the problem was the image. You had ambitious Charan Singh, Raj Narayan and things like this. The record of Janta Government in inflation...the inflation was under control, the growth was picking up...the only thing was that </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">13:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Jagjivan Ram and Charan Singh who had dug up the scheme.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Were all desperate to.... (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''incomplete sentence''</span><span style="color:#262626;">)</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">[VK] That's the point. The overall image was that these guys keep on fighting...that's the problem. It's not that Mor…. Morarji Desai was a good administrator.... known to be good administrator but he was not allowed to be...somebody's tugging  at his shirt...right and left, you know, he became a victim of the… his own colleagues but even then in a such country as ours ...as ours to limit it to one leader...to one family speaks volumes for you. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">13:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Any ways subsequently everybody is brought forward, it's not any...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] But do you feel that the Emergency left a lasting scar on on on journalism? Uhmmm.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [VK] I don't think so . ----[Kai: No? People think that from your journalism…..] -- I don't think so. The right question would be  - 'Do you think any lessons have been learnt by journalists from it...from Emergency?'</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">14:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [VK] That I would say yes and no. Yes because technology has developed...communication's technology has moved so much that maybe it'll be difficult now to enforce that kind of....but maybe because those who wanting to impose Emergency today let's say they'll also would have got better of whatever latest technology because those days  it was difficult (a) you only had landlines, very few landlines ----- [Kai: Yeah...Just a few channels too ]---- Yeah! (b) Run though only by one Doordarshan </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">14:52</span><span style="color:#262626;">  And that's why in every day you'd look forward to morning and </span><span style="color:#262626;">evening bulletin in secret and information in all resonated to  </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">15:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;"> real other (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note: it sounds like ‘real other’''</span><span style="color:#262626;">…mumbled words) It's crucial, you know, to lead or mislead people. So to that extent that kind of Emergency may not be possible today.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">15:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Oh! By the same token do you think that owners and </span><span style="color:#262626;">''maliks ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">learnt a lesson that it is quite simple to control journalists and editors because that did happen?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">15:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [VK] N...the economic interest will always prevent whether it is a '75 or 2016, the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''sethjis ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">only concerned about ---- [Kai: Seems more marked now would you not say] ----about financial ---- [Kai: Haan that the corporates are ]---- not ...not really. I'm sure that even amongst the present owners somebody stand up stand-up, you know, to the authoritarian leadership, should they get authoritarian. But now </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> since then and all the politics has polarised so much , in fact the, you know, it will be difficult because earlier you just had one party...dominant party. That dominance is not there. So even BJP and Congress are essentially regional parties. Congress is a regional party so is BJP.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">There are huge parts where---[Kai: Yeah yeah...they have no space] </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So that is the case. The dominance of the Congress allowed it to rule unchallenged for those nineteen months. And the result was because there was no alternative on the horizon, you saw bureaucrats and cops. Today the bureaucracy will not probably feel you know as oppressed as helpless which was the case in '75. Where do I go if my minister is telling me to go and kill Virendra Kapoor? He had no other go (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''NOTE: 'go' not sure if that's the right word...but can be read as 'no other choice or option given the tone of the sentence'''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But today he'll say, ''Sir!" ...because he has recourse to ...so to that extent, I think, India has moved on...India's moved on. But authoritarianism can take many new forms.</span>

|| <div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---VK on Janta Government and getting better results.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Failure of the Janta Government due to in-fighting</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">For example , </span><span style="color:#262626;">Jagjivan Ram and Charan Singh</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> </span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">Morarji Desai</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Effects of Emergency on Journalism --- VK (none) But </span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">Did the journalists learn anything?</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">Yes and No ---Evolution of technology and communication technology-</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> would make re-implementation of Emergency difficult.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">Doordarsan the only channel</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----For Emergency to be effective media had to fool people</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">Owners controlling the journalists easily.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---financial interests of the owners affecting reportage</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">Nature of Congress and BJP-</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> both regional parties</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">More options for recourse now</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">17:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Speaking of this can you tell...talk a little bit about your jail experience?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;"> [VK] What about?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Well! I mean partly the grain of day-to-day life and... [VK interrupts]</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [VK] I I I would say one point I keep on stressing in fact there's this sentence I get sick of mouthing all the time- 'if they honestly implemented the jail manual which I think goes back to the 1930s or maybe earlier by the British I think half of India would like to live in jail!' because everything is provided there...nutritional diet is provided. If you're a vegetarian ...you'll get this...if you're non-veg...how many eggs? Hair oil, soap, clothes all this is provided </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">18:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai interjects: on paper.] ----Not on paper----[Kai: I mean in the book!] ---- [VK] The jailman provides the stuff to the inmates...the government...in the jail they use the term depending on the population in the jail. So the firewood </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">18:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> because there are no gas stoves...firewood for cooking chapattis and cooking your daal-subji. All this is provided. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">18:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But you experience first-hand the corruption there. Emergency probably the jails were far more corruption (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Read as: corrupt''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) than any time before or after because there was no recourse. We used to get those chapattis</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''muffled spot''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) which were...even if you had one centimetre circumference which was cooked, because the bastard </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">18:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> right in the beginning instead of getting three quintals of let's say firewood ...will get only one quintal. So what do we do? In that you can imagine how much can you cook! Because two quintals go into the pockets of the jail authorities.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] You just get </span><span style="color:#262626;">''kaccha chapatti''</span><span style="color:#262626;">?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [VK] </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Kaccha nahi...Kaccha''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> is not the word ...</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Kaccha''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> you'll do. And then I'm telling you that we are a little better off of </span><span style="color:#262626;">because of political prisoners. So we we were given hardly ten minutes to work in the kitchen for us. Well they were happy working in our kitchen because they'll at least get some better food. But now they'll bring in a bucket...steel bucket...there was no plastic in those days.</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Jese ay aloo ka subji hai...''</span><span style="color:#262626;">and the bucket will be three-quarters full ..the level, and you put this (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''NOTE: possibly enacted so it's not clear what 'this' is''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.)  But if you swam into that bloody thing you'll not find one aloo! It's all what you call dirty dish water. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">19:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Yeh aloo ka sabji...kahan aloo kahan hai?</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">You used to see that in..the point being they were stealing. And this this across the board because I was in jail in Tihar this was supposed to be the heart of the Central Government...seat of the Central Government and right-hand of their eyes than in Nanital..no no Bareilly Jail...things were the same. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">20:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Maybe they're a little worse</span><span style="color:#262626;"> there. So the corruption in jail...My god.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Were there other journalists with you or activists only?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [VK] No, I didn't have any journalists. No I didn't have any journalists. But..no no there were no journalists...no. I had lots of politicians but...some of them are now very prominent but this now that JNU is in the news, the D.P. Tripathi was the President of the (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''NOTE: read as President of the JNU Students' Union''</span><span style="color:#262626;">)...he was with me, who, you know, now that member of the Sharad Pawar Party United Sabha. But... I mean ...I don't think that Emergency, you know, the fear of Emergency or arbitrary arrest ...kept the corrupt from doing whatever they were doing before...before the Emergency...they continued.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">21:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Especially after the first couple of months…everybody knew...everything was sab chalta hai! </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">21:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Were you released after elections had been announced or...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">21:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [VK] No no...I was released couple of months before elections because my colleagues especially...I also have friends in </span><span style="color:#262626;">the profession so they they they were making life miserable for the Congress leaders. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">21:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Us ko kyo pakra hai? Us ko kyo pakra hai?</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">So and then they they released me. In fact, that was the time I wanted to go back.... I said, 'what the hell! This is going to make my life miserable outside because my brother-in-law had come in</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">22:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and done that silly scarlet...act (</span><span style="color:#262626;"><u>''NOTE: From 22:14 till Rajya Sabha is completely mumbled and unclear''</u></span><span style="color:#262626;">)__________in Rajya Sabha' They made my life miserable. And I really was dying to get back... because there was no male member around that family ...I was the only one and they ...you had </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">22:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> a contingent of</span><span style="color:#262626;"> RAW, I B. Bansi Lal...the great Bansi Lal put defence military guys, you know, on motorcycles...they were all after me. So they made my...my father would come thinking that I'm troubled so psychologically, you know, boost you get. And he would go for a morning walk and </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">23:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;"><u>[???</span><span style="color:#262626;">''UNCLEAR''</u></span><span style="color:#262626;">] They would make your life miserable. They'd say, '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''acha woh''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...why did he say hello to you?' So they made things terrible for you and since you are to somehow that 24 hours in a day you can't sleep through the all 24 hours...you go out and sit</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">23:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [</span><span style="color:#262626;"><u>''NOTE: the doorbell rings the moment VK specifies...and it's unclear''</u></span><span style="color:#262626;">] Press Club there won't be anybody wanting to talk to you because they'll sit in the Press Club right in front of you. So the others guys are afraid. I was miserable… psychologically I was a broken man. --- [Kai: Yeah?] -- After they did .</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">23:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I'll tell I was a broken man why because ...and that's a riddle that I've not been able to resolve even to this day. I say it in a sense that, You're my neighbour and a friend of mine and you leave your jewellery because you're going out for let's say three months to Germany. You leave your precious jewels with me and say, 'Virendra please keep it.' I say, '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''thik hai rakho hmmm''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.' I can approach that situation in two ways. Somebody will burgles the house and your jewels are stolen... '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''aree baba dekho''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> this is what happened...I'm sorry I lost it.' That's one answer when you are come. The other is that I have a moral responsibility ---[Kai interjects: to safeguards those]--- even if </span><span style="color:#262626;">somebody taken it away along with that my own stuff is gone but never mind my stuff so my ...I ...I still do feel very strongly that morally I can't resolve this that...</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">24:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> If they had beaten me up...tortured me...whether or not I may divulge ...vomit out some information which might harm somebody else... Swamy..you know...although I did not know his last attraction but I knew the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''modus operandi''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, and I had not predicted ..ability to do that...and this impression was found or strengthened further whenever we were in jail and you came...you were the new inmate</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">25:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> as if 'hey h</span><span style="color:#262626;">ow come you're here?' You'll say, 'look I was underground and that Mr Smith in whose I was hiding ...the police beat up his son and the son said, 'Ohh ohh he's there in my house'. So you had contempt for that fellow. You… Although the poor kid was beaten up so he couldn't help but we had to </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">25:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But we had to go there with them because every, you know, every now and then ten days a new fellow will come. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">25:59 </span><span style="color:#262626;">that means the warrant was out for him and he was underground. And you'll say ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Aap kaise aye''</span><span style="color:#262626;">?" We'll all sit around and this is my name...Nothing else to do in jail so you ask the new inmate - how are things outside?- So how did you get arrested? He'll say ' I was hiding in so and so's house and his son was picked up by the police and they beat him up...they gave him two slaps.  And he said, ''Haan Uncle is there in my...' So you had that little contempt that you know on a ... and I still think that it was not a manly thing to do to rat on somebody even if you did it under torture --- [Kai: duress..] --- It's the same thing…whether or not...that that's is breaking me down portion especially when there were no support…nobody to help you out. After all talking with somebody, sharing your feelings sharing your agony..</span>

|| <div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Jail Experience </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">Life in jail</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--differences in rules on paper and ground reality</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---provisions given in jail</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---example , fire wood quota due and given-</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> indicative of corruption</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----not well cooked food—Chapatti and aloo subji </nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">Rations being stolen</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Their treatment in Tihar jail probably better --- political prisoners</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>------Bareilly Jail</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Who were the other jailed inmates during Emergency</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---no journalists</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---lot of politicians</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---D.P. Tripathi -</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> now a member of </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Sharad Pawar Party United Sabha</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">The corrupt kept doing what they were doing before ‘75</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----Vk’s Release </nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--VK released </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">couple of months before the elections</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> help from friends</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> life post-jail difficult because of harassment.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---warrant out for Swamy – his stunt at Rajya Sabha while the last of the obituary was being read.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---VK bring trailed by RAW</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Bansi Lal</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----psychological harassment </nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---People at Press Club would not talk VK because of surveillance.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">VK as a broken man</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">Because of stories of known friends etc. betraying.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">Ex, safe-keeping jewellery</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--VK did not divulge information on Swamy or other out of a moral code of honour</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--narrative of friends betraying. – Sons picked up by police and then tattling</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----ratting out not manly thing to do.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---stress on VK</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">26:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Are you saying…you  you ..what you lost faith in humanity basically because you...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [VK] No no</span><span style="color:#262626;"> what will...I know my fellow human beings I know my ...even today I know that who who ...after all if you have a large body of friends and acquaintances, you have a fair idea who'll stand by you and who will not. I mean they might be all your friends but everybody ---[Kai: will not react the same way]----- same way so there are some people even if they are not very close to me still ask me for help as against those who they're very friendly with because they think this is the guy to go to ... maybe they're not wrong. But the fact is that it is very difficult even for a hardened criminal when given third degree not to divulge...that is the question. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">27:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I relate honour with the...I mean it's mistaken ...it's a probably old traditional sense of honour and dishonour. I say it on account of you somebody else should land in trouble. I still don't find it acceptable although I pose this question to my wife and my sister. I say, 'why would you do?' You say 'you neat us up we'll tell yo whatever.' I say,  'I can't take that' I say, 'I can't take this because they knew ..I told them myself.' The way..because the...she'd mentioned in the book - How three hours they kept me in a dark dingy this thing-- when Swamy disappeared. Where do you stay here? </span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">---on losing faith in humanity.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---not lost faith because VK understood human nature</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----hard not to divulge information on torture</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---VK’s conception of honour</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---VK kept in dark for three hours</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">28:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai: In...near Khan Market...Amrita Shergill Marg.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [VK]: Oh! Nice address to have yaar. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : It's .. it's not a bungalow. It's a flat.  (...Hira Mahal)</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [VK]: Oh! Those Hira Mahal. You know the story about Hira Mahal? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai]: Which story? We've been there since '76.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [VK]: Oh! That's the time it came up my dear boy (Note: at least I think VK said, 'My dear boy!')...and then you had ...you had </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">28:59 (Note: the incident VK refers to is completely unclear)</span><span style="color:#262626;"> went down the road in Kashyap Marg ….Patwan Singh --- [Kai: Yes, on the other side.] -- Yeah And Patwan in fact over </span><span style="color:#262626;">dinner at his house, he said, 'how you wonder he brought Mrs Gandhi'. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">29:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Sure in this season you want this entire road to be like this? That's when the order was passed. Otherwise no such Hira Mahals would have come up on that road.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">29:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Hira Mahal is an exception there otherwise that's the only multi-storey building. ----[Kai: on Amrita Shergill Marg...There some more on on on Prithviraj Road]---Not on Amrita Shergill  but Amrita Shergill Marg this is the only building. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">29:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> If we...I think..yes...this is the only one. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">29:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I know this...my ...Coomi's ....In fact, Subramanian Swamy's, you know daughter has a close relation there...also a very bright architect, Razia, lives there.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">29:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai]: Han, he was the architect of the building ... Satish Grover ---- [VK: Yeah! Satish Grover]---He was the </span><span style="color:#262626;">architect of the ----- [VK: He was the architect...okay okay...Satish, right].----0 (Kai: Yeah right that!) ---- [VK: So that's how he got that flat there] ---- Yeah ----- [VK: How many flats are there?] ---- I think sixteen or so-----[VK: Thirty?]  ---- sixteen or so.----[VK: Bus! That's it!]---- yes ----- [VK: There too large flats. I haven't been to the ...that means about 3000 sq. ft.] ----- Yea, they all are....  ===> Recorder switched off...thus incomplete sentence.</span>

|| <div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---on Kai’s place of residence</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Hira Mahal</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">Kashyap Marg ….Patwan Singh</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">Mrs Indira Gandhi being invited into the house</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">Coomi Kappor’s relative living thereabouts</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">Razia</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">Satish Grover</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">On flats</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">Interview Ends.</span>
| style="color:#2e74b5;" |
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
| style="color:#3482b1;" |
| style="color:#2e74b5;" |
|-
|}
<span style="color:#262626;"> </span>

<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

.NjQx.Mzk

2017-11-03T11:51:37Z

Bhanugs:

<div style="text-align:center;"><span style="color:#262626;">'''INTERVIEW WITH UMA VASUDEV'''</span></div>

<u>'''INTERVIEWEE'''</u>* Name: Uma Vasudev (UV)
* Occupation: Journalist

<u>'''INTERVIEWER'''</u>* Kai Friese (Kai)
*

<u>'''Medium: Video + Audio recordings'''</u>* Format: Audio .wav
* Language: English with smatterings in Hindi
* Location of Interview: <span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#222222;">Residence, Defence Colony</span>
* Date of the interview: 11 March 2016 11:48

<u>'''Clip name/DURATION: '''</u>* kf_UVasudev.WAV
* Length 00: 49: 44
* Bit rate: 1411kbps
* Size: 502 MB
* Date modified: 11/03/2016

<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">Interview Start</span>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#262626;">Keywords and Phrases</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">UV’s background beginning in journalism fond of sports tennis father an irrigation engineer posted across India refusal to go to hostel sister Aruna far more disciplined easy to find admission while travelling- Bangalore, Dhaka, Mysore</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">Took to journalism probably because of exposure first article at 10 in Lahore</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">Approval from grandfather grandfather a Politician in Punjab and a writer</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">Grandfather being given knighthood Narang (???) </span><span style="color:#262626;">The Adventures of a Rupee'  awarded rs.10 languages- English, Urdu, Punjabi interest in arts and ghazals on nature of Urdu College life interest in sports-tennis---almost a national champion daily routine mother helped mother unique---she drove</span>

Writing freelance in Delhi middles range of topics-arts, music student at <span style="color:#262626;">Gandharva Mahavidyalaya</span>
|-
|}
<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<span style="color:#262626;">0:00 [UV]I hope my voice comes out properly.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Interview with Uma Vasudev on 11 of M</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">arch 2016 at her house-home- in Defence Colony. Uma you could start by telling me little bit about how you began in journalism and when?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Oh! When is a very dicey question but any ways it was years ago and in fact, I was, I was basically very fond of sports in the beginning. I used to play a lot of sports. I used to play a lot of tennis.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] This is in Delhi? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV]..No no no in Delhi, in pre-partition my father was in government. and he was posted all over India. So I had a gala time.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Meaning he was in civil service?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] He was in the Irrigation. He was irrigation engineer. But he was in the service which took him all over India...north Punjab or Karnataka, or South India. So but I was a bit of a rebel in the sense that my younger sister, Aruna, who's very disciplined and very and also very very good in whatever she takes up. She's become quite a name in Indian films. But I said, 'I'm not going to go to the boarding school at all'. They shoved me into this Lahore thing and I raised a shindy there. And I said. 'I'm not going.' So I had a lovely time and I am so glad that I was like that because he was posted all over India.  His service took him all over. So I just went everywhere -----[KAI: with him] ----with him. And at the time it was not difficult to find admission in schools or anything, so wherever we went whether it is Bangalore...the convent was there </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">1:52 </span><span style="color:#262626;">I went to school there... went to Dhaka, I went to school there. It was ...it was...Mysore and all these places…everywhere...the whole of India. So I had a very, I think I had a very...I think I've never ...maybe that made me take to journalism eventually because all these experiences and all these places ----- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai adds] Seeing the country. -----  </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ...was a very enriching one. And ...I think I wrote my first article when I was 10 and I, that was in Lahore... we were in Lahore at that time and my grandfather or my nana...that's my mother's father...was a politician and also a minister in the government in Punjab...in Punjab Government. And he himself was a writer, so I wrote </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai interjects] He was with Congress or ? (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''NOTE: Kai’s and UV’s conversation overlaps''</span><span style="color:#262626;">)</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> this little piece... (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''in response to Kai's question''</span><span style="color:#262626;">)..At that time no...it was the other party...they had a party and all...He was a well very well known, sort of a person...Narang, and he was given one of those knighthood also (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note she mentions Narang but it’s mumbled''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) and then they all later all the people who had made been Sirs </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">3:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> later on rejected their titles </span><span style="color:#262626;">and all. But I was 10 years and I wrote this little piece about the …about a rupee- 'The Adventures of a Rupee' </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Oh! A coin </span><span style="color:#262626;">that</span><span style="color:#262626;">narrative</span><span style="color:#262626;">…</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Yea it was a [??] rupee coin. And actually talking about this is like going into a pre-independence period which was quite lovely in fact. And I wrote this piece and I...he said, 'show show'...'read it read it.' So I read this 'The Adventures of the Rupee'.... where it is in a poor man's hand and then it goes from one place to the other, ends up in rich man's pocket and all that. So he was very happy and very pleased. So he gave me a ten rupee note! </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">3:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Now ten rupee in those days was Wooo...you can't imagine</span><span style="color:#262626;"> what it was. That was my first prize in writing. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] And this was in English?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> This was in English...English. I only wrote in English though one studied Hindi in any case. And Punjabi, I didn't study...we all spoke Punjabi.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">[Kai] And Urdu?  You could read and write?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Urdu, I learnt because I was very fond of the language and I learnt the script and everything. And then I was very fond of music and all those </span><span style="color:#262626;">''ghazals''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and everything and then I had lots of Muslim friends also. In any case in Lahore it was not a question of Muslim or Hindu. Urdu was generally...Punjabis particularly spoke Urdu...Punjabi and familiar with Urdu. And I've always loved the language, it's got a terrific, it's got a beautiful flow in it. It has a very majestic, you know, feeling about the language. So I learnt the script also and everything. And </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> how….then the first writing thing was that little essay for which I got this money, and I was so happy. I think from then onwards...in case it was always on my mind always...to want to write and to put down on paper what I saw. So that's the beginning of journalism...journalism. And later on of course books.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:33</span><span style="color:#262626;">[Kai] But then your former career ...college or straight up to that or…?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] No... Then you see it all relates to writing. And in college of course it was again...emphasise was always on this...I mean I had to really...Frankly college was always side sort of a thing because other things were really my concerns and my love and my involvement- sports and writing. So both...I don't know whether the two go together or not, I don’t know because sports mean a lot of physical exercise and physical time. And writing means cut off from people, sit down and write. So it was a very peculiar combination I must say when I myself look back at it because I used to get up at 6 in the morning and get to the exercises and run off. I used to play tennis...I became a bit of a champion also. </span>

<span style="color:#262626;">And I think I would have been number one in tennis...women's tennis one year If I had...I didn't play one particular tournaments so that was it. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">6:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">But it was my mother, you know, who was quite amazing because tennis meant tournaments because I was interested in championship whatever. And she used to take me all over to play all over to play in the tournaments. She used to accompany me. And I was too young. I started off around 10 years -12 years old so she used to accompany me. And so I became a... I think I would have been a No. 1 but I didn't play in one tournament so... was No. 2. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">7:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But along with that...I also wonder sometimes how this very physical involvement which is you know, you get up, you do exercises in the morning, then my mother used to drive me to the gymkhana to play tennis in the morning. Then she would sit there while I was practicing, then we would have breakfast there and then she would drive me back. She used to drive herself so...which was very unusual at that time...for women to drive but she would...but she was also quite a woman.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">8:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So was my father for that matter. And along with this morning thing---exercises... going for a run, getting ready for tennis, and then going-coming and then going again in the afternoon to actually play and then the tournaments and along with that this passion for writing. So I used to at that time write a little piece here, like I told you about my grandfather but that was much earlier. And then later on--------</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">8:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai interjects] Meaning you were writing freelance...pieces for newspapers or…? -------- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">8:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I was writing....at that time that was just the beginning actually. Yea earlier I was writing freelance. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:43[Kai]</span><span style="color:#262626;"> In Delhi?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">8:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">[UV] In Delhi.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] What kind of things?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Anything.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Were they used to be all middles or?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [VU] Yea middles...there used to be lot of middles. and I used to feel very happy when middles used to come also. But then I started writing...then you see I was interested in classical music...very passionately involved of classical music...come to think of it, it was really mad. I used to go for my music lessons to the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] In C.P. in those days ...was it in Connaught Place? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [VU] Connaught Place...it was in Connaught Place. And in the morning was my music and then rush back and go for tennis and then come and then afternoon...again tennis and then ...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [phone rings...Kai: pause it? ------- [UV asks: </span><span style="color:#262626;">''yeh coffee hai ya chai''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (Is this coffee or tea?)] ----- Shall I pour you some? </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hai''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (Yes?)?---- [UV] Yea. Can I have some?]</span>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#262626;">Keywords/Phrases</span>

Beginning of writing in journalism freelancing for various newspaper and magazines sent articles to the people known to her later on wrote a regular column sent to ''Indian Express, Times of India, Statesman'' took out own magazine ''Surge'' in 1950s wrote on various things married to an IAS suggested to be posted in MP continued to write from Bhopal Surge from Delhi asked to be an editor at India Today by Purie (confusion over Purie generation-father or son….name of the father) allowed to continue with ''Surge'' while working with ''India Today ''India Today to promote India’s image abroad office of India Today Film business of Aroon Purie’s father in Karol Bagh
|-
|}
<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Now to drag you back to the beginnings of writing in journalism</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:51[UV]</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So this is a very ...the whole (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''muffled spot''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) Get up at 6 in the morning and as far as writing...I was a freelancer...writing articles for magazines or newspapers.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] But you would just send off or were you going to newspapers and magazines offices to pitch?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] No, it depended on who I knew...if I knew the person then I would go and give it....later on of course one sent it because it was a regular column once a week and the column would go.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] So who did you know at the earliest you could send things or I mean which publications were you freelancing?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] I was writing for the newspapers...</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India ''</span><span style="color:#262626;"><nowiki>------- [Kai: </nowiki></span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> maybe?] ---------</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was very popular at that time. And I think I used to do a regular column in those days at one stage. These were all various stages. But the first one was a freelance very much. I was never ...I never joined a paper as such and then I began to bring out my own magazine also. It was called</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Surge.''</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] When is this?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:54 [UV]</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">S.U.R.G.E....This was in the 1950s. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai exclaims]: Oh! Really! How did you do that?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Because I was full of...because I was writing for papers...I was writing articles...I was doing these columns.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Okay, so you'll have to tell me little bit more...what kind of, I mean in your freelance work...what kind of pieces were you writing? Reviews, essays...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:13 [UV]</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">I was regular...used to be in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. They used to have what they a middle. And I used to do a lot of middles and they were from...they were from any area... whether there was an incident about a woman, whether it was art, whether it was some happening somewhere…so I used send </span><span style="color:#262626;">these. And that was also even after I got married. I got married to an officer who had joined the IAS, and he was posted in ...in fact ...because I suggested when I was going to marry him, I said...they had to choose which state they wanted be in. So I said choose Madhya Pradesh because at that time Madhya Pradesh was known for its great forests and jungles, and tigers and all sorts of things. So I was very interested. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">12:05</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So I got married and then I used to write from Bhopal or wherever he was posted. I used to write these weekly columns for the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and I was a freelancer so I used to send to whoever I thought ...</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...quite a bit to </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman, Hindustan Times, Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.  That was anything I felt like .... later on </span><span style="color:#262626;">''kya''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...right from the beginning I was interested in classical music in any case. So I used to write on music also.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] And the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Surge''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> magazine in the 1950s' was in Delhi or</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">12:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Delhi…Delhi. I had started bringing it out.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] How did you raise the money and what kind of magazine was it?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] It was a ...actually it started off as a ...you see I was an editor of </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> at one point.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] But that is later...that is in the '70s -------</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV: No…no no no] ------ </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">13:05</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> starts in 1970s. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] '70s when it started I was the first editor [Kai interjects: That's the story you have to tell me in full.....(some exclamations)...Surge </span><span style="color:#262626;">''ka pehle bata dijiye''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (Tell about the Surge first)]..</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Surge </span><span style="color:#262626;">''ko pehle se nikal rahi thi mein''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (was taking out </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Surge''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> before that). So I told Purie ... Aroon Purie… he was going to be the owner and all.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">13:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] How long did </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Surge''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> appear for...until when...if it was started in the '50s?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Surge''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was appearing before that (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Read as: Surge was appearing well before India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;">). So I made it a condition. I said, 'look I'm not going to stop brin</span><span style="color:#262626;">gi</span><span style="color:#262626;">i</span><span style="color:#262626;">ng out my magazine but if you like I'll be the editor of </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> but I'm going to bring out my own magazine also' So Aroon Purie, I think it was Aroon Purie ----- [</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">13:55</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">Kai: Aroon Purie…. was he around ...this ...will it be what '75? '76?]</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] '75. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] But were you dealing with Aroon or with his father?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Father </span><span style="color:#262626;">''ka naam kya tha''</span><span style="color:#262626;">? (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''What was the name of the father?''</span><span style="color:#262626;">)</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Father </span><span style="color:#262626;">''ka naam mein bhi bhool gaya hoon ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">(Even I’ve forgotten the name of the father). </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Magar haa''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Aroon was the beta. {</span><span style="color:#262626;">''NOTE: Vidya Vilas Purie was the father’s name even though later on Kai remembered it as D. D. Purie''</span><span style="color:#262626;">} I don't think </span><span style="color:#262626;">''ki''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> he was here right in the beginning. I think he was a student. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Well... (doubtfully: father) ...I forgotten father's name. Must be the father because it was started at that time ------ [Kai: Yea!] ----- And he said ...I said, 'look I'm bringing out this magazine of mine so' </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] D. D. Purie… I think the father is D. D. Purie </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] D. D. Purie Yea...'I'm bringing out this magazine, I'm not gonna give it up' So he said, 'don't worry...don't worry. We are bringing out </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> to ...to promote India's image abroad'</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hai''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...this is what I've heard.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">14:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Ya! And not in India so you can keep bringing out your magazine. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] So original idea was to market it entirely abroad? ----- [UV: Yea] ----- to export it? ------ [UV: Yea...that was it. That's why he said, 'you can bring out your magazine because mine was for India and...' I mean those kind of set up] ---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">14:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] So </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Surge''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> had been continued as publication from the '50s up till the 70s?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">15:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Yea</span><span style="color:#262626;"> but in-between I mean … I was acting journalist. And so it was condition which he agreed on. So I said, 'fine'. So that's how I started with </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> also. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">15:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] So tell me a little bit about that...about the first days with </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...where were you...who did you hire. [UV in the background: I was in Delhi ] ...where was the office?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">15:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Office? ------- [Kai interjects: in CP only or...?] --- Yea yea C.P. only ------ [Kai: F Block or that Thomason Building?] ----- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">15:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] No wait a minute! It was something upstairs also in Connaught Place. I don't remember now. It was very much there and... gosh! Can you imagine I'm forgetting! It was in the Outer Circle also at one point...upstairs in the first floor. So any way that was it. So I was...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] And did you do the initial hiring of the other staff or ...?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:05</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Yea I did partly but partly Aroon.... Aroon's father was the one who actually started the whole thing. Aroon's father as far as I can remember, he was a ...he had a place in Karol Place. They were selling something.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] They were film distributors I think because Thompson Press they bought later but the initial business was film distribution.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Film distribution and he was the father. They had a place in Connaught Place ------- [Kai interjects: Hamilton House or something like that. And nearby the old American </span><span style="color:#262626;">Express building used to be that side] ---- [UV agrees: that's right. It was there also. So I met the father and then I did this.</span>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#262626;">Keywords/Phrases</span>

More about India Today beginning more about ''Surge'' Surge published articles on politics, culture, music, theatre etc. UV knew people and she asked them to write in ''Surge'' attention to cover Set-up of ''India Today'' professional- own printing press

Had two other journalists including Dilip Bobb discussion over name ''India Today'' or ''India Today Reports'' black and white edition articles on politics, arts and films

|-
|}
<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] How did...Sorry </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> stories are interesting to me. Can you tell that in detail...how it began....How they first got in touch with you?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Well, as far as I remember it was so long back. I was happy with...not happy ...but I was very tied up with my own </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Surge''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> magazine and all that and then. But I'd been writing quite a bit. So all these...columns everywhere and this sort of a thing. So that's why they asked me.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] And </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Surge''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was not a political magazine? So the Emergency had not </span>

<span style="color:#262626;">[</span><span style="color:#262626;">''UV in the background''</span><span style="color:#262626;">- No, it was political in the sense that…I had political articles and I had articles on culture, music, theatre everything but also political and also sociological. I knew everybody at that time, you know, so I had...in fact I have got some of the older issues] </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Have you got them?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [U] They must be somewhere.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:49 [</span><span style="color:#262626;">Kai] That would be fascinating to see.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:51 [UV]</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Yea, I'll try and see if there's but all the most well-known people, I got hold of to write in my magazine. [KAI: In </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Surge''</span><span style="color:#262626;">?] First thing, it was not a very great, you know art... art paper and that sort of a thing. It was very simple except that I was very happy with.... not happy but very concerned that the cover should be what it should be like. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">18:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And... that of course was always there. The aesthetic aspect of journalism or… So it became quite popular. But then </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was also there.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] So how long... How long did it take before you brought out the first issue in... of </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;">?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">18:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] No that was not so long because they had a proper set-up. They had their press. They had their own...they gave me one or two other journalists also to help with the magazine and all. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Do you remember the initial team? Who else was there? ---- [UV in the background: No I don't remember]</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] No... Yea</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Was Dilip Bobb there from the beginning?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Dilip Bobb was there and then the other chap ...the one who is </span><span style="color:#262626;">''bhool gayi''</span><span style="color:#262626;">....you know what happened... I got one of those issues...when we shifted from here, I don't know what they did with all those issues. I'll find it. If you just hold on one minute, I'll go and see if there's issue.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] We can look for that afterwards.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] So it was quite an experience to ...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] And was it called </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> because I've seen it some place being called something like </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today Reports''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...or some third word in the title? Was it just straight </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;">?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] No, it was </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Okay, and what...it was black and white presumably?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Yea yea yea...black and white.... black and white and politics as well as arts, film reviews because this chap's father was concerned with films.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Films, yes...so they wanted to….</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] And...then I don't know what happened. Actually I was very concerned with my own magazine also. So finally I said, 'forget it. I want to concentrate on then ... (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''NOTE: She leaves the sentence unfinished''</span><span style="color:#262626;">)' then I started...</span>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#262626;">Keywords/Phrases</span>

Whether UV mixed in journalist circle during Emergency at Press Club etc. She did…(But her response is not Emergency oriented but rather more along the lines of general journalists interaction) Scindia House set-up of India Coffee House Indira and Feroze Gandhi coming in An Urdu writer Alvi joined UV’s e''t al'' table incident of Alvi being short of money yet inviting UV for coffee Kai’s attempts to bring conversation back to India Today and Emergency UV confused about the timeline UV doesn’t speak much about Emergency talks about her book on Indira Gandhi UV admired Mrs Indira Gandhi Emergency against Mrs Gandhi’s democratic beliefs Reference to coup in Pakistan in favour of a more democratic set-up Mrs Gandhi possessing a strong temperament connection between authoritarian tendency and ruling a country
|-
|}
<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Were you ...I mean it was obviously an intense time and a conflicted time for for journalists. Did you mix a lot in journalistic circle? Did you go to the Press Club?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Yea yea...of course...even now Press Club is a second home. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">20:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Not l</span><span style="color:#262626;">ately (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''NOTE: This part is rather unclear''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) that much</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">20:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But Press Club of course very much. And just sitting in restaurants, talking to people. There used to be a lovely Coffee House in Connaught Place. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai]: The United Coffee...The India Coffee House, you mean...where Palika is now?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV]The India Coffee House which was in the Scindia House. And all the journalists used to come there. It really was a journalists' place. And all come for coffee and everything. Indira Gandhi and Feroze also came once. It used to have a side sort of a place where ...slightly covered and it was two or three of them, if you want to be, right, very private when you sat there. But it was open to them all. We used to sit in the main thing and everybody used to collect together. I remember a lovely incident when a chap came from Lucknow. He was a Urdu writer and his name...Alvi. And he came up to me and he said, 'I'm from Lucknow' and introduced himself and all that. And he was a poet. And I was very fond of Urdu in any case. So I said fine, and met the others. So he started sitting with us at our table. Our table meant that, you know, one went to the Coffee House and somebody else would come in... everybody had a favourite </span><span style="color:#262626;">little </span><span style="color:#262626;">gathering and a favourite table...lovely place---- [Kai interjects: yes] ---- absolutely gorgeous. And so he came...he began to sit with us. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">22:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Then I used to...we used to pay in turns, whoever was there but he didn't have much money. So whenever...he couldn't afford coffee for...it was in fact coffee was for 4</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''annas....4 annas''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> one cup of coffee. So one day he said, 'coffee </span><span style="color:#262626;">''mere saath pijiye'''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. So I said okay. So he came and we ...just the two of us sat at a table and already ordered two coffees. So it was 4 </span><span style="color:#262626;">''annas ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">... there were 16 </span><span style="color:#262626;">''annas ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">to a rupee at that time. So 4 </span><span style="color:#262626;">''annas''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...the cost of the coffee was 4 annas a cup. He ordered two cups of coffee...8 </span><span style="color:#262626;">''annas''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. And then the bill came and all and he gave 4 </span><span style="color:#262626;">''annas ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">tip. So he gave 12 </span><span style="color:#262626;">''annas''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. So I said, 'Thank you, it was very nice.' Later on I learnt that he used to live in Old Delhi...from Lucknow he had come to Old Delhi for some reason. So he had only the four </span><span style="color:#262626;">''annas ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">left. And four </span><span style="color:#262626;">''annas''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> he had got because it cost by bus from Connaught Place to Old Delhi ...more than that I think. So he had kept this four </span><span style="color:#262626;">''annas''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and walked to Old Delhi. So those were very, you know very different kind of an atmosphere. Next to us was Sharda Ukil School of Art. So... next to the coffee house I mean. So all the artists used to go up and down and they were on the first floor. Then of course the animated discussions ...all the editors used to come to the Coffee House and the correspondents and all that.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] But in the Emergency did you...I mean...because a lot of people have told me also Coffee House times...how conversations ended ...people became very scared. I'm presuming you have had felt this time close to the Congress. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Yea, I was actually always close...I mean not close to the Congress. I was not in politics. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">24:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] But but personally at that time you felt sympathy with the Indira Gandhi Emergency?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">24:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Yea but at that time there was no ...there was no Emergency or anything at that time. So there was no question of....</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] No but when you were at </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;">?... which was the Emergency...that was the last years of the Emergency.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] The first years in fact. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Nahi''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, '76 I think. The Emergency was 1975-77. </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I think began in 1976 if I'm not wrong. I've never seen the first issues.</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai is mistaken, IT was launched in 1975]</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] '76? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] That's what I understand</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Any way I'll look up, I'll tell you. I've got some issues, I'll show you. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] But did you have a sense of ...of conflict...would you get into arguments</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] I was very much...I was actually politically, I was not politically inclined to be for party politics and active politics. But naturally one was writing about politics. And my first book was on Indira Gandhi any way. So... No, I did </span><span style="color:#262626;">admire her a lot actually and the Emergency came later...much later. In fact, I wrote another book also.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">26:05</span><span style="color:#262626;"> which because I also remember a time during the Emergency when I ...I used to meet her in any case. And I heard that she was...she said, 'Pakistan!'...You know in Pakistan they had done away with some chap at some point.... some ruler or the other which democratic.... towards democracy...democratic system. So she at that time Emergency was on, and she said, 'Pakistan has removed this thing you know.' So she was not.... she was very unhappy having had to do this. And she really was a democrat at heart but when I say she was a democrat at heart but she had a very strong temperament, which ...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai interjects] An</span><span style="color:#262626;">d</span><span style="color:#262626;"> authoritarian streak </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Authoritarian this thing...streak but then on the other hand as a ruler...even a democratic ruler, you just have to have a certain sense of direction which of course she had but methodology naturally. But there is a tendency...there was this bit of tendency but then </span><span style="color:#262626;">she went from that itself. But she was actually a democrat at heart that I've always believed...because of the way she was brought up...the old experience of what she had gone through and the father like that...the father like Nehru and....So I have never believed that she would have continued with a system which was...</span>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| Keywords/Phrases

Sanjay Gandhi and his role UV wrote an article on him starts interview with Sanjay Gandhi and the rumour that he drinks a lot Sanjay Gandhi as being strong willed and at the time no involvement with Emergency UV left India Today before end of Emergency

UV starts talking about Surge came in conflict with Aroon Shourie Saeed Naqvi Madhu Purie Aroon Puire talks again of Surge--- no industrial backer --- business plan dependent on adverts---- distributed through stalls---monthly----Talks about Inder who helped her---Inder’s background----search for press and paper by Inder---- Printing press being bought for ''Surge'' and kept at Defence Colony House

Kai attempts to find out if in post-Emergency period UV’s closeness to the Gandhi caused trouble----- UV ambivalent ---- Mrs Indira Gandhi feeling embarrassed about Emergency----UV talks about her book on Mrs Indira Gandhi --- Editing error of the book’s name (Faces instead of Phases) <nowiki>----UV’s book on </nowiki><span style="color:#262626;">Hariprasad Chaurasia and later Kashmir---another book on Indira –</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Courage Under Fire''</span>
|-
|}
<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Sanjay...did you know at all because one narrative that comes up in this whole thing is that that Sanjay would have continued with the Emergency. He would have liked to continue it because she decided that she couldn't do it anymore.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] yea yea...there was a long article on him. In fact, I was bringing out my magazine called </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Surge''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and a whole issue was on Sanjay. I don't know if I can find it.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] That would be great if you could find it.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] The cover page is Sanjay and yea I interviewed...I talked to him. He was staying with </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">28:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> the mother in the house so I said, 'I want to talk to you' And this was when she was a Prime Minister. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">28:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So he said, 'come.' So I went to the house. In any case I did want to meet her also but this was especially with him and it was a place where there was a sofa over there. So he said, 'come and sit'. So I sat down and then I took my tape recorder. I just don't know where I put that wretched tape with interview.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">29:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Oh! So you have a cassette somewhere. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">29:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Yea...It must be somewhere… So took my...and he was absolutely at ease. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">29:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] This was at home or in the office?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">29:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] At home at Mrs Gandhi's ...Prime Minister's House. So I said, 'I want to interview for my magazine. I was bringing out my magazine also.' He said, 'fine, ask.' So the first question I asked, 'I heard that you drink a lot' and he said, 'What!' I said, 'I hear that you drink a lot.' So he says, 'I don't even have orange squash.' like that...That's how the interview started and I did get the impression, I got the impression...I met him later on </span><span style="color:#262626;">also</span><span style="color:#262626;"> but I got the impression he had a...he was a very strong willed kind of a person and …but at that time he had no question of ... no sense...no ...what shall I say...involvement in the conflict of a Emergency sort of, you know, but he had … he had the tendency to be authoritarian that was very much there. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">30:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But otherwise he was nothing … bit ....will show you that interview …. I think I've got it somewhere.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] It would be great if you could find...yea...both the magazine and cassette (?). </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Yea…that magazine is there.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">30:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Were you still the editor of </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> when Emergency ended </span><span style="color:#262626;">[in fact UV was a Contributing Editor at IT from its first issue] </span><span style="color:#262626;">or did you leave before that?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] No no I left before that. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] And you remember that...the circumstances of that...did...was it because things were changing?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] That was not a very controversial kind of thing because I started bringing out my own magazine. I was very keen to bring out my own, which was called Surge. S.U.R.G.E. And I was editing India Today. So when I first asked this person ----- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">31:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">[Ka</span><span style="color:#262626;">i</span><span style="color:#262626;">k</span><span style="color:#262626;"> adds: Purie] ----... Purie...He said,  'no no no that would not be the problem because India Today is going to be sent abroad and you can bring out your own magazine.'</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">31:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] And that happened for the first few issues? It was sent abroad?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">31:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] yea yea...The whole idea was to send it abroad...to project India’s image outside India and all that. But then gradually...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">31:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Were the people writing to you from abroad also?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">31:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Not so much from abroad.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">31:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Saeed Naqvi was not writing?.... I know he was supposed to join...he did write.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">31:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Saeed Naqvi...he did write. All of them wrote for me. They were working in other papers and all but mine was a magazine so they could write and they all wrote. I'll get hold of some editions.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">31:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [ Kai] Yeah, I'm dying to see those old issues. I've seen one.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">31:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] So that was not a problem. I mean </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''NOTE: For the next 2-3 second UV just mumbles but given the gist of the conversation she's probably saying Purie had no problem with her working at India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;">). But then after a while then I opted out myself.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">32:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] It became a conflict? Did they change because at some stage they decided to start selling it in India?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">32:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Yea, India also and then I, this chap ...who's the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''ladka''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ...(Both Kai and UV: Aroon Purie)----- (Kai: Or the sister came first) ---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">32:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] The sister came from America. She used to be in America. She was there ----- (Kai interjects: Madhu) ---Madhu...but this Aroon Purie when he came, then I wasn't very much, sort of, happy with him in that sense. ...temperamentally </span><span style="color:#262626;">''kahe do jo kuch bhi hai''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. So I left and I was bringing out my own magazine. Then they took </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> in ...earlier as I said, he said that, 'we're not going to project it ...we're going to send it abroad only...it was to project India's image abroad' But then they became very much part of the Indian thing and I think their first editorial from...forgotten his name...also well-known journalist. Anyhow so that I had nothing much to do with them later on. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">33:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So uhmm</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">33:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] But you continued with </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Surge''</span><span style="color:#262626;">?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">33:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Yea yea...continued with </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Surge''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">33:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] And how long did that continue for? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">33:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] But </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Surge''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was like a happy-go-lucky thing because it depended on the money. How much ads one could get? How much money so one brought it out? And I didn't give it to any big time industrialist as backer of the magazine. So it was all on how many ads one could get, how many money one could get. So it went on for quite some time </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">33:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And it became...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">33:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] But the model for you at that time was ad based. You made money on ads not on sales so much?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">33:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Yea yea...ads only...sales too…</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">33:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Who was distributing it? Do you remember?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">33:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] No I don't remember now. Distributing in the sense that one gave it to people in the stalls every where</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Okay, but you didn't go through a distributor like India Book House or…?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] No no.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] And was the government buying it at all because …</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">34:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] I don't even remember actually. Government must have got some...something but not as a not as a government sponsored thing. (Kai: Okay). Luckily not that. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] So tell me how long did this continue? How long did you keep it alive?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] The magazine? Magazine kept coming out off and on----- [Kai adds: It was irregular.] ---Yea</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] But originally it was a monthly or what was the ??</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] It was a monthly because I couldn't manage it otherwise and...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] And it had a staff or were the contributors all...?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">34:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] No, I had one person...one person working with me who would look at the </span><span style="color:#262626;">proofs</span><span style="color:#262626;">truths</span><span style="color:#262626;">....</span><span style="color:#262626;">(???)</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But otherwise there was one other person...there was one other friend of mine. We were very much together.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">35:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Who's this?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">35:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] He is a person called Inder...He died later on...much later on but he was the one...He and I ...He would get the paper...he would get this and that and all. There's lovely short story...not lovely, I shouldn't say…my own short story. My book of short stories is just out. And there's a story in it where I talk about running this magazine. This person called Inder</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">35:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Inder who if I may ask?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">35:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Inder...He is...His brother was ambassador...and just retired, I think a year back only. He'd come back. He ...Inder was a happy-go-luck sort of a... happy-half businessperson and you know that sort of a thing...interested in politics and very talented in everything but he was a ...not professionally, you know, working somewhere. So we used to bring out this magazine together. And he was very very good in that because he would get the paper, he would talk to the printer [Kai adds: take it to the printer. Where would it be printed?] </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">36:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Long time, it was forty years ago. [Kai helps: Caxton Press...] Caxton was one yea. and then there was one press which was not in Delhi itself. Caxton was in Delhi? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">36:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Caxton is near Jhandewalan. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">36:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] I think Caxton was there. Then there was one press here also. So it was, you can't imagine, what a college time one had because one would ...he would go searching all over the place for a press which would take less money. So whether it was a these areas...</span><span style="color:#262626;">''kaun se areas hain yaha ke jo''</span><span style="color:#262626;">....those...</span><span style="color:#262626;">''kya kehte hain''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (Read: what are those nearby areas….what are they known as?)? The old bazaars and what not...we used to roam around all over the place looking for a press. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">37:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Acha..in Old Delhi also?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">37:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] No… no… not Old Delhi but New Delhi but the area was very different at that time. Middle Delhi not Old Delhi but ------</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">37:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai interjects: not Bahadur Shah Zafar...I mean the big press</span><span style="color:#262626;">e</span><span style="color:#262626;"> i</span><span style="color:#262626;">s </span><span style="color:#262626;">were </span><span style="color:#262626;">on Bahadur Shah Zafar]</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">37:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] There were no big such...woh nahi. [Kai: Purani Delhi aur Nai Sardak] Purani Delhi nahi. We were all looking for...there used to be press you know, in little places where they used to bring out pamphlets and things like that.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">37:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Where where? For letter press and all that I've looked at only Old Delhi.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">37:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [No no this </span><span style="color:#262626;">in between </span><span style="color:#262626;">area which is not Old Delhi but Connaught Place ke age ja ke (Kai: not Jhandewalan? Karol Bagh?)--- Karol Bagh yea Karol Bagh and that area. They used to have these places. And I, can you imagine, I had a person who was working with us on the technical side so we got a printing press here. A printing press here, this house was different. This has been rebuilt. And I had a room, an extra room where we put the printing press.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">38:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Oh! You had your own press?</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">38:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] We put it there, yea!</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">38:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Where is it!</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">38:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Oh god! That was ages ago. So...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">38:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] So was it a letter press or an offset or?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">38:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Letter press.---- [Kai: okay...WOW!]---- And he used to...and we had this one chap --- [Kai: The compositor] ---- who worked with me for god knows how long. And he used to print there itself. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">39:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Yehi...Defence Colony </span><span style="color:#262626;">''mein''</span><span style="color:#262626;">?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">39:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Ha...defence Colony </span><span style="color:#262626;">''mein''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. This house was very different at that time ---- [Kai: SO Surge was published here...printed here?] ---- At some part....some part of the time. Listen it's a mad thing. Maybe I should write about it! So anyway that was that.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">39:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Kab tak?....yeh nahi bataya''</span><span style="color:#262626;">! When did it cease publication and how? I mean, you ran out of money I presume...it's not easy.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">39:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] No no...not ran out of money also that naturally  (NOTE: This reads contradictory but that is how UV put it).... money didn't collect...it came as each issue was there...and one would get the ads and then one would take the money and then bring it out. So it was quite a job. I was...I'll show you if I find an old issue and ...but it was also very political as well as cultural. Because the cultural thing was very much part of my this thing...learning classical music myself, you know. Also interested in the arts. So this was actually one magazine which was dealing with both politics and the arts...there were not very many magazines at that time and ….</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">40:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] But did you...were you under pressure or did you feel victimised at all in the post-Emergency period because you had been close to the Congress and the Gandhi family? Did it become more difficult to sustain yourself to get ads and even contributors?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">40:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] No...not really because you know, I really don't remember when the magazine </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Surge''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> cease to come out in fact. But no I didn't suffer either during the Emergency or after but the feeling was there...little bit of tension but not really. ----[Kai in the background: but afterwards? to which UV agrees]---- because I...Mrs Gandhi didn't do anything to make me feel that I had... Apart from her political things, she was a very nice person and I think she, I remember during when I told you, I think, a little while back, when Pakistan lifted their own Emergency period, she just banged happily...banged her table in the flat and said, 'we must get rid of the Emergency ... even Pakistan has'. So because she was grown up on it...the whole democratic thinking from her grandfather onwards not just....not just the father but the grandfather.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">42:05</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] So she felt embarrassed about it?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">42:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Yea...she actually did.... not something which she was naturally inclined to do at all.. at all. So it was a very traumatic period I must say but then I wrote a book. What happened....</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">42:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [</span><span style="color:#262626;">Kai</span><span style="color:#262626;">UV</span><span style="color:#262626;">]  I heard you wrote a very critical book about it but I haven't seen it myself....so.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">42:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] No... critical not critical yes in a sense ... one is a whole book on articles ...big fat book on Indira Gandhi...biographical. Then this one is...shall I show you? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">42:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Sure</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">(NOTE: Kai and UV are almost silent as they glance at the book or whatever)</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">42:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">Sorry, you're showing me. Are you saying this is your second book on Indira Gandhi? ----- [UV: Second one]----And you're saying it was supposed to be two phases of Indira with Ph and he made it t</span><span style="color:#262626;">o</span><span style="color:#262626;">w</span><span style="color:#262626;">o</span><span style="color:#262626;"> F.A.C.E.S. ------[UV: Yea My God!]---- And you didn't see that!</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">43:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV in still a scandalised tone] No no! I had two P.H.A.S.E.S ...when they came out with this ---- [Kai: in '77?] ---- Yea.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">43:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] And was she angry? </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">43:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Yea, of course...my god you can't imagine. All her ...these chaps you know, when I came in, they booed booed like hell and then of course they became okay but this was...this is...this is...this is a novel I'd written. She also (Completely incomprehensible).</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">And this is my biography of Hariprasad Chaurasia because I told you....Then there's this book on [Kai completes: Kashmir]---Yea because I'd done lot of filming there and that sort of </span><span style="color:#262626;">thing. And this is including fairs and festivals and this is a shorter version of----- [Kai adds: Indira Gandhi] ---- Yea a different one.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">44:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] But this one is called</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Courage Under Fire. ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">Kai laughs  ---- [UV: Yea] ----More positive. But this was when? After that one. -------[UVL: Ya ya this is little later, I don't remember now ]--- So there are a total of three books on Indira Gandhi? ---------[UV: Yea]------[Kai: What was the first one called? ] -----------[UV: The first one...isn't it here?] ------ [Kai: No there's only Two Phases...Two Faces rather is here...</span><span style="color:#262626;">''uske pehela kya tha''</span><span style="color:#262626;">]--------[UV: Where's my first book on her?] ---------[Kai: That's not here] ------- [UV: Just let me see. ] ------ [Kai: Sure] </span>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#262626;">Keywords/Phrases</span>

Kai’s question about end of journalism for UV with the end of ''Surge''. UV kept writing for <span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India, Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> more focus on books Talks about a novel that she wrote while studying in Shimla---- written in terms of ‘I’ but the ‘I’ is masculine Doesn’t write much anymore UV goes back to talk about her writing days after marriage planning another book now Kai and UV go through the books written by UV----a cover done by Satish Gujarl ----- offered by American publishers to print----going with Vikas Publisher---Narinder Kumar becoming a good friend</span>

|-
|}
<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">44:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Then journalism for you essentially came to an end with the end of </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Surge''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> or did you return to freelance writing? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">44:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] No I kept writing. I kept writing. I was writing in </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India, Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> all these papers. Then ....I didn't stop in that sense but what happened....I think I wrote another book. Actually I was writing books also nah! So this is Indira Gandhi thing but…I'd written a novel ... two novels. In fact, I wrote one novel while I was in Shimla after partition and all ...studying in Shimla. And I was in college and I wrote this novel. And you know...Shall I show it to you? </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">45:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai: Sure but go on talking but...]  I know because I want to see ...tell you show you what's written on it. And actually, it is quite a sensation because funnily enough...in those days it's quite funny...I mean everything related to me is really odd because that book is written in terms of 'I'...'I'  and 'I' is a man and I've written that book. And I wrote it when I'd just finished college and all and after that one or two years later and even I didn't realise that I'd done that. That the whole book is written in terms of an 'I' </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">46:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and the 'I' is a man. So it was a very strange sort of thing that happens when one is in </span><span style="color:#262626;">the creative mood or whatever you might call it. In fact, that book got a terrific review and they said that it should be put the syllabus...Punjab syllabus for the B.A. classes and that sort of a thing. So it's been quite a ----- [Kai: roller-coaster]-----Yeah! </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">46:55</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Okay ...you keep in touch....now you don't write anymore but you keep up..</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">46:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] No no no...I write in the sense that...no I'm not writing in any newspapers ..not anymore in the sense that I haven't done it. But I was writing quite a bit after I got married, went to Madhya Pradesh and I used to write a regular column from there...which paper...Times of India, I think </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">47:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And didn't stop writing from there and then I wrote that book also. My husband was in the IAS so he was posted there so I had a terrific room to myself ...my books and everything and whatever I felt like doing so...From there used to do a regular column. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">47:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And lately, I've not been writing for the papers....journalism as such in that sense...I've not been...I'm planning another book.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">47:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] I see...on what?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">47:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] No I'll tell you first, the other one of course are books on music and and theatre also and all that...so that also took...can't bring them all here now, I'll just tell you. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">48:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] no no ...very nice. Oh ! this is great to see</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">48:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">This cover incidentally was done by Satish Gujral. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">48:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Aaa. I can see it. And for both of these you interacted with Indira? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">48:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] Ya Ya...by god…yes. You see this one---- [Kai: the first one]---- came out first and of course went...interacted all the time and then it was going to be published by an American Publisher and as usual I'm quite mad....and they ….and they were going to take two-three years or something like that. So I told them...I said, 'no forget it'. And in the meanwhile this other publisher in India ----[Kai: Vikas]----- Vikas...Narinder Kumar became a very good friend of mine...he said, 'no no no, let's publish it here.' So I wrote to the ----[Kai: Americans] ---  I said, 'forget it but I can't wait for two years and it's being done here'. Everybody would have died to have it done there but no. Then he published it here. He published it nicely actually. Then of course there are other shorter ...not shorter but paperback editions of that also...came out later. So that was that.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">49:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Oh this has been fascinating and it would be great to get copies of those </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Surge''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ones and do you think you have any of the early </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> or it requires a lot of searching?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">49:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [UV] I have ...let me see if they are there ----[Kai: </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Ha dek lete hain''</span><span style="color:#262626;">]</span>

<span style="color:#262626;"><nowiki>---- because it does require...I haven't sorted out all my out all my papers yet. </nowiki></span>

<span style="color:#262626;">'''Interview Ends'''</span>

<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

.NjQ1.MzU

2017-11-03T11:50:22Z

Bhanugs:

<div style="text-align:center;"><span style="color:#262626;">'''INTERVIEW </span>WITH <span style="background-color:#ffffff;">TAVLEEN SINGH'''</span></div>

<u>'''INTERVIEWEE'''</u>* Name: Tavleen Singh [TS]
* Occupation: Journalist, column writer and writer.

<u>'''INTERVIEWER'''</u>* Farah Yameen

<u>'''Medium: Audio recordings'''</u>* Format/ Type of File: Wav
* Language: English with smatterings in Hindi
* Location of Interview:
* Date of the interview: 17 May 2016

<u>'''Clip name/DURATION: '''</u>* Name: fy_tsingh_raw_170516.wav

Length  01:05:40

Bit Rate  1536kbps

Size  721 MB

Date modified  17 May 2016 17:59:22

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">Interview Starts</span>
|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">Keyword/Phrases</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">0:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So today is the 17 of May (2016) and I am interviewing Tavleen Singh for the Archives of Political at Marian (sic) [Median] Tagore Centre. So would first introduce yourself and your career?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:17</span><span style="color:#262626;">[TS] : I began my career in journalism oddly enough working local newspaper in England called the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Slough Evening Mail''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and that was '71. And so I was in England...I did my training as a sort of like all local reporters do police fire magistrates, courts, local government and then I came back to India in '74; and couldn’t get a job for a year. There was...It was very difficult for women in journalism particularly at that time. I think there must have been five women in journalism. You could really count them, you knew all, you know it was really a man's world. So after a year looking for a job, I managed to get one in May 1975, right...one month </span><span style="color:#262626;">before the Emergency was declared. So you know, I mean it was just the most depressing thing because I was like -here I am...I finally get a job and you know, it...there maybe no journalism! </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">1:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So that was how my career began.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So given that you were already working as a journalist in England, you must have been observing what was happening in the country and so, I mean, given that there were a lot of things happening before the Emergency...there were some sort of clamp downs, I mean there were, I mean I don't know if you were aware of it...you were still a very young person. .I think you were twenty-four. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : I was twenty-four in '74, so I was 25 when the Emergency...just before the Emergency.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So what do you remember of the news that you read in the period preceding the Emergency while you were in India looking for a job?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : Well you know, it was a very turbulent time and a there was the murder of the L. N. Mishra (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Ref.: murder of L. N. Mishra, Minister of Railways in 1975''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) who was a you know a major minister in the government of Indira Gandhi. She was very unpopular. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> There was the Bihar Movement going on. There was a student agitating in Gujarat. You know I wasn't a journalist...so I was just observing this. And there was no journalism really. It was ...what I think it was somebody called Gracious Form of Clerkship.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> You know there were five newspapers in India....five English newspapers...of which I got a job in </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was one of those and there were two major Hindi newspapers- </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Navbharat Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and a </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and I thing </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Jansatta''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> may have been around as well. But they didn't have the kind of circulation that we have today. I mean the media was really a very small creature. So you didn't know what was going on really because for a start the reporting of these events was probably better done by say Raghu Rai's pictures than any </span><span style="color:#262626;">reporting out of Bihar. These newspapers that were in Delhi were very reluctant to send journalists to go an cover events because it really was clerkship. There were old ...doggery old journalists who didn't you know really see what was going on. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">3:49</span><span style="color:#262626;"> As clearly as it would be seen today.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : You're saying that the period is seen more clearly in retrospect than it was at that point of time?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">4:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : '74...the year '74 and it was only when JP...when the Movement came to Delhi which was just before the Allahabad court judgement, it was in that summer that you know there were big rallies and the Opposition was coming together to take on Indira Gandhi. And you see elections were due in '75 I think or '76 ...--- [FY : '76 yeah.] ---- ....'76. So you know they were building up...it was really the opposition coming together to take her on and that's when it started to get real coverage in the newspapers. By then I was already with the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, you know, I mean. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">4:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> The meetings that I am talking about were in just before the Emergency...I think they were in June. The big JP rally and all that.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:49</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : He had started from Bihar and he had come and that's when you joined?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : He'd been you know collecting support in the year before...the movement I'm not sure exact when it began...the Bihar Movement. I didn't cover it but he had been getting students and politicians together long before that. And long before the Emergency itself and…but I was really ...it was completely not in my ...not on my radar.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : This might sound like an add question</span><span style="color:#262626;"> but when you got to the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, there would have been an interview process, I'm assuming. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:31[TS] :</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Well yes but you know I had two-and-a-half years of working on the…I had quite a good portfolio.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : I'm just trying to gauge a sense of what they would have asked in terms of how that would reflect the journalism in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">country.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] You see first up before this...before I went off to England, when I finished my journalism course in the New Delhi Polytechnique, it was the only course I could do because I wanted the shortest course. So this was only a year long, and I really wasn't academically very good so I just didn't want to do any more college or anything like that. But I liked journalism. I discovered that you know I was really interested in journalism. And so you know I'd gone after I'd finished that course to George Verghese in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> because he was in school with my father. He was in the Doon School with my father and asked him to give me a job; and he said, 'No!' and you know I then found out he said , 'you know,' he said, 'you can do sort of an apprenticeship unpaid for a few months, if you want.' But he said, 'when we hiring, we hire men because women go away and get married in the middle of the thing, so it's not worth our while.' </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">6:49</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So it was really, there was literally Usha Rai in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, uhmmm Prabha, Barkha Dutt's mother in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, Nandani Singh...I'm counting them for you literally...five or six women. There were older women journalists like Amita Malik and there was another lady called Promilla something or the other but they did movies and books but not real reporting. SO they were very reluctant to...they began to change after I joined the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> when I discovered actually that one of the reasons why men didn't want women reporters in the reporters' room was they refused to do night duty. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">7:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And you know, night duty meant you had to be on duty from about 4 in the afternoon till 10:30 or 11 and most women were reluctant to do this because Delhi was very, you know, you couldn't really sort of wonder about on your own and it was just a small little scary little town...hardly any lights in the streets. So we decided that we would do night duty. I'm not sure whether it was in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> but I know that all the women, you know, of my generation said-no itis unfair, and we'll do it. And then they gave us cars to take us home. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">8:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So that's how it </span><span style="color:#262626;">changed.</span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On background of TS.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--TS started by writing in Slough Evening Mail in 1971—covered all as local reporters do—learning experience.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--returned to India in 1974—couldn’t find a job in journalism as a woman.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Got a job at Statesman in 1975.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Was TS updated on political events in India while in England?</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---somewhat aware—knew of L.N. Mishra’s assassination – of Bihar Movement – of Indira’s unpopularity-student agitation in Gujarat---journalism in India at that time equated with Gracious Form of Clerkship.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---just a handful of credible newspapers in India- </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Statesman, Navbharat Times, Hindustan Times, </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Jansatta''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> ---but not enough circulation.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Raghu Rai’s photographs as being </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">better than reportage.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Newspapers reluctant to send reporters out of Delhi for coverage.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Description of the mood of 1974</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">JP Movement moving to Delhi- verge of Allahabad Judgement—Opposition coming together –political rallies before Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On increasing support of JP movement but TS was not too interested in it.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On the interview process at the </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Statesman.''</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---TS had a good portfolio and experience.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--TS did a short course at New Delhi Polytechnique—went for an interview with G. Verghese of HT for job through her father’s connection.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--He offered TS unpaid apprenticeship without any guarantee of job as they preferred to hire men---women get married and leave etc.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Women in journalism then- Prabha Dutt (</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''HT''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">), Usha Rai (TOI), Nandani Singh, Amita Malik and Promilla smth but they did features and not hard political stuff because women didn’t do night duty since Delhi was unsafe.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Women journalist </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">of TS decided to do night duty</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">got office cars to take them home.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">8:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So how did you reach that glass hole of getting into journalism given that other women were not reporting, you would be one of the few women who would be reporting</span><span style="color:#262626;"> on the cover.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : By actually doing the reporting. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : How did they know you would get...you would do the reporting? How did they accept you?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] :Well you see the thing is that I think I got accepted I'm not sure why it was Nihal Singh who gave me the job. You should ask him. But I think it was because I had two and a half years of experience as reporter and I had very good training in that because you know the police fire, magistrate's court, I would still say it's the best training for any reporter because you do police for...you know...speed, you do courts for accuracy, you do because you get one thing wrong, especially that time, I'm sure even now...It was not like in India where it doesn't matter that much but you could really get into trouble if you and then you know, you had to, I had phone copy of  from the court to the thing. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So I was very well trained as a reporter so I suppose I got because of that. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So when you got into </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, you got into the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> on the 5th and the ..sorry in May and you did... Emergency was imposed on like late- June. Can you describe the period when you joined and when the Emergency was imposed?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : Okay I at that point realised because all the news was political, so I became very interested in what was going on in the Allahabad Court Judgement and I started...because I was new I wanted to sort of show that I was really you know keen and etc. I remember that two of the...two or three stories that I did before the Emergency was declared which were very well received. I did a piece on hospitals in Delhi and I did it by spending a night in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">Emergency Room in four or five hospitals. And seeing you know how they functioned and for me, with my foreign returned eyes I was appalled at the filth and the incompetence etc., and I wrote all that and that was very well received; and then I went to a Khumb Mela and reported on that ...not a Kumbh mela ...there was a solar eclipse in Kurukshetra and you know I heard about it and....(TS makes some sounds and expression to describe 'whatever!') So anyway, I did that kind of story but I was getting my teeth into the political story when the Emergency happened because I think the day the Allahabad court judgement I...I started going regularly...I used to live very close to Indira Gandhi's house. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">10:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So before going to the Statesman I would always go past that Safdarjung Road where there was lot of activity, where she lived; and one day I ran into Sanjay Gandhi and you know, it was a day after the judgement or the day it came and he sad, 'Oh! It's a just a stupid judgement and what a foolish thing to do for the judge,' ... because he was also three-years older than me right. So he didn't know he should keep his mouth shut. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But anyway I did a little interview and you know I was very excited and I brought it to my news-editor and they buried it. They put it on to some inside page without...nobody realised that Sanjay Gandhi was going to be so important in two weeks’ time. You know so...that's how, and then you know after...once the Emergency was declared my only interest in journalism was political.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So the day the Emergency was declared there were like multiple arrests. Can you describe the situation in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> office on that day?</span>

<span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : I was woken up by my mother who was very keen on listening to the radio early in the morning. And she said...she played for me Mrs Gandhi's...Mrs Gandhi’s speech was being played over and over again in the silly little voice. Saying in English and in Hindi, you know to save the country...to save democracy, you have suspend all democracy or words to that </span><span style="color:#262626;">effect. You know I mean the speech is very interesting because basically she was trying to project herself as this great heroin who was doing this to save democracy from awful people like Jayprakash Narayan and the Opposition parties who were trying to destroy it. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">12:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So I said, 'My god' and you know I raced off to the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> office and there was this kind of tension because you see with journalism, on the one hand we...journalists hate censorship but it’s a love-hate relationship  because the idea of defying it is so a compelling, you know, so there was this whole tension and then the decision to defy Censorship was taken by the Editor and we brought out special edition with blank spaces where the Opposition leaders' arrests were blanked out; and we tried this</span><span style="color:#262626;"> little defiance for a while. And I actually then continued my crusade to prove Delhi hospitals by doing individual hospitals. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">13:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> The other story being like fifteen hundred (1500) words of all the hospital. This </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">13:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I started the day. And I thought that would get passed in the Censors, you know. I mean it's surely nothing so political. But even that was not allowed.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Why?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : Oh there was nothing that sounded like criticism that was allowed. There were quotes of Nehru and Tagore's that were censored. I mean there were real bulldozers sitting in that...in the Press Information Bureau and we had to submit our copy because the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was then punished. And we had...every story had to go to them and come back with red lines across it and the newspapers sometimes they thought were being too defiant would come back at like 6 in the morning making it useless but it was very exciting as well as very scary because you know it could have been the end of journalism had she wanted to. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">14:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> She could have carried on forever with censorship. We didn't know then that it would not last forever.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : On that day given that the pre-censorship rules had also come were there any discussions or meetings within the </span><span style="color:#262626;">Statesman office or amongst the journalists?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : Oh yea..yea..yea, I don't know if you've read the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Durbar ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">(Published in 2013), I have actually described that .... ---- [FY : I have...I have seen Durbar but I haven't gone through it.] ----.... okay...there's a full description of the Emergency in that, which is better than anything I can tell you. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">14:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I remember being in the reporters' room...there was the editors, I'm not going to name any names.... ---- [FY : Yeah] ---- .... There was this Special Correspondents, Editors and they then drifted towards us as we sat in this little room with with glass walls, in a red brick building. And one of these very kind of pompous little editors came along and said, 'it is a good thing,'- Bengali of course (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Ref. to: the editor being from Calcutta and a very stereotypical characterisation''</span><span style="color:#262626;">), 'it is a great thing that is has happened and you know she's lifted when discipline is brought into the country,' and you know I remember him getting into an argument with this guy and saying, 'what are you saying! You're actually welcoming press censorship.' I mean you know, it's like a ..like a...I don't like a butcher welcoming vegetarianism, you . This is our job and we might not lose it all </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">15:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''(Note: to be read as ‘we might all lose our job’)''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. So there was a big arguments and it just went on on a daily basis and we all had our little sources, you know who would come and tell us what was going on and I had a source who worked for Piloo Mody's party, I can't remember whether it was still </span>Swatantra Party or not then but anyway he was one of these very nondescript kind of...

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On how TS carved a niche.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--by doing reporting</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Nihal Singh offered TS a job—Why</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> probably because of her portfolio and foreign training was more vigilant and nuanced as they could get in trouble for wrong reportage.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--on period between May and June when Emergency was declared.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--TS became interested in Allahabad Court Judgement.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Important reportage by TS: (a) Conditions in emergency room of the </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">hospitals</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">appalling</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">(b) solar eclipse in </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Kurukshetra</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---TS was getting involved with the updates of Allahabad court judgement –would pass Indira Gandhi’s house to chance upon a scoop.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--TS ran into Sanjay Gandhi a day after the Allahabad judgement and got an interview—he was dismissive of it when TS asked his opinion—TS took a five mins interview.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--the new-editor printed it somewhere innocuous not knowing the role that Sanjay Gandhi would come to play.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--ambiance on the day of declaration of Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--TS told about the declaration by her mother who heard it over the radio.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Mrs Gandhi’s speech being </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">repeated.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---projecting herself as the protector of democracy etc. from JP and Opposition.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--on journalist having a love-hate relationship with censorship.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Statesman decided to defy censorship.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--TS continued on her hospital story but this time individually—the censors did not pass it.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--nothing negative could be reported including quotes of Nehru and Tagore.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Sometimes the Censor would return the reviewed copy sometimes post-print timeline.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Many felt that </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Indira Gandhi could have carried on with the Emergency forever.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---TS on her book </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Durbar''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> discussing pre-censorship rules.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---description of ambiance in the office and various reactions.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Reporters had informants</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">TS’ informant worked for Piloo Mody’s party---non-descript fellow with ears everywhere.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">15:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Would you like some water?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : No (to water). ...you know the kind of a guy you see a lot in party offices who nobody notices them because they're so obscure nobody knows whether they are party members or the peon or the chaiwalla, and he was always hanging around. He </span><span style="color:#262626;">would get into Indira Gandhi's house and here...I mean he actually came and told me that Gujral was going to lose his job. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And then we would meet in the little coffee shops in...in Connaught Place where all these sources would bring us all this political news.. And you know, she closed down the Coffee Shop. Yeah? But that was a great hub, you know because it was wonderful because you could smell those </span><span style="color:#262626;">''dosas''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and the South Indian coffee and we would all gather there to gossip endlessly. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So she closed it down, right. So then our meetings with political leaders became a little bit more difficult. They stopped seeing us that easily. But it was a very interesting time for journalism, especially for if you were younger as I was because you really discovered who were true to the profession and who were not. You know, so the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> fought as much as they could. But it’s the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''of''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> just laid down and said do whatever you want to us. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">17:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So for me that was a real learning, you know. I mean I though and you know I take really journalism very seriously as a career and believe that without media there is no democracy so to to see two major English newspapers prostitute themselves was really very shocking for us, you know. And then of course there was nothing that you could report. I remember that there was a terrible mine accidents called Chaslana in a Bihari mine and I being again you now foreign trained I said to my editor - this is just a human interest story, there's a mine in which 700 to 1000 miners are trapped. Shouldn't we be going there? - And he said, 'don't be stupid we don't do stories like that.' They didn't. The media was really pretty abysmal at that point. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">18:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So that was it so I think the Emergency really...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Did you at any point consider quitting journalism in India because of the Emergency?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : I didn't want to leave India. I'd come back making a choice to come back. I didn't want to live in England. I was tired </span><span style="color:#262626;">of writing about those kinds of stories about you know whether the zebra crossing should be on this part of the road or that part of the road and you know whether ...it was just so boring, I was just wasn't interested in that sort of stuff. So India was just too...and you know, it was my home and I didn't want to live in England.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">18:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So I never considered that but I did consider the possibility that there would be no journalism if this carried on. You know in the end Raghu Rai and I went off to river rafting with...on the Ganga, you know those kinds of stories, you know that were the only kinds of stories we could do. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : And if you since </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was one of the things ...one of the papers who were defiant besides the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, in the sense initially they carried out those blank editorials but then they were asked not to carry out those blank editorials. What would you define in those periods ...in that period of time as the defiant pieces by </span><span style="color:#262626;">''the''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;">?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">19:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : Defiance stopped very quickly. It wasn't possible. You now the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> started get raided, there was ..there was...there was a real...there was almost </span><span style="color:#262626;">threat of closure, you couldn't defy Mrs Gandhi, she was a dictator. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">20:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Foreign Correspondents were being thrown out on a daily basis. So you know it was, it wasn't possible really to ...so after a while you just reconciled to the fact that you couldn't do. I kept keeping notes. So I remember once I was...so that's how </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Durbar''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> came about because I was on late duty one night when there was a riot in Jama Masjid, yeah. And it was pretty brutal...I think they shot people, the police etc. I think the first riot I ever covered. And I was really horrified by it and we couldn't say anything. So the next day's newspapers, there was a press release from the Government saying, like you know, a paragraph- Tension in the Old City or something like. And so you know we were reduced to press release journalism. The </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> used to be...there used to be a guy who would come from the PIB with pictures of Sanjay Gandhi at some rally etc. and say, 'please use this on the front page.' And after Gujaral, </span><span style="color:#262626;">poor thing, was kicked out and Vidya Charan Shukla came in. He called all the senior journalists together and said- Don't you dare try to defy the censorship. So we couldn't report anything even if you ran into a you know, an Opposition leader, they were all in jail but, you know, if they came back. I had friends who fathers and mothers etc were were in jail or underground but you couldn't report anything.</span>

|| <div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--TS more on the characterisation of informants.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---places where journalists would meet informants like coffee shops in CP—Indira Gandhi closed down the Coffee shop.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Even politicians became inaccessible.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''HT''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> and </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''TOI''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> prostrating while </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> and </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> did not.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Chaslana mine tragedy also did not get much coverage during censorship.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Any temptation to quit journalism?</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--No, TS consciously moved to India to </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">continue journalism.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On types of stories that TS and other journalists were forced to settle writing.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On defiance</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Defiance stopped early on.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Foreign correspondents being thrown out.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--TS kept sporadic notes.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Riot at Jama Masjid.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--The riot reported through press release from the Government which down played it.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--entry of infamous Vidya Charan Shukla as Censor man.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--difficulty in reporting.</span>

|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">21:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Speaking of underground there were also a few you know pamphlets and things that were circulated on the sly within the circles. Like I believe Coomi Kappor's book covers how Virendra Singh carried something initially and then he had a, I mean, of course had a fight with...with the person who was ...but do you ..do you remember any of these underground pamphlets being circulated?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">22:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : I remember a lot of very scared CPM chaps because they were worried. They're not so brave ...these communists. You know when push comes to shove, they started burning all those pamphlets etc. But the this RSS lot was a little braver... ----[ FY : Yeah Yeah] ---... And Virendra Kapoor was with the Motherland, so was Coomi, which was an RSS paper. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">22:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So for a while they were quite brave and they were circulating all these kinds of things but the Marxists stopped very quickly. SO there was this sort of thing going around. But they were of no consequence, you know. They were mostly...there were really pamphlets that you had to hand out. There was no media as such.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">22:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Yeah, but do you remember any of these pamphlets or the content?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">22:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : I can remember…I remember the that Arun Shourie  wrote an article on Fascism in </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Seminar''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Magazine. </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Seminar''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> closed willingly I think because they refused to …. --- [FY : disagreed with that???]--- …yea. But this...it was after this issue I think. And you know copies were made of this and we all circulated it and </span><span style="color:#262626;">you know it went around and. In those coffee shops, there were many of these little pamphlets around but you couldn't tell what was true or not, huh! </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">23:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So my little source is this tiny little man who'd say to me you know...Sanjay Gandhi is running the country. And I didn't know whether to believe him or not. And he said that he himself knew because he was always hanging around in the Congress Party's offices and he would observe what was going on. And it was true what he told me but it was not credible because nobody believed that it could happen. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">23:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And then Rajmata Gawlior was underground and at one point and she's staying at my parents’ house. And my mother of course, you know, didn't tell me. So I spent the whole day in old Delhi near the Gurudwara, waiting for when she was meant to make an appearance and court arrest; and she was sitting in my house, you know. It's all in </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Durbar''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. You should read that...I put a lot of that into </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Durbar''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : I am going to pick that up. Also since you were saying that </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''of''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> as we all know did not really take up </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">24:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> cudgel against the government, within any newspaper or within the media...?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : A tradition that they have continued to follow as you may have noticed.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">24:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : That's true I don't really read either of those newspapers. But within newspapers and within the media also there were are sympathisers in terms of Leftist, Centralist and Right-wing ...which ever ones you want to call it....just broad classifications I believe...How...what were your interactions with journalists in </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> or </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> with...were they I mean, the journalists even though their editorial policy was not to defy the government, were journalists within those newspapers defying?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : They were very frustrated. They were very frustrated. We would meet there was not much to work. So on late duty, you know, I would go across to the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> to see Rashmi </span><span style="color:#262626;">Saxena for instance. And you know, we would know what was going on. And Rashmi Saxena and I knew each other because one of the stories I did before press censorship was - I think it was still JP was doing it -Dacoits were surrendering in ..in June near Agra, and they were big ones like , you know...I forgot their names now. There was Mansingh, I think there was one other more. Any way whoever but there were big surrender. So you now, we'd gone there, it was quite an exciting story to do for 24 you know dacoits surrenders and then we came back and all of this happened. And then when we would everyone only talked about the political situation. We knew about the extent of the repression, especially in a few months when they started this nasbandi programme because you know I used to cover Old Delhi a lot because it was the most interesting part. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">26:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> There was a real political tension in the old city. And you now, I used to spend many evenings going to...there used to be a restaurant called Flora which they demolished during the Emergency, opposite the Jama Masjid...directly opposite the Jama Masjid...the steps of Jama Masjid..next to Karims. And then suddenly in these restaurant </span><span style="color:#262626;">''siyasi guftagu mana hai''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> came up. So even in a </span><span style="color:#262626;">restaurant, you know, I mean...you could feel because there was too much </span><span style="color:#262626;">''siyasi guftagu''</span><span style="color:#262626;">  going on across the city. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">26:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So it was really very repressive time. I don't know whether the story is true or not but they say that a </span><span style="color:#262626;">''bandarwalla''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was arrested. You know, you couldn't tell because on the circle in Connaught Place the thing, he was trying to get the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''bandari''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> to get up, and she wouldn't and he said, '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''kya tu bhi Indira Gandhi ki tara kursi nahi chori gi''</span><span style="color:#262626;">!' Arrested...monkey and all..so there were light moments but it was a really very strange time. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : But what happened to that guy?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : I don't know, we don't know even....I didn't meet the monkey </span><span style="color:#262626;">''walla''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. But this was the story...</span><span style="color:#262626;">''ki aaj dekho kya kar diya hai''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> is Indira Gandhi </span><span style="color:#262626;">''nai! Bandarwalle ko pakar ke band kar diya Tihat''</span><span style="color:#262626;">!' So everyone was always being arrested and put away. The </span><span style="color:#262626;">journalists were arrested.</span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On underground circulation of materials.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Not much underground circulation.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--The Communist groups not brave enough to hold out unlike the RSS people like Virendra Kapoor.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Pamphlets of not much consequences. </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Arun Shourie wrote an article for </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Seminar''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> titled ‘Fascism’, and copies were made and </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">distributed.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Seminar''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> closed willingly after much defiance. </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--More on TS’s informant and his scoops.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">Rajmata Gwalior gone underground –hiding at TS’s parents’ house and TS not aware.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On compliance of HT and TOI.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--HT and TOI compliance still evident.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On TS’s interactions with other journalist also from HT and TOI.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Journalists were a frustrated lot because they couldn’t work their trade no matter how great a story. For example surrendering of Dacoits.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---surrender of Man Singh.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Forced nasbandi (sterilisation) programme ---demolitions in Old Delhi</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">build-up of tensions.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Demolition of a </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">restaurant called Flora.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''siyasi guftagu ''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">also curbed</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Stories on the absurdity of repression, control and excess, for example alleged arrest of a monkey entertainer on comparing the monkey with Indira Gandhi.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">27:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So I was.... Old Delhi since you were saying you were covering, and I also talked to Malla Singh of </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Seminar''</span><span style="color:#262626;">... --- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">27:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS : She's not a journalists. She's a fraud.]  ----....  she's not. Let's not say that on record. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : I will say that on record.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">27:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Okay! So</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : She never did any reporting at all. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : No, she did not. No I was just talking about the Seminar. So I was asking, she....I think Javed lied at the story on how a lot of the news travelled through oral, you know, through word of mouth. Old Delhi as I said and </span><span style="color:#262626;">restaurant there's always people talking to each other...lots of oral history and and quite a few people have mentioned songs around the Emergency...'</span><span style="color:#262626;">''jhoot bole janta kate'''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...things like that </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">28:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> --- [TS : Kawa kate] ---- no the parody was </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''jhoot bole janta kate'''</span><span style="color:#262626;">... --- [TS : I don't remember that] --- ...You do not remember this? Do you remember what what conversations were happening outside journalistic circles...what conversations you could hear maybe in Old Delhi...Old Delhi it's very hard...easy to overhear conversations...that's why I'm asking.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : Well you know once the Nasbandi started, all conversation was about that. because these vans would come. I saw them. And they would pick up at random. And they had kala sheeshas you know and that's what the conversation was- </span><span style="color:#262626;">''ies ko pakar ke legaye aur woh sola saal ka bachha tha ...Bihar se kal aya tha...usko legaye...nasbandi karke phek diya phir sarak pai''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. So that was the conversation. And there was, you know, tension building up. And there was this woman called Ruksana </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">29:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ---- [FY : Yeah, Rukhsana </span><span style="color:#545454;">Sultana </span><span style="color:#262626;">] --- Yeah she had  the same hairstyle as me and she had the same glasses or something. So once I got nearly beaten up in Old Delhi because she caused a lot of trouble there because she went in...because she thought that she </span><span style="color:#262626;">was...she was actually half Hindu...her father was Hindu but because her name was </span><span style="color:#262626;">Rukhsana, they thought she was Muslim, so she kept going into people's homes and telling the women, you know, and she said...I don't want to dress like them, I wear chiffon and you know go into and tell them, 'that you </span><span style="color:#262626;">''nasbandi karwao''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.' you know. You can't actually go into conservative Muslim homes in the Old Delhi to this day and start advising women to go and have nasbandi. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">29:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So there was a lot of that sort of talk - Ki ji Rukhsana </span><span style="color:#262626;">''aye thi...yeh kaun hai Rukhsana? aur''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and Sanjay Gandhi...there was a lot of talk once the Emergency was declared...about what Sanjay Gandhi was doing, you know. And Jagmohan and then by the next year there was the Turkman Gate and everything. So all conversation in the whole city from the drawing rooms to the footpath was political.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Yeah, even Jama Masjid, the clearance along the stairs, do you remember that happening?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">30:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : Yeah, that's when Flora restaurant went. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Yeah, yea, yeah</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : Yes! They just arrived with the first clearance before Turkman Gate was ..he started...Jagmohan started demolishing what he called illegal structures. And this was really such a lovely little </span><span style="color:#262626;">restaurant. It had air conditioning. It was ...you came out down from the steps and it was in front of you. You know where the ...it's the Urdu Bazar I think near the Zenana hospital and the Urdu Bazar and this little restaurant there. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">31:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And it got demolished. And when that happened, you know, people became very nervous because there was no ... nobody knew what was illegal or legal. It was a very old basti, you know. And in Turkman Gate what they demolished was a an old Mughal basti. It was no slum they demolished. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">31:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Haan it was </span><span style="color:#262626;">''havelis''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> within which several houses had come up. [TS agrees in the background- Yea...Yea…yea]</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">31:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So this whole demolition drive… nasbandi this Sanjay Gandhi's 5-point programme essentially, how would you or </span><span style="color:#262626;">your colleagues reported in the paper; and what were the </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">31:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ???</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">31:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : Would not be reported. It would not be reported. We could report that Indira Gandhi had her 20-point programme and that there was a meeting. You know there was a lot of Congress Party meetings. So you know you could report that, you could report this Sanjay Gandhi's 5-point programme and for instance this Mrs...Indira Gandhi had two stenographers who became very powerful at this point. One was Yashpal Kapoor who was involved in ...in the case and R. K. Dhawan. And I remember going to a rally that was being addressed by Yashpal Kapoor and his wife was there wearing diamond earrings, I was so shocked. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">32:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> That you know, until then there was a certain decorum in the political class, they didn't show off and they didn't wear that sort of thing and I remember being very struck, I've never forgotten that. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">32:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> This woman sitting there, you know, with her diamond earrings. And then once Sanjay Gandhi's Youth Congress people, they used to wander about...they were real thugs...closing down shops and I mean it was like a ...like you imagine that Hitler's Germany would have been. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">33:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So if you picked up papers say somewhere between the Emergency say November in 1975, what would the first page of…what would the first page of the paper look like given that you were not allowed to report political news unless it was..?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">33:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : There would be a press release...maybe Indira Gandhi's speech...or you know if Sanjay Gandhi had made a speech at some Jalsa that would be reported....it was complete press release journalism.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">33:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Whatever the government gave us we reported.</span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Malla Singh of </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Seminar''</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--TS doesn’t consider Malla Singh as a journalist. </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On what kind of conversations did TS hear around Old Delhi?</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Most conversations were around nasbandi and Rukhsana Sultana (chum of Sanjay Gandhi) entering into people’s home in Old Delhi to expound the virtues of nasbandi.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Once TS was confused with Rukhsana Sultana, putting the former in danger.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On the nature of conversations to be heard in Old Delhi.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Jagmohan and Turkman Gate.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On other ‘beautification’ drives in Old Delhi.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--It was an old Mughal Basti that was demolished rather than slums at Turkman Gate.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--ON how was the excess and demolition and such measures reported in the papers?</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---They were not reported.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Could only report the many Congress Party meetings.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On Mrs Gandhi’s two stenographers-Yashpal Kapoor and R. K. Dhawan becoming famous.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Wearing diamond earrings at a political rally considered as crass.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Sanjay Gandhi’s Youth Congress were thugs.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--what kind of news one would likely to have found in November 1975?</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Press release and speeches of Gandhis.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">33:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : What kind of human interest stories could you carry?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">33:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : Flower shows....movies...I started to write, I can't remember person or  later a column called </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Passing By''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, yea, where </span><span style="color:#262626;">again you couldn't interview politicians passing by; but you know celebrities, you know...there were no </span><span style="color:#262626;">celebrities in those days but it was a very dull newspaper. You got nothing ...you got no news.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : What about, I mean because people were....</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : She actually admitted...Indira Gandhi...one of the few admissions that she made that she was asked by some BBC correspondent- what was the worst mistake she made? And she said I shouldn't have imposed censorship because she stopped getting feedback. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : She didn't have any idea...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : She had no idea of the anger in the ci...not just city, the country. North India was burning. There was ...because of the nasbandi programme started and this, you know, demolition drive and all that sort of business. There was real anger developing. And in Haryana I think, they beat up people and you know in the villages when they came. And yet the teachers and the people who were the officials were given these targets to meet. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">34:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Had no choice but try to meet them because otherwise they could lose their jobs. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">35:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Did you ever talk to any of these people who were directly...</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">35:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : (Phone rings) Can I take this? ---- [FY : Yeah]</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">35:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So I was asking about given that the arrest kept happening and people were really release on the roll and arrested again...were you  able to report any of that?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">35:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : no!</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">35:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Did you even on your own account did you manage to get ..have a conversation with these people who were in jail?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">35:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : Aaaa....no! Because you know, you met the people who were underground like I ...I ...you know because Vasundra Raje was a friend of mine. I actually met her then. I met her mother first. And you know so there was ...I didn't meet anybody from jail. No but there was a lot of information coming out because there were journalists in jail so we knew. Naveen Patnaik </span><span style="color:#262626;">was also a friend of mine and his father was in jail...they were all together playing cards etc. He said they were doing quite well in the Emergency; we were having too bad a time...we seem to be having a much worse time outside jail because you know I don't think that they had a bad time. I think that the ...the repression on you know Jaipur was raided and then Rajmata Jaipur and Rajmata Gwalior were both put into the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Phasi kothi''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...and that was later, and that we all found out later on. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">36:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But at the time what we did know was you know I can't ...yeah...it was after Turkman Gate ...</span><span style="color:#262626;">Sheikh Abdullah was released...there was the Kashmir Accord...that was one of the few good things that she did in that period; and Farooq Abdullah came back but </span><span style="color:#262626;">Sheikh Abdullah as soon as he was release went to where they had thrown these people from Turkman Gate in uhmmm </span><span style="color:#262626;">Khichripur and Trilokpuri across the Jangpura and there was nothing, it was just a flatland with in chalk drawn out the area that they were given.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">37:07</span><span style="color:#262626;">  And these are people who had proper homes you know, once. So he went and made a very strong speech saying, you know, that... he spoke against the Emergency and did it openly and, you know, that we weren't allowed to report. But I remember meeting Farooq Abdullah and I confirmed with him that his father had made the speech. So it was all word of mouth, you know, all the news that we got. We all knew what was going on and some wise people kept notes.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">37:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Did you keep notes?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">37:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : I kept notes. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">37:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : For everyday?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">37:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : No I didn't keep them that regularly but I've got all ...almost all my notebooks. And I...you know writing Durbar would not have been possible without that. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">37:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : What were the channels of communication from the jail...you're saying what was happening in the jail was known to you. What were the channels of communication from the jail?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">37:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : Visitors would go to meet their relations that was the </span><span style="color:#262626;">main channel of communication. Political workers would go to meet their leaders and that was another channel of communication. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">38:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> That was really the way the people found out what was going on inside the jails. But you know I think that the what I remember it was very difficult to distinguish or not but the...it was the lower level political workers who suffered the most. You know, I mean, they were living in very bad conditions, and it’s a very sad commentary on our political leaders that they saw what the conditions was in the jail and they've never done anything to improve them. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">38:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] ; Given that there no...you said there was no...nobody was allowed criticise the government, I mean there should be no criticism of the government. How did you report something like crime or a natural disaster? Was there any natural disaster even of a small scale?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">39:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : Chasnala ..that was after the Emergency was declared as far as I remember. I think it was huge and nobody was really allowed to report. I think it was reported as in passing. Look it up and you'll find just small references to it. But it was like a thousand officially a thousand miners just killed in the ...it filled up with water...the mine. No, you could report anything. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">39:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : What about crime? I mean what about crime</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">39:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : You know I mean obviously if some ...but you know in those days even a woman who was killed as a dowry death would be one paragraph- Girl dies Cooking- you know sort of saying. But you know I mean I suppose if it was a plain little murder or something...probably got reported. I don't know...I wasn't interested in crime reporting. But I think crime reporting didn't have a problem. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">39:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Crime reporting had no problem. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">39:55</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So one part of the newspaper would be obviously text, the other part is photographs. How was the country being visually represented? I mean I remember Raghu Rai's photographs is something you have mentioned, I think...</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Life Goes on in Chandani Chowk''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, you said in </span><span style="color:#262626;">Durbar- Life Goes on in Chandani Chowk as usual. He took that photograph and there were lots of policemen around. So ..</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">40:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : Ya he did better than us because you see, you could either take a picture that looked quite innocent opposite Jama Masjid and there are ...there was maybe a ...I think that got into the papers by accident...where the...the...they did some shoot in the riot that I was talking about and the...you know how they draw the thing in chalk where the body falls...and there were policemen standing around, you know, smoking over there. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">40:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And I think he got a picture of that into the Statesman. He did better than the reporters. He could get in quite a lot of stuff. You know slyly. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">40:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] But otherwise what was the...what was the visual representation in the papers? How was the country being represented?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">40:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : There were lots of pictures of Indira Gandhi...lots of pictures of Sanjay Gandhi...lots of pictures of whoever came to visit her, you know would go to see her, and if she went to somewhere.....Wherever she went there would be this whole DAVP type pictures (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Ref. </span>: Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity''<span style="color:#262626;">) that we printed, you know. Rallies really...all her little rallies.</span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">What kind of human stories got written?</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--flower shows, movies, a column </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">called </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Passing By.''</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Indira Gandhi admitted that censorship was a mistake.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---…because she had no idea of the real extent of anger that people felt towards her Emergency conditions.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Did TS report on the arrests being made? </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> NO.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Did TS speak to people in jail?</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Didn’t meet in jail.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--met Vasundra Raje.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On what the arrested people do while in jail.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Naveen Patnaik</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> Rajmata Jaipur and Rajmata Gwalior were both put into the </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Phasi kothi.''</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- On release of Sheikh Abdullah and Kashmir Accord and visited Khichripur and Trilokpuri where people from Turkman Gate were resettled---gave Anti-Emergency speech.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---But the speech was not reported. </span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--news would spread word of mouth.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--If TS kept notes.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Not regularly</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--How did the </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">arrested communicated with the outside world? ---Through visiting family members but mainly lower level political workers who incidentally also suffered the most.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Odd that though many leaders spent time in jail, they did not do anything to improve the conditions.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Whether natural disasters were allowed to be reported?</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---There weren’t any natural disasters but the Chasnala mine tragedy was made a footnote.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Crime report?</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---subtly for example, dowry death reported as girl died while cooking.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On the visuality of </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">the newspaper reportage—Reference to Raghu Rai’s </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Life Goes on in Chandani Chowk.''</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---In TS’s opinion Raghu Rai fared better because of his medium.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On the representation of the country in the papers?</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---With pictures of Gandhis and travels of Mrs Indira Gandhi.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">41:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : And was it same before the Emergency or and after?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">41:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : No no no...the newspapers....if you look at this book that Raghu Rai has done on the Bihar Movement, you'll see how much reporting there was of the JP Movement, of the student agitations, of...you know it was a very lively press before with this kind of reporting....not very imaginative reporting not the kind of reporting that you see today at all. But at least they got reported. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">41:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Things like George Fernandes on the run for instance....</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">42:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : Forget it! No way but before that there was that huge </span><span style="color:#262626;">railway strike which got massive reporting in... in...the national media. So all of that had stopped. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">42:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : And apart from, you know, </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, were the heroes of the Emergency but were there other vernacular newspapers or smaller things that were doing something locally that you think was relevant ?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">42:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : I am sure that there were but I don't know about it because you know as I said to you it wasn't like as it is now, where you just...you just go to the spot to report. In those days they didn't like that. They had stringers. Every newspaper in Delhi had stringers. You're not going to believe this but right upto the when Bhindranwale </span><span style="color:#262626;">''(Ref.:''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#222222;">''Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the leader of the Damdami Taksal''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) started his movement, Punjab was being reported by stringers. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">42:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So I remember coming back from England in '82 or whatever after my son was born and everything and I said - why has nobody interviewed him? And they said- Oh he's very scary and you know...blah blah blah. And I said - Why aren't you sending somebody from here? I had to beg my News Chief. I said, 'look I'm a sikh and I'd be able to speak to him at least. He doesn't speak any language except Punjabi.' That's how you know how....then once one newspaper- The </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Telegraph''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> did the best reporting of Punjab and Kashmir actually when the ...when the trouble started but Punjab at that point was being reported by local stringers. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">43:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And most of India was reported that way. Then were very small little local newspapers like maybe them but you didn't have </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Dainik Jagaran''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Dainik Bhaskar''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and none of that existed.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">43:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Sorry since you said </span><span style="color:#262626;"> interview and I forget to ask this of you before...the Sanjay Gandhi interview, the accidental interview that you did ...what did that...what was that interview about and what did he say?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">44:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : I just asked him...he was out there...they were planning for the supporters to come and meet Mrs Gandhi on the roundabout and it was a five-minute interview. And I said, 'what </span><span style="color:#262626;">did you think of judgement?'- And he said, 'it's a stupid judgement.' </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">44:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So I said, 'so what is Mrs Gandhi going to do then? Is she going to accept it? Is she going to resign because the order was that she had to resign for six years.' And he said, 'of course not' or something like that...I've been looking for that interview by the way but it was so buried in the paper that it doesn't exist, you know. I mean if it does then I have to go through a lot of uhmm but it was just that sort of stuff. But he's didn't say they were going to defy the ...the order...the judgement. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">44:4645:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Nor did he indicate that there was going to be declaration of Emergency. I don't think he had anything to do with it. So at that point...this is the 12th...12th of June and he didn't say much about anything other than that it was a stupid judgement. Wow!</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">45:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY]: All right, so towards the...you know towards the closing of the Emergency was there any anticipation at all amongst the journalists that it would be coming to an end?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">45:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : No and again ...you must read Durbar. I've actually described what happened. It was very rainy kind of day when they...they...these guys were released at...We were in the Kumbh Mela...the whole lot of us...every major newspaper editor not editor but every journalist...Raghu Rai included, you know, other than Kuldip Nayar who was here, the rest of us were at the Kumbh Mela...Mark Tully, foreign correspondents etc. we were all in Allahabad. And this rumour started to spread on the 19th of December or something like that ...18th or 19th? which is the last day of the Kumbh, you know all were rushing into the river and then they rushed off out of the city. And so this rumour started spread that Indira Gandhi was coming and that she was going to announce elections. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">46:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And Kuldip had apparently already done a story saying -elections going to be announced. So we were all you know ready for ...for the announcement ...what we didn't realise was what was going to happen after that because once she made her announcement, it was raining and freezing cold, we all </span><span style="color:#262626;">went to the...to try to get a train to Delhi and it was impossible. There were eight of us, we got into a coupe. We finally managed to get in there....there was a stampede. And people with lathis trying to break the train before we left. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">46:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So you know that's when we first heard that there were going to be elections. Then when the...Kamal Nath told me later that he and Sanjay were actually in Kashmir when she made this announcement. And that Sanjay was very upset because he said- you can either have an Emergency or you can have elections. So it's much better to lift the Emergency and then have elections. And he's right...that's what she should have done.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">47:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But anyway what she did was I think that the intelligence reports she was given were so misleading, you know, the intelligence was so misleading...you know either the intelligence was so scared of her that they indicated to her that she was still very popular. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">47:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And you know, she was such a giant figure in the Indian imagination that nobody thought she could be unpopular. So every...she must have thought even more than anyone else that she would ride this through. And when the elections...so the Opposition leaders were released shortly after this, I think in the first week of January or the second and they barely, you know got their act together when they decided they will have this first rally in the Ramlila Maidan where Vajpayee made this, you know, </span><span style="color:#262626;">''kooli hawa mein saas to le'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> speech.  And it was when he ...actually it was so boring those leaders that even when the most of the speeches were going on most of us in the press enclosure were saying- they are this lot...peasants...nobody is going to vote for them. They were so dull. I mean they'd just come out of jail, you would have thought that they would have something you know magnetic ...magical to say. Nothing! And I was actually going to leave when one of these guys who knew Vajpayee, you know, I had never heard him speak before, he knew he was such a good speaker he said, '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''mat jaao'''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. He said, '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Atal ji ke liye sara crowd jitna tum dekh rahi ho, yeh sab Jan Sangh ka hai''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.' And then, you know, he stood up there, you know, like an actor, </span><span style="color:#262626;">you know liket thsi with his eyes closed, and you know, what was it?--- </span><span style="color:#262626;">''baad muddat ke mile hain diwane''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...' and then the crowd went mad....mad, you know. They stood up and started cheering and  then you know he made this incredible speech, where, you know just the sher was the beginning of it- </span><span style="color:#808080;"> </span>''"Baad muddat ke mile hain deewane, Kehne sunne ko bahut hain afsaane, Khuli hawa me saans to le lein, Kab tak rahe azaadi kaun jaane." ''Then he made the speech about, you know'' 'hum bhi mante hain ki abadi bahut bar gaye hai eska alaj humko dundna chahiya lekin janwaro ki tehra trucko mein bhar bhar ke nasbandi nahi ki ja sakti hai insano ki''.' Wonderful speech...really one of the best speeches he's ever made. 49:36 At the end of the event, it was raining and cold...this is January in Delhi in last week or so, I think it was 29 of January. I'm not sure. Any way then they started these party workers BJP mostly just Jan Sangh Party workers holding out these sheets, and not one person left without giving something. 49:57 And then we realised that there was something going that we hadn't noticed, you know...that's how it had happened<span style="color:#262626;">.</span>

|| <div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Pre-Emergency reporting was dynamic and extensive for its time.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--No report of George </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Fernandes on the run.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On vernacular reportage.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--TS not conversant with the vernacular reportage at the time.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On how newspapers gathered news---through stringers.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---TS found on her return to India that people were afraid to interview </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Bhindranwale.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Disturbances in Punjab being reported through stringers.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On TS’s interview of Sanjay Gandhi.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Sanjay Gandhi called the judgement stupid and that Indira was not going to resign.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Sanjay didn’t indicate that Emergency was going to be declared.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On journalists’ anticipation towards the end of Emergency.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Reference to TS book- </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Durbar.''</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Most journalists were in Kumbh Mela when the rumours of the news that Indira Gandhi will announce elections ---so all rushed back with much difficulty.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Kuldip Nayar ahead in reporting about the imminent elections.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---But nobody expected Gandhis’ to lose.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Sanjay Gandhi was unaware that Indira Gandhi was going to announce elections.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Indira Gandhi didn’t know the people’s anger towards her</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> her people too scared to tell her. </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---TS on the rallies preceding the elections and post-release of the Opposition leaders.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---TS on the magic of Vajpayee’s speech and the resonance it had for the people.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On people actually actively engaging in the speeches.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">50:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : And JP also gave his speech, I think somewhere around.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">50:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : JP was not at this rally. He is...there was Morarji, there was ...there was the others...not even Jagjivan Ram. Jagjivan Ram didn't leave till a few days after this...clever man, he waited for ..to see but believe me ...you may believe it or not there was not a single senior journalist in Delhi who believed that Mrs Gandhi could lose. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">50:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Not until election day. And you know, we would come back ...and I know we didn't travel, I was still covering Jama Masjid but Raghu Rai and I went that morning to the Jama Masjid and there was a queues huge queues and they said, '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''dekho hum kisko dei rahe hain''</span><span style="color:#262626;">- </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Jai nasbandi, jai bulldozer, yeh lo''</span><span style="color:#262626;">!' you know. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">50:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Unbelievable by then of course the imam of Jama Masjid had stood with the leader of the RSS on the steps of the Jama Masjid and said </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''ke hum falana hum enko haraenge manzoor hai''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.' And everybody was going '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''manzoor hai'''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, you know,...so it was all very melodramatic by the end of it but nobody believed she would lose. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">51:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Yea I believe that V. C. Shukla also slated the release of ..I mean the screening of Bobby on television the day Jagjivan Ram </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">????</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">51:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : Yea, Indira Gandhi did that. ..yea...yea...not Jagjivan Ram that rally I'm talking about ...the Ramlila Maidan rally ...that was another thing we heard- Oh god she's going to show Bobby and you know nobody will come, everyone's going to stay at home and blah blah...it was a Sunday.---- [FY: Okay] --- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">51:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> That was the rally. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">51:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : That was the rally. Did you attend any of the other rallies?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">51:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : I attended the one where Jagjivan Ram made his announcement...that was in the boat club. And there was </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#2c2c2c;">Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and Jagjivan Ram and Vajpayee again...again full of </span><span style="color:#262626;">''sher …sher shayari''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. He ...they broke the stage down. They said, you can't build a stage on the boat club, so he said, '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''yeh dekhiye ki hamne intezam jo kiya tha enhone kya kiya hai...Khandar bata rahe hain...imarat buland thi''</span><span style="color:#262626;">!' (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''trans.: Look at the arrangements </span><span style="color:#262626;">we had made…what have they done to it…run-down state is indicative of ….foundation was strong.)''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So again you know he ...he was mesmerizing. It was his finest hour. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">52:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> those first days after the Emergency was over.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">52:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So this was still when the Emergency was on when the election was declared. Were you able to report these rallies?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">52:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : The Emergency was not lifted until the end of March. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">52:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Yeah, so were you able to report these and how were these rallies reported?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">52:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : Oh! These ...you see...I don't think we were...we could report a speech or two. I think press censorship was lifted. Yea, these got reported. I am not sure though. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">52:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : The censorship was not lifted that I know for a fact but I think people were taking chances.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">52:55</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : I think so. Certainly the Boat Club Rally and Jagjivan Ram's resignation and all that was reported and Vijay Laxmi Pandit's speeches were reported. Look up the papers, you'll see. I'm not absolutely sure. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">53:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : What about Indira Gandhi's rallies?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">53:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : You know they could collect  crowd and they would bring big buses full of...again she got fooled as did every senior editor in this town thinking that she would still manage to pull it off. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">53:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So because you know, there were lots of people at her rallies. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">53:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So once the election was declared were journalists taking any risks? Were you personally able to report things that you were not being able to report until now?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">53:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : Raghu Rai's picture, the famous picture...voting day ...you know of the guy putting in (Ref: Photograph taken by Raghu Rai of a rag picker in Old Delhi putting Indira Gandhi's poster in his garbage bag, which was published by the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> once the election results were clear), you know he said to me, on </span><span style="color:#262626;">the wall was  a nasbandi slogan- hum do hamar ek... (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''trans.: We two, one of ours''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) ---[FY : Hamare do] (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''trans.: Two of us''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.) --- ...become ek (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''trans.: became ‘one’ by the end of it.''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) by the end of it. Hum do hamara ek. ...The picture exists and there was this and he, I was...,yaar mein file karna hai.' </span><span style="color:#262626;">''(Trans.: Friend I have to file this.)''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> He said, 'ruko ruko ruko, and he waited for him to put a poster of Indira Gandhi, which he'd seen lying there into that thing...</span><span style="color:#262626;">''so garibi nahi hati, garib woh poster daal raha''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Indira Gandhi </span><span style="color:#262626;">''ka kure ke thele mein aur piche nasbandi ka slogan saath mein hai''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.' (Trans.: </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Stop! Stop! Stop! ….so she didn’t alleviate/remove poverty, that poor man is putting a poster of Indira Gandhi in his rag-pack and behind is the slogan of sterilisation''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">54:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Very powerful picture...very powerful picture. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">54:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] But Raghu Rai said that Kuldip Nayar refused to publish it for a ...</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">54:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : Yes, he had a fight with him. He threatened to leave if Kuldip Nayar didn't publish it. It came out later...yeah that's right. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">54:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So what about other reporting? How did ...I mean was there sort of euphoria or they were like 'acha she'll come back and it'll be the same again.'</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">54:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : Once the ...it was clear that even she'd lost her seat, you know, I mean, there was dancing in the streets of Delhi. There was everyone was on Bahadur Shah...the whole city was on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg and watching the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> saying because there was no television, right? And I mean there was only Doordarshan, where are they going to report any of this? </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">55:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And there was cheering...it was about 4 or 5 in the morning I think that when we got home, you know. It was ...it was...it was... a very exciting political time.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">55:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : How did you celebrate? </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">55:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : I am telling you we were all in Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg and we were ...there was a whole group of us journalists, you know. We didn't, I got home about 6 in the morning, my </span><span style="color:#262626;">mother was having a fit...Indira Gandhi's lost. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">55:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : You know it's a right after the you know once the new government had been sworn in and Morarji Desai was the Prime Minister...This is had been a major era so to speak in journalism in terms of you know fearing that you would not have free journalism at all. What changed after the new government came in? Did you just go back to the previous era? What...what remained of the new, you know, shenanigans that had been put into operation?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">56:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : The </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Time of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, and the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> have remained establishment papers to put it mildly....nothing changed for them. The </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> has kind of disappeared. And the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> has continued to be a rebellious strong paper but you see the ..the...the interesting about it was that you know when journalists went to Morarji Desai or George Fernandes, I can't remember who'd called, and said -what are you going to do to the industrialists who backed Mrs. Gandhi during the Emergency? </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">56:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> He said, 'what should I do to media people who did that? So I'll give you the same punishment then'. So I mean, it was a very shameful period in Indian journalism </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">56:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> because really you know the whole point about journalism is to try and tell the truth of what you're seeing because it's meant to be the first draft of history. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">57:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And if you look at that Emergency period, if you look at the reporting there's nothing...there's no draft. All the...Coomi's book has come out now...it's forty years on. I wrote </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Durbar''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> three years ago until then even the books didn't come. George Verghese wrote his, you know, biography. You should read that if you haven't. His autobiography in which he talks it...what happened then in the Hindustan Times. But journalism really changed in India when for a start M. J. Akbar...I mean he's not my best friend but we have to give him credit for this. When the magazines started you know I</span><span style="color:#262626;">''ndia Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> started during the Emergency but it didn't do any...it couldn't do any reporting really. And I remember memorably Chand Joshi did I think the first real </span><span style="color:#262626;">analysis of the Emergency and the title which I love that thing from the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Alice in Wonderland''</span><span style="color:#262626;">- “the time has come to talk of cabbages and kings”, you know. He had that on the top and then the whole account and then accounts of torture, accounts of prisoners, everything started to come out. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">58:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And then Akbar in </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Sunday Magazine''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> did some really deep you know analysis of what had happened and then when the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Telegraph''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> newspaper began, with him as the editor, it was a very vibrant paper. And this is before television took off, you know, because television only really took off in the early '90s. I'm talking about '82. I came back and I was working for the...and he started to use all his most ...his best reporters, his best correspondents, to cover real stories, you know. I was covering Punjab and Kashmir, Anita Prasad was covering Sri Lanka, we went out every time there was a riot. We actually went there and didn't leave it in the hands of a stringer, right </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">59:15</span><span style="color:#262626;">And so that's when print journalism began to change was when they started to compete with the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Telegraph''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, because once the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Telegraph''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> started doing this, everybody else did. </span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On speeches by other Opposition </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">leaders.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Morarji Desai</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Jagjivan Ram.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Imam of Jama Masgid stood with the RSS leader to show election support</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">indication of angers towards Congress.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Deliberate screening of a movie Bobby at the time of Opposition speech planned by Indira.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---More on Speeches by Jagjivan Ram, </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#2e74b5;">Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- The punch lines </nowiki></span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#2e74b5;">of the speeches.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----Journalists could report on a handful of speeches.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----On Jagjivan Ram’s rally at the Boat Club.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#2e74b5;">---Indira believed that high attendance at her rallies indicative of her imminent victory.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#2e74b5;">---On journalists taking risks post-Emergence.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#2e74b5;">---Reference to Raghu Rai’s photo of garbage man stuffing his bag with Indira related posters.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Tussle between Kuldip Nayar and Raghu Ram over printing of the image.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----Once Indira’s defeat was in sight, there were celebrations at Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---More on celebrations.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On Morarji Desai swearing in as PM.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On the post-Elections tone adopted by Morarji Desai.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Emergency period as being a shameful episode for Indian journalism.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Reference to even writings on the Emergency being written only in recent years- Coomi Kapoor’s book</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">'' The Emergency: A Personal History''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> (2015), and TS’ </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Durbar ''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">(2012).</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Biography of B.G. Verghese on </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''HT.''</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--M.J. Akbar in </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Sunday Magazine''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> did an in-depth analysis of Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Chand Joshi as doing the first real analysis of Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Under Akbar </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Telegraph''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> became a vibrant paper. </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--T.V. took off in the early 1990s.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----TS covered Punjab and Kashmir; Anita Prasad covered Sri Lanka.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Telegraph''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> became a challenger in newspaper circuit. </span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">59:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So you're saying like post-the Emergency journalism actually improved  because you realised you had to be more vibrant?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">59:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : It actually continued as usual in the same sleepy you know clerical fashion until the Telegraph came. And you know then I can't remember when </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Dainik Jagaran''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Dainik Bhaskar''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> you know they became so big. But you know they're the two biggest newspapers in the world now...readership wise. And I write in </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Amar Ujala''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> which is number four. And it still has readership of I think three crores. So its huge now Hindi journalism is really really huge and all those big, you know, I'm not sure whether the big ...like say</span><span style="color:#262626;">'' Anand Bazar Patrika''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, I don't know what they were reporting. And because that was already a very big paper. It was the biggest paper at that point. And then Malayala Manorama and yeah and those newspapers were doing. I </span><span style="color:#262626;">don't know what they were doing but I imagine that there was no real stories coming out. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">60:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Yeah I mean, I mean when we talk of the Emergency the vernacular newspapers are never spoken of, which why were...</span>

=== <span style="color:#3482b1;">60:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : They didn't exist. There was </span><span style="color:#222222;">Jansatta</span><span style="color:#262626;">. I'm not even sure that ...I remember seeing </span><span style="color:#262626;">Hindustan</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and the </span><span style="color:#262626;">Navbharat Times</span><span style="color:#262626;">. And they followed the policy of the </span><span style="color:#262626;">Times of India</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and the </span><span style="color:#262626;">Hindustan Times</span><span style="color:#262626;">. And if you notice to this day those two newspapers will always be cautious about criticising about anything that the government does. </span> ===

<span style="color:#3482b1;">60:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : They’re always dilly dallying between 'should we say this or maybe this'.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">61:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : The </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> has now become the Rhymes of India, you know…with all those catchy little headlines, you know...alliterations and all that sort of business, you know. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">61:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So what was your first story that you did after the results of the elections were declared?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">61:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : You know, for a start the old....I did the Turkman Gate, yeah. On the anniversary of the Turkman Gate is I think 19th of April and the elections and all that were over by March and so I remember going back there and meeting people, who'd, you know, people who would been in....lost relatives at that...in that thing. So I actually that continued to be my beat...Old Delhi. And it was full of stories. So all of those stories that we couldn't report during the Emergency, were that..., you know, we started doing them. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">61:55</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : What kind of stories emerged ?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">61:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : Of...you know...what called the excess of the Emergency. The people who'd been affected by nasbandi, people who'd been affected with the ...what was it called ...resettlement programme, yeah. ---- [FY : Beautification] ---- ...yeah beautification. Resettlement....it was called resettlement. And so a lot of that sort of stuff really was what I did. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">62:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Okay so we've covered pretty much everything </span><span style="color:#262626;">except Sanjay Gandhi who inevitably crops up in all conversations about the Emergency. Apart from your small interview that you did. Was there any reporting about Sanjay Gandhi? What...what was the reporting about the Maruti project for instance?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">62:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : Nothing! Zero! There was reporting before.  But, you know, I mean after...after the Emergency then I think a lot of people did stories on Maruti after the Emergency was lifted. There was a lot of reporting on Sanjay's own excesses and Maneka Gandhi ...because Maneka Gandhi during the Emergency was quite little dictator herself. She would walk into newspaper office's and order people around. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">63:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So all of that started to come out. I remember the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...this cheque arrived, it was obviously a fake but god knows why we decided to publish it but you know when it came they showed it to me...it was a...for...you know, somebody like in a Swiss bank account putting a million dollars, I've forgotten the amount. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">63:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And I actually rang her being a good well trained British trained reporter to get her view on this cheque because this story had to be checked out. And my editor was a man called Mr Sahay had a fit and said, 'you're trying to warn the family that we have this cheque.' I said, 'no, I was just trying to get...' And when it didn't appear...Maneka started spreading poison against me and saying, you know, 'look at her, she didn't have the courage to write what I told her.' Oh god! </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">64:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So she continued in her dictatorial ways.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">64:05</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : She was ...she was also running a magazine called </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Surya''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> at that point of time. What was that covering?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">64:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : Well I think that it became really famous for the fact that she published those pictures of Jagjivan Ram's son and his girlfriend, you know.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">64:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So crass!</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">64:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : Yeah, no...no...no it was porn. It was porn and hasn't survived for that reason. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">64:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Did you cover the Shah Commission at all? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">64:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : I did but not ....not on a daily basis...not on a daily basis. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">64:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : But what do you remember of the Shah Commission and its supporters?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">64:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : I remember that ...that...that they were all summoned there, you know. I remember going once one Rukhsana and Sanjay were going there. You know I went for those kind of moments when they went. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">64:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And actually that's one of the great flaws</span><span style="color:#262626;"> of the Indian journalism that we didn't report adequately the importance of the Shah Commission because had the Shah Commis...you know had Charan Singh not started arresting Indira Gandhi, and allowed the Shah Commission to do its job, we might have had...we would have had administrative reform right from the Shah Commission </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">65:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> because he asked all the right questions and you know produced his report, which was quite dense, and unreadable but you know it is an important document. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">65:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Haan but then she disbanded it once she came back to power. Okay so I've asked all my questions. Is there something that you want to say about the Emergency that I've missed out on?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">65:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TS] : No, I can't think of anything except read </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Durbar''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">65:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : I will absolutely. I've ordered it, it just hasn't come yet. I just returned...  </span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On changes in journalism post-Emergency.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Journalism stayed lukewarm until Telegraph came to the scene.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Doesn’t remember when </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Dainik Jagaran''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> and </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Dainik Bhaskar''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> became big.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---TS now writes for </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Amar Ujala ''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">wide readership base.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Malayala Manorama</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> no real stories coming from it.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On vernacular newspapers.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---In TS’s opinion, they didn’t really exist except for </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Jansatta''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On TOI and HT still cautious in criticising the government.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On the language of TOI reportage.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---TS continued to do her beat in Old Delhi in post-Emergency as it was full of stories.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Stories on the excesses of the Emergency-nasbandi, resettlement etc.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On reportage of </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Sanjay Gandhi and Maurti Project etc.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Many did stories on Maruti project once Emergency was lifted as well as excesses of Maneka Gandhi.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Incident of a cheque with large amount of money from a Swiss account in Maneka Gandhis’ name came to Statesman’s office</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">TS called to verify---got rebuked by S. Sahay, the editor for altering the Gandhis’---TS did not print Maneka’s comment so the latter bad mouthed TS.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On Maneka’s magazine called </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Surya.''</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">''''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Surya infamous for printing pornish pictures of Jagjivan Ram’s son and his girlfriend.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On TS covering Shah Commission.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---No.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On TS’s memories of Shah Commission.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---TS went when Sanjay Gandhi and Rukhsana Sultana went. </span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Shah Commission was not reported in details</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">one of the biggest flaws of Indian journalism at the time.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Charan Singh’s arrest of Indira Gandhi too hasty as it did not allow for in-depth examination of Emergency.</span>

|-
|}
<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>

<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>

.NjMz.NDc

2017-11-03T11:49:28Z

Bhanugs:

<div style="text-align:center;"><span style="color:#262626;">'''INTERVIEW WITH TARUN BASU'''</span></div>

<u>'''INTERVIEWEE'''</u>* Name: Tarun Basu [TB]
* Occupation: Journalist

<u>'''INTERVIEWER'''</u>* Kai Friese [Kai]
*

<u>'''Medium: Video + Audio recordings'''</u>* Format: Audio .wav
* Language: English with smatterings in Hindi
* Location of Interview: <span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#222222;">India Habitat Centre, New Delhi</span>
* Date of the interview: 30 January 2016 15:35:52

<u>'''Clip name/DURATION: '''</u>* TarunBasu.WAV
* Length 01:04:26
* Bit rate: 1411kbps
* Size: 650 MB
* Date modified: 30/01/2016

<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">Interview Starts</span>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:17.244cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
| style="color:#3482b1;" |
|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">Keywords/Phrases</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">0:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Interview with Tarun Basu on the 30 Jan 2016 at the IHC. Tarun start anywhere- tell me where you came from, was it Delhi or ...and how you got into journalism, and when</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : Well, when the Emergency happened in 75, I was three years in the profession. [Kai in the background: so so]. I was as a very junior kind of a desk-man at the United News of India </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">0:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> news agency.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And is that where you started? Was that your first job?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : That was my first job. I'd just about, I think, got confirmation, conformations were not so easy to get those days but I'd just about, I think, got my confirmation. And then once you get a </span><span style="color:#262626;">confirmation, you're straight away put on the night-shift. You know in some ways...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">[Kai] : You're from Delhi originally?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : I'm from Delhi...born and brought up in Delhi.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Had you done some training in journalism or just come out of college</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:04 [TB] :</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I'd just come out of the college. I was a science student and I was a science student because the school where I was a student...the school was St Columba’s… they were experimenting with science for a couple of years. So I had no choice but to do science, although my interest was in humanities and English language. I wanted to do History but my father thought I was better off doing...Engineering at that time...that was the done thing at that time. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">1:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And then I did science from Delhi University, Chemistry in fact. But then that three years was too much for me and I started writing</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : In college itself?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : In college itself and then did some freelancing and then ... my father actually thought I would go into do post-graduate, MSc in Chemistry, which he got me because he knew a professor there and he thought I had got into MSc but all the time I was doing rounds of newspaper offices. And trying to plug my stories.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Okay. So what kind of things were you writing as a freelancer?</span>

<span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : General, I think at that time more issues regarding students' problems in education, problems in the University, problems in getting a job, you know the usual things that the students...I did some little music, as usual, you know, I was the Rolling Stones’ fan and that... I don't really remember.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And the I'd got into the UNI. I just gave a test among other places and …</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Where was it at that time? Was it at Khan Market or they'd moved to the...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : It was there at the Rafi Marg only where they are right now; </span><span style="color:#262626;">and in fact there is a curious story in that, I don't know if its relevant. The day the ... there was a test in the UNI, I was at the Old Delhi- Delhi Public Library, opposite the Old Delhi Railway Station...leafing through some books etc. and then a page fell. Just a page fell...I just picked the page and it was something about the Vietnam War and I just, a page, glanced through it absent-mindedly and read it. And so when I came in the afternoon to UNI, one of the questions was on Vietnam War. Just about four hours later, so of course it was easy for me [Kai in the background: Stroke of luck there]. And I was psyched, and I was told later that I'd topped the test among 100 odd people. So that was my journalism story at that time. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">3:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I'd gone later to Berlin to do a Diploma in Journalism but that was in '76 only.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Okay. .. during the Emergency!</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : During the Emergency I tried to get out.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : You must tell me about that also.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : Yea yea, I will tell you about that.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And who was running the show at UNI when </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> G. G. Mirchandani...legendary General Manager, Chief Editor... G. G. Mirchandani. He was a former Government Information Officer (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note: He worked with Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting''</span><span style="color:#262626;">). I think he was a former advisor, at some point to Nehru (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note: G. G. Mirchandani was a Press Officer to Jawaharlal Nehru''</span><span style="color:#262626;">)</span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Background of TB--</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> 3 yrs into journalism at the time of Emergency at United News of India</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---being born and brought in Delhi---St Columba’s School---science background----scope of science more—parental pressure</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---clandestinely working as freelancer </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---types of stories TB writing</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---general students’ issues, music</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Job at United News Agency</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- Test at UNI---- leafing through at Delhi Public Library---Vietnam War</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---During Emergency</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">G. G. Mirchandani- </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">3:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But tell me a little bit about the set-up at UNI. It was...I mean ...owned or run by a...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB]: UNI... both UNI and PTI were run by newspapers as a trust. You know PTI was the largest and UNI was set-up to basically give competition to PTI. And UNI was largely full of young people. And... who were brought fresh out of college and then as a General Manager at that time loved to say, "that we put you straight into the deep end...either you drown or save yourself." Very few of us drowned...there were a couple of people who drowned but mostly all of us swam and the hard </span><span style="color:#262626;">way learnt our job. I mean most of us learnt our trade on the job, literally. And since we got very little money to support ourselves...I started off with 200 rupees per month...I was very grateful that Mirchandani gave me a job for 200 rupees a month. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">4:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;"> He asked me two questions. He said, 'do you know English?' I said, 'well, passably yes.' He said, 'but you've done science.' I said, 'you can try me out!' And then he said, 'you're a Bengali?' I said, 'yes.' That was the time when there was this whole Naxalite thing going on in Delhi University. He said, 'are you a Naxalite?' I said, 'I have sympathies with them definitely, but I'm no Naxalite. I don't think I'm seriously interested in them, I mean, you know...their ideology'. So that was it and well most of us loved doing the night duty...because night duty gave us</span><span style="color:#262626;">, of course, </span><span style="color:#262626;">freedom. It was, you know, our own time and the dormitory facilities, I mean, the...were very primitive there. Actually, they put out some rotten </span><span style="color:#262626;">''kathiyas''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''beds''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) there, full of bed bugs and they put it out in the open or in a shed kind of a place. If it was winter, you had to stay there but otherwise most of us spent out time loafing around, drinking a bit and then getting to work. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:49</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So duty hours were 6 hours at that time and so the duty hours were 9 to 3, 3 to 9, 9 to 3, 3 to 9. And 9 to 3 was one shift and 3 to 9 was another shift. So we were on the 9 to 3 duty and when we did that 9 to 3 duty we stayed on in the office and then left only in the morning. Sometimes the extra night could be called 3 a.m.  That person was a solitary person...the junior most person. I don't recall whether I was in the 9 to 3 or 3 to 9. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">6:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But on ...you know there was a lot of talk in the days prior to the days all this happened ...that martial law would happen...none of knew what actually martial law was really all that about...some vague idea that army would come in and there was a lot of jokes among senior correspondents because things were coming to a head...there was this JP (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Jayaprakash Narayan''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) agitation, and </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">6:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai adds: there was a court case] all kinds of court cases...there were demos (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''read: demonstrations''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) everyday, you there was this Bhai Mati Lal Chowk (Read: Bhai Mati Das Chowk was renamed as Chandani Chowk), the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''golechakkar''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''roundabout''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) which is not called that now, leading upto Mrs Gandhi's house, where every day, </span><span style="color:#262626;">there was, she addressed supporters and all that after arrest etc. So and then I still remember and when we were there...there were quite a few senior people ... there used to be a little, if you go to UNI, there was this shrubbery...I don't know now if (it is still) there..., which had a little wall which divided Vithalbhai Patel House from UNI and so people who, the seniors who drank there they had this little bar on the wall and they called it The Ed (corrects himself).. The Mughal Garden. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">7:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So it was called The Mughal Garden and there was this canteen at the back and there were these...all these Tamils and Keralite boys...Kerala boys who used to supply liquor to this and get them cheap. ---- [Kai: Okay]---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">7:45</span><span style="color:#262626;">  So they were all our...this thing, you know, ... what are called?! I mean...so these are the people who got us the hooch. And whatever else we got and once in a while the seniors would invite us to join them and regale (us) with ...you know all the gossip, the latest political gossip etc. So many (much) of our grounding was by being allowed to, you know, socialise and sit with the seniors, have a drink or two in the so-called, The Mughal Garden and there. So there was talk there, I remember clearly that things were hotting up and anything could happen...there could be...there was no talk of Emergency as such, military could take over but everything was a joke...nobody took it seriously. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">8:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> It was that, you know, we talk about it but it's never going to happen in India...that I clearly remember. It was that we'd talk about it. And there was all talk that journalists...that all newspapers would be shut and all that, and somehow I recall that, 'how did people know at that time?' But there was...India had not such any experience and I still remember, </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">8:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I was sitting around the desk and I don't think I was on duty at that time. I was hanging around with two-three other people, we just liked to hang around at night and then there was this Arun Kumar who later joined politics. He still is. He was in the thick of the Janta Party Movement at that time and the United Front, and now I heard (sic) only some months ago that he has switched sides and is some part of some RSS...this thing. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:19</span><span style="color:#262626;">  So he talked about that, you know, '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''kuch bhi ho sakta hai' ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">and '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''bandh ho jayega' (‘Anything can happen’''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and ‘</span><span style="color:#262626;">''it can close''</span><span style="color:#262626;">’</span><span style="color:#262626;">''). ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">I don't know where he got this </span><span style="color:#262626;">information from. So thought we should be there to see, you know. If anything happens we should be there...that was the whole idea. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And then we got these little calls, no mobile phones as you know but calls started coming from places like Indore, from Jalandhar, and from other places, that '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''kuch ho raha hai' (‘is something happening’)… ya … '''</span><span style="color:#262626;">printing press bandh </span><span style="color:#262626;">''ho ja raha hai''</span><span style="color:#262626;">' </span><span style="color:#262626;">''(‘printing press will shut down''</span><span style="color:#262626;">’) but still we never took it seriously. Printing press was (</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:56</span><span style="color:#262626;">) bandh… so what, I mean, you know! Then somebody said, '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''dekho yeh serious mamala hai soona hai''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Connaught Place </span><span style="color:#262626;">''mein''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> police </span><span style="color:#262626;">''wolice jha rahi hai'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Read as: Look! This sounds like a serious matter. Police is going to Connaught Place''</span><span style="color:#262626;">). So then we sent somebody there, some reporter there, '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''dekho koi ja raha hai?' Woh kehata, 'nahi nahi nahi kuch nahi hai.''</span><span style="color:#262626;">' (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Read as: look is someone going there?''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> He said, </span><span style="color:#262626;">''No no no there’s nothing''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) And by that time the senior reporters on the duty by night were drunk by then. I mean they would be in no position to go out anyways. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">10:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So then somebody told us that, </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''tum log kyuni nahi jate''</span><span style="color:#262626;">? ' (‘</span><span style="color:#262626;">''why don’t you go''</span><span style="color:#262626;">?’) But we were too scared and we didn't want to go straight to Connaught Place and there was no conveyance at that time. None of us had a two-wheeler or a four-wheeler or any kind of vehicle </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai: not very far but!]</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:28 [TB] :</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Yea yea but at night, you know, mid-night...after mid-night I'm talking about. It was the mid-night.</span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Set-up of UNI</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---UNI & PTI (Press Trust of India) run by newspapers as a trust--- composition at UNI—young---learning on the go—rs 200/month</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- two questions asked by Mirchandani during interview--- about grasp of English and if TB was a Naxalite</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---TB sympathised with them but not a Naxal.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Preference for night duty</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- state of dormitory at UNI </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Shift hours</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- talk of martial law but very vague understanding of the situation--- did not take it seriously</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- tensions increasing---JP agitation ---court cases--- daily demos at Bhai Mati Lal Chowk</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- makeshift bar- The Mughal Garden on the boundary between VP House and UNI---where seniors and juniors informally interacted ---- procuring hooch</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- thought of military take over over India not taken seriously ----implications of Emergency through gossip.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Arun Kumar in sync with Janta Party spoke about Emergency possibility</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---news of possibility of Emergency spreads---concern over phone pouring in about closure of printing press---still not taken seriously----but UNI guys, esp seniors already drunk by mid-night 25</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"><sup>th</sup></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> June</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Nobody wanted to go to CP and check for themselves.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">10:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But this is the night of the 25th? (read 25 June)</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : 25th. And then we got these calls (from)...it was Ludhiana, Indore, Bhopal, and then the UNI people started talk...calling in , 'I regret to let you know that our offices are also being, you know, the power has been cut off and we're hearing that newspapers are being shut. </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Nai Duniya ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">was affected if I'm not mistaken, I could be wrong, and some of these things. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Then we got, then we started altering a few people and then I don't know some MP started calling us...opposition MPs and they said, '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''dekho ham log arrest ho rahe hain. Police ayee hui </span><span style="color:#262626;">hai. Hum arrest ho rahe hain, aap log kuch karo''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.' (‘</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Look! We are being arrested. Police is here. They are arresting us, you have to do something’''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) So by that time and then, you know, within probably within half an hour, one MP after another...Socialist Party, this party and then all they started calling us. We kept get (read getting) calls from Vajpayee's office, from Advani's office, from Sikander Bakht's office, Moraji Desai's office and then there were not too many people there. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So Arun and I, who were kind of people who used to do </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> although we were a desk people</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai interjects: This is well past mid-night now?] </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] Around that time, I would not be able to say exactly what ...We thought we should do something. There were no reporters, and you know nobody was prepared to come and people actually whom...people whom when we called the people (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''read: actually when we called the people''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) they were dismissive of the whole thing. So and lot of phones were...we were not able to get also at that time. There was only land line, I mean and those phones also didn't work too well. So I very clearly remember that one of us then called up the General Manager.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">12:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> He was very very enterprising, I mean he was a very encouraging kind of a person, and in fact once I ... just to digress...Arul and I...Arul Louis - he is JNU product, you know. He had got information about that there a Nur Mohammand Taraqi who led the second </span>coup<span style="color:#ff0000;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">in Afghanistan, that was 7...that was much later [Both KAI and TB try to figure out this]. That was, I think, much later. Anyways so ....no that happened much later... the second coup happened much later... '75 if I'm not? </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">12:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai corrects: '79 I think]. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> '78 ...'78...that was much later. So...he (General Manager) was a very encouraging chap and he said, 'you guys start calling up people'. So (add: </span><span style="color:#262626;">''to''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) both of us, he said, 'you go to my room and you just start calling up people. And sit on my table and...' So went to to his room, both of us, I sat on his chair took out the directory...went to the MP's page and started calling up people. And that night, I mean, we really realised that if you take initiative and you show some enterprise, you would get your story. I mean that night we must have called up 20-30 MPs, including Vajpayee, Bakht, Advani, Morarji Desai...nearly all of </span><span style="color:#262626;">them said, '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''police ayee hui hai', 'Police hamre piche hai' (‘Police is here’, ‘Police is after us’)''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. In fact, Bakht called up to say, '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''ham ko bachao. Ham to bathroom mein atke hue hain''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Police hamka darwaza knock kar rahi hai''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.' (‘</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Save us. I’m stuck in the bathroom. Police is knocking on the door’''</span><span style="color:#262626;">). And you could hear the knocks on his door. Morarji Desai’s people said, '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''police aye hui hai and en ko bachao''</span><span style="color:#262626;">' (‘</span><span style="color:#262626;">''police is here, and save him''</span><span style="color:#262626;">’). So we were getting, you know, quotes from people, who were about to be arrested and the police were at their door and as it came we kept giving it. We didn't know what to do with it. We were not that sufficiently mature to know what to deal (read as </span><span style="color:#262626;">''do) ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">with the story and we kept giving the stories but people did not run the stories immediately. Then we got this call that Jayparkash Narayan has been arrested, and then we realised that it was something very, very serious.  You know JPN was the movement leader at that time and he had a certain stature, you know, akin to</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">14:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> our… that time for us like Mahatma Gandhi like stature at that time. So then we ...nobody knew what to do, so Arul and I again said, let's make a dash for it and if he's arrested he'll come to Parliament Street. So we ran...we sprinted to Parliament Street and then we realised that something was on because the whole place was full of cops. The whole place was full of cops, there were the police...the mounted police, and all that. So when we went there nobody really noticed us and there were no other journalist around...there was, of course, no T.V.  or anything at that time. And we just kept hanging around and nobody actually stopped us as well because nobody knew what was happening. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">15:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And we didn't have to wait too long. We just hung around here … there, and </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">15:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> tried for that...we thought we'll get some scene, we didn't expect anybody to come actually. But we thought, 'let's see what's happening' and, you know, we went around taking some little notes about scene and lot of activity...unusual activity, police there, mounted police and people ...we saw platoons marching towards Connaught Place...some going to towards Parliament Street. And then we saw this white ambassador car roll up and then we found that sandwiched between two cops was </span><span style="color:#262626;">Jayprakash Narayan</span><span style="color:#262626;">, and we ran. Then somebody tried to stop us and </span><span style="background-color:#ff0000;color:#262626;">what we went 'hame app kase hain'  and the we said, 'Aap kuch bol na chahate hain.' Then we came out </span><span style="background-color:#ff0000;color:#262626;">''vinash kale viprit buddhi''</span><span style="background-color:#ff0000;color:#262626;">,</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I mean that time even the meaning of that what didn't sink in but we just wrote it down, you know. I was a Bengali and he was a Tamil...I mean … now in 30 years 40 years later I mean it's easy ...it’s not that difficult but that time we didn't know what it actually meant but we took it down. Then we sprinted back before they just took him inside and they shooed us off. We sprinted down to the office. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> We called up (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''TB says a name which is muffled''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) and said just put it out. But by that time there were calls already ...the...that the...these things should not go out. Already by 3 O' Clock or something like that. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : From which...the Home Ministry or… </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : Home Ministry...PMO or I wouldn't know exactly, you know...I was too junior...Home Ministry...that nothing should go out but the General Manager told us- you defy it and send it. So our stories by that time had started going - Indore, Bhopal, Ludhiana, Jalandhar...newspapers being sealed, police out, cops marching...</span>
|| <div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---more calls of concern and report from </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Ludhiana, Indore, Bhopal, and then the UNI people</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">'' Nai Duniya  ''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">being affected.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---distress calls to UNI from opposition MPs about police coming to their houses</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---calls from Advani, Sikander Bakht, </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Moraji Desai's office</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---some people still being dismissive----limited calls</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- TB and Arul Louis sought advice from the General Manager</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- TB’s digression to Taraqi Coup (left incomplete)</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- GM advices TB and Arul to call MPs and gather information---all complaining about police at the door step---TB and Arul gathering live quotes</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- JP being arrested and this acted as indicator of the seriousness --- TB and Arul ran to Parliament Street----packed with police---trying to get a feel-----</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---description of the scene</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---JP Narayan being brought in </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- TB et al just start writing in ---- head back to office ---By 3:00 am orders to censor already in from Home Ministry</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---General Manager told TB et al to defy censor and keep filing</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">16:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Where were they going to? They were going to the newspapers that were being sealed.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] :</span><span style="color:#262626;"> They weren't printing them. They were going, I mean, there were still lots of newspapers...some were sealed but nothing in Delhi anything was stopped. People were just being instructed not to do it. We went, by that time, again we went back to the General Manager's room, we hammered out this story on our own, we went back to the General Manager's room, we called up every opposition MP we could...whoever we could make out and maybe we got out of 30 or 40...we must have got at least 60 percent of them, because at night they were all there. And we got quotes, we put out quotes so and so Raj Narayan said this- put it out; Morarji Desai said, Charan Singh said -- put this out. One by one...just.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">17:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Did you call any Congress...?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : No, we didn't want to, you know we did not know how to weave the story... we didn't know the big picture. We had no idea of the big picture. Right now we would write the big picture and say what it </span><span style="color:#262626;">meant...we had no clue. We were just giving inputs. ...just giving bites, inputs and putting it in. Somebody was...we were just actually putting out because nobody knew what was happening ... nobody had any clue what was happening. Then only around 4: 30- 5.00 we heard that there a emergency cabinet meeting at Mrs Gandhi's house...Emergency was proclaimed...censorship was being...this thing... that was what shocked us...we never expected. So our first instinct was we must defy it...you know...you're young, rebellious...we didn't know the consequences and obviously nobody knew what the consequences. so it was...</span><span style="color:#262626;">''chlae jao chlae jao''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...and we got full encouragement from Mirchandani. There were voices which said, 'no we should not do that...we should not...we should just listen to authority' and not… Mirchandani said, 'till we are stopped...keep on fighting.' And he was as a person an established </span><span style="background-color:#ff0000;color:#262626;">printer.</span><span style="color:#262626;"> For him to say that something very good, you know, courageous.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Sorry what was his full name?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : G. G. Mirchandani. G. G. Mirchandani. He said, 'keep on doing'. So we kept on doing it through the night. I think PTI stopped. There were papers which stopped but some were still doing it. We kept on filling till 7 O' Clock they said...we will shut you down...we will arrest you...you need to stop.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But they hadn't sent anyone to the office.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : No, but they sent the censors there...the censors came...somebody from...censors came...I think some cops came…some cops came but there was too much of a </span><span style="color:#262626;">''hulla''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> by that time...lot of reporters had come in by 5- 5:30...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And who were the censors? There was some again Home Ministry?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:18</span><span style="color:#262626;">[TB] : No no no...Press Information Bureau officials...Press Information officials. The first of these people came and they said, 'you have to stop'. They called up Mirchandani...they threatened him with arrest. And they said, 'you have to stop'. So I think we stopped by 7-7:30 but still as far as I can (or will) check with others, I mean, we were the last to stop. We were ...</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">19:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> people had earlier stopped. People, you know, when they were asked to stop they stopped. The printing presses </span><span style="color:#262626;">of the major papers…they were asked to stop and they were asked to stop early.</span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">---What happened to the filling notes done by TB et al----who decided to hammer the story out </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---called at least 60 % of opposition MPs</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- TB et al just swung it…but continued to give bites</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----news of emergency cabinet meeting at Mrs Indira Gandhi’s house.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---instinct to defy order of censors---encouragement by G G Mirchandani</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---UNI forced to stop by 7’O Clock</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Coming in of Press Information Bureau Officials threatened UNI with arrest.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">19:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] :Was the government itself putting out information for you to carry or they just enquired?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : No no...Just the government, you know, that the Emergency has been proclaimed, that past...and at 5:30 in the morning, President has appended his signature to that and this is what it means and this will happen, further instructions would follow etc. etc. etc. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">20:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So that was the most tumultuous night, I mean I'm just compressing it. First of all I don't remember all the gory details or the exciting details however you look at it. But that was I mean six hours or so ...six...seven ...I don't know...about 8 hours...It was a tumultuous period, I mean and I still remember by 4-5 O' Clock most of the senior journalists were in... all these, you know, the bureau people were in... people with the contacts and all that </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">20:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And lots of people...mostly people said, 'we should stop.' People were scared and people were worried </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">20:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> people were scared, people were worried. And people wanted to fall in line. But it was only young people like us you know, young rebellious, didn't know the consequences. We wanted to challenge authority and said, 'no, no, no, we won't' and we kept on saying, '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''nahi''</span><span style="color:#262626;">'. Lots of people just sat down ...not doing anything. It was just about four or five of us maybe which kept on filing. The General Manager was there, the News Editor...he had come and he had said, 'no no we should file…we should continue' and all that. But then I think by seven we stopped...we had to stop. The police came ...the censors came and then after that everybody had to fall in line. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">21:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> The whole censorship thing again...there were streaks of rebelliousness in the UNI people, which the censors didn't like. There was this U.C. Tewari who was the deputy principal information officer who became Principal of Information. He sat on the main desk and he vetted all the sensitive, </span><span style="color:#262626;">politically sensitive copy. So I remember couple of instance, at least my personal instances, I will tell you, where I kind of tried to challenge in my own way this thing that ...You know AP used to put out every day a little quote. Then you know from ...little quotable quote of the day, so one day there was a quote called, 'a woman's scorn is more to be feared than a bitch in heat.' I don't remember who said it but it was there. So I kind of was on night duty, so I kind of tore that part and U. C. Tewari used to sit here, I pasted it there and I went. You know typical, you know, school boy ...this thing, you know, this thing...antics...mischief and went away. </span><span style="color:#262626;">'' ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">I didn't even realise it. Obviously he took umbrage, he complained to the General Manager...I was summoned from home...I'd gone back home....I was given a dressing down...all that. But then I remember I made...I was even more determined to challenge, I mean some of the ... latently. So again another night duty, I was told very clearly anything sensitive, anything adverse, anything which is negative about India and lot of questions media and all were...And you know on the night duty, you were mostly not doing the general (news?) because nothing happened in the country, so only international news...AP, Reuters and all that and we were told that .... no no not Reuters, we were doing AP....AP...DPA...Orders that...anything adverse, anything critical...you should check...not give it all...and all of that. So we really didn't give out much other than sports copy and others, and we played safe...we didn't want to... So I remember that AP used to file these weather reports. So and....the weather said about the subcontinent etc.- there are ‘storm clouds over India,’ and it was going to rain and thundery things and weather in North India would be very bad. So I don't know what got into me </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">23:49</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Extremely pissed … there was somebody else there...I don't remember who, I said, 'look I'm going to do something.' He said, 'what?' I said, 'look I think this is a very adverse thing and its not good for India...storm clouds. I mean that's political stuff called, right?! I don't know what..so I think I'm going to check up the censors...with the censors.' He said, 'but it's 2:45...sir, are you mad...are you going to talk!' But I said, 'but I've been told to do that.'  </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">24:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai: you ‘Worked to Rule’!] ----So I still </span><span style="color:#262626;">remember what got into me. I called up the officer that side...it was a landline...picked up...'Yes?' ..sleepy of course. I said 'I am so and so from the UNI Desk and I've been instructed to check with you any adverse negative story and this is important story. And I...I thought I'd check with you.' -- 'yes!'---- 'Sir there's this AP story...weather story...'--- 'What!?' --- I said, 'Weather story.'--- 'WHAT!'------I said, 'weather story which talks about storm clouds gaining over India and there might be rain and thunderstorm and all kinds of ...it might affect agriculture.'--- 'SO!'--- So I said, 'Sir I thought I should run by you.'--- 'Are you kidding!'---I said, 'no sir but I'm just going by instructions.' And he put it down. I put it down somewhere. He was mad as a (cow). Again next day of course...But by that time we were masters, we knew how to handle these guys, you know. Initially, we were scared but and then ..these others also had these little, you know, ways we challenged these people and all that...and very soon they shut down UNI and we were merged  with PTI into one single agency called Samachar. And that was there...Samachar ran for '75 to '77.</span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Source of information to UNI</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> Government or</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Government rolling out information</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---description of the initial hours of the Emergency---people scared etc</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---young people defying orders.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---encouragement from General Manager and News Editor</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Forced to stop when censors walked in </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">U. C. Tewari—whetting all sensitive information</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- TB defying censors or restraints through admittedly childish pranks.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- sticking a mean quote on U. C. Tewari’s chair</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---TB given dressing down.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- 2</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"><sup>nd</sup></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> example of defying or mocking censors----AP’s negative weather report for Indian subcontinent…TB deliberately equated negative weather report as referring to political.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----Merging of UNI and PTI into Samachar (1975-77)</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">25:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : This happened in '75 itself...they merged them?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] :</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Yea yea…if I…If I'm not mistaken or end of '75 maybe ... I don't know exact the time ...exact...end of '75, I think. Because UNI, three-four months of the Emergency and I think they shut down...enough is enough. These guys are too rebellious and just make it into one agency, and by that time they talked about one national news agency which can, you know, weave out the Indian point of view...Indian propaganda.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai]: And they absorbed everyone or did they fire anyone and did they arrest anyone?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">26:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB (simultaneously)]: They absorbed everyone, they didn't fire anyone. No no they didn't arrest but they marginalised a lot of people. Our General Manager, D. P. Ramachandran, Deputy General Manager...he was also a kind of formidable journalist with very good contacts with Mrs Gandhi and all. He was sent to Bihali as a stringer...of all places Bhilai! And the people who were in control were the PTI </span><span style="color:#262626;">guys. You know they were the guys who were known to Vidya Charan Shukla. They were the ones who were known to Prime Minister or Sanjay Gandhi who was calling the shots.  </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">26:29</span><span style="color:#262626;">  They didn't trust the UNI guys at all…they just didn't trust. So we were made to play second fiddle in everything there...news editors and others, so and they had made it known that we were there…we had...that...they had to suffer us because there was no other place for us but we were made to say that we had no work. ...we had no work. ..actually we had no work, so we used to fool around a lot and keep on doing our little mischief wherever we could. There was not too much scope for it.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">26:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And fooled around in Connaught Place, this ..that. Then in the meanwhile Mirchandani was removed from UNI of course...he was removed and he was asked to retire. And he started some little ... he trusted me, he (I?) was very young ... he knew that you know I could...he and I and Arul and couple of others...he used to call us home, and he used to encourage us to...he used to give us little … little bits of of information...opposition information, and ask us to circulate that. And we started, you know, typing it because there was no others... no email, of course.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : So you made a cyclostyle (pamphlet)?</span>

<span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">27:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : We cyclostyled and we started circulating that. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">27:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Did you give it a name or it was just a nameless....</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : No… no… no...nameless kind of thing. I ..I... I...  I don't...I wish I had that copy of that of that.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : If yea...it would be great to see some copies of these things. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB]: But I couldn't find it, honestly. I couldn't find it, I mean not just after you called but before that also. I...maybe I'll still have...I'll see. And we used to cyclostyle it and then there were quite a few of these circulating, it was not just few of us who were doing it. And then I remember, teaming up with a few others and some of them came to my house...others we used to meet up. We were all very scared but you know when you are young, you really don't give a damn at that time. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">28:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Maybe if I was ten years older I would have been much more careful. So we used to whatever and circulate these things, I wish </span><span style="color:#262626;">email was there as I just told you.</span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">---About the merger and change in the status.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---no one fired but many marginalised like </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">D. P. Ramachandran sent to Bhilai.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----Vidya Charan Shukla toady to PM given boost</nowiki></span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Sanjay Gandhi calling shots.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- TB and other suffered in silence</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- Mirchandani forced to retire </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Mirchandani organising underground information network including TB, Arul and couple of others</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Making cyclostyles </span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">28:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And were you in touch with foreign correspondents also?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">28:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : No no no...we were not at that time.no no no... I was not that senior, you know. I was twenty-five...twenty-six at that time...twenty-three...twenty-three...twenty-four... </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">28:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] You mentioned </span><span style="color:#262626;">Myron Belkind</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (the Associated Press correspondent in Delhi) in the...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : Yeah yeah, Myron Belkind… later.... Myron Belkind came later and then I still remember one…I had a nasty incident. I was in-charge of the Foreign Desk there one Saturday or Sunday. And Mrs Gandhi had gone to Colombo. There was some non-aligned or some such meeting or some such meeting where she had gone to Colombo and where she said that- There's freedom of information in India and those Press was completely free. So that time, you know, we had these spikes...when we never use(d) a story, we used to spike it. So I was in-charge and I had the story where Mrs Gandhi said that there was...that the Press was completely ...Press was completely free and there was no problem and they could write what they felt like etc. etc. So I was charged (up). I saw that story and I said, 'all bloody bullshit' and I spiked it. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">29:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And I really thought nobody would know. Not realising that, you know, Samachar was the only source of information for everybody because the government was sourcing everything through Samachar. And within an hour or so, the Chief of Bureau or somebody who was covering Information Ministry marched down...a guy called Shukla...he's still around. what's his name...some Shukla...Shukla </span><span style="color:#262626;">''hi tha''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. (It was Shukla ) </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">29:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Shukla said]: "Oh! Who are you?"--- He didn't know me...I was from UNI. I said, 'I'm in charge'--- he said, 'you are in-charge?'----I said, 'Well, I'm managing ...doing Foreign'--- [Shulka]: 'There was a copy from Colombo?' --- I said, 'yeah, there was lot of copy from Colombo'--- [Shukla] 'Mrs Gandhi sent something?' ---- I said, 'yeah...well yes.' I didn't know what to say. I said, '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''phas gaye...saale phas gaye yeh to.''</span><span style="color:#262626;">' (‘in a pickle now, idiot’) ---- </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Kehete ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">but [Shukla]: 'Have you put it out?'---- I said, 'Yeah but I think something </span><span style="color:#262626;">didn't use' ---- [Shukla]: 'What didn't you didn't use?' ---- I said 'I showed up the spike' ...I said, 'he </span><span style="color:#262626;">''(Read as: ‘she,’ i.e. Mrs Indira Gandhi''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) said there's no Emergency ...there's no..... complete freedom of information which I thought as wrong' And here the censor is sitting, right! ---- [Shukla]: 'How can you do that?'----I said, 'Sir I am...this all is a lie!' -----[Shukla]: 'Aaaaa' he went off and he ...first he complained to my bosses, UNI bosses, then he complained to the General Manager- Willie Lazarus, who was a great toady of Sanjay Gandhi. And William Lazarus came marching down. He said 'Hey! who are you? Hey...'---He used to speak in a swagger at time. I said, 'Sir, I am Tarun Basu.'--- [Lazarus]: 'You killed that!?'--- I said, 'Sir, I thought ...' <nowiki>----- [Lazarus]: 'You know I got a call from Sanjay Gandhi? </nowiki>'--- He (i.e., Lazarus) was shaking. ---- [TB]: 'Sorry, I don't know that' ----- By that time others came and my immediate bosses and News Editor, 'Basu what have you done? What have you done?'--- I mean I was I was also retarded ... I didn't realise the implications, you know. And there was a big crowd around me and then they retrieved it and of course the story went. But the whole thing was shaken up and I was removed immediately from any kind of supervisory role of anything. And I was transferred to another desk, which was called Non-aligned News Agency Desk where all kinds of information from, you know, all these socialist countries used to be pooled in, from the USSR to Poland to Iraq to Vietnam to Cambodia. So all the socialist countries used to pool information and we were processing it and put that out; and India was had taken lead to organise ...what is called the Non-Aligned News Agencies Pool </span><span style="color:#262626;">''(Note: read as Non-Aligned News Agency Pool).''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> It was actually a kind of, you know, a working holiday for us. There was no bloody work. There were all those who were a little defiant, or used to challenge authority or who could be potential mischief makers or whom the people couldn't trust, they were all shunted on to the Non-Aligned News Agency desk, which served us fine. It was in the end of the ....you know PTI has this big news room, so we used to sit at the corner of the newsroom and then had a grand view of the newsroom; and, you know, look at the girls, pass comments and had lot of fun but did little...no work, and very little journalism at that </span><span style="color:#262626;">time</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">32:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> That was the time I got my...I'd done some German at Max Müller Bhavan and I'd applied for this scholarship in International Institute for J</span><span style="color:#262626;">ournalism in (muffled spot but sounds like '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''journalismus'''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) </span><span style="color:#262626;">in Berlin. And I got the thing from them and ...so that was another challenge. I had no passport at that time and I went to take the passport, passport (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''muffled spot''</span><span style="color:#262626;">)?? a lot of difficulty, you know, took me a lot of time to get the passport and all of that. And then I had an interview with MEA </span><span style="color:#262626;">''(i.e., Ministry of External Affairs)''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> people at that time. And I still remember the director, West Europe division, he called me and said, where are you going?'---I said, 'I'm going to West Berlin.'--- He said, 'why not East Berlin?'---- I said, 'but I've got the scholarship to West Berlin.'---he said, 'but these guys are not our friends. I don't think you should go.' ---- I said, 'but I've got the scholarship. I should...'----He said, 'but I'll advise you not to go there...you should try and go to East Berlin.' ----  I mean that was the first time I realised that the international implications of all this, you know. But I had never thought they will allow me to go. But luckily I got the visa. I think the German Embassy must have put in a word or something but I went to get that ... that was the time I went away to Berlin.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">33:55</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai]: This was in '76?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">33:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB]: '76...'77 I was out and then I came back. I was in London and the day the Emergency was declared I still walking ----[Kai corrects: was lifted] ---- down Trafalgar Square when the Sunday Mail or Mirror, they had their...Emergency (issue)...’Elections declared in India’. So I straight went to the Lufthansa Office and got a ticket and came (home). So I was away...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai interjects] : So in Jan</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : away...in Jan and I came back in time for the election. So I was good part of ''76 I was away...'76 September. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai]: But you still had your job technically with Samachar?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : Yea Yea...had my job. [muffled spot] </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">34:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So after I came back of course the elections came</span><span style="color:#262626;"> the big shocker- Gandhi lost. I still remember most of the PTI guys were in tears. You should talk to this guy called K. S. Jolly. [Kai: K.S. Jolly?] --- Jolly. He was, I mean, this is </span><span style="color:#262626;">strictly between you and me. He and his friend Chaman Bhardwaj were the two, you know, what should you say...I mean --</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">34:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai helps: toadies?] --- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">34:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> worst...for...for Sanjay Gandhi used to get his work done through these two people. He ...Jolly later fell out. His son is now a Vice President in Coca Cola. I can get you his son's number but you speak to Jolly. He's a very nice guy. He'll have a lot of...I don't know...he must be old.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">35:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And this other guys...the Shukla who you mentioned ...will he still be around?  </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">35:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : He is around. He is around. He used to...he was very close to Vidya Charan Shukla... no… no… sorry… sorry… sorry...Vidya Charan Shukla was the I&B Minster (i.e., Information and Broadcasting) who called him up. This guy’s name is...it'll come back to me.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">35:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : The guy you said caught you that evening?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">35:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : Yea… yea… yea…he was the one. He was the one. He's also a UP fellow...UP or Madhya Pradesh fellow.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">35:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Achaa! (right!) ...but his name is not Shukla? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">35:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : Not Shukla...Shukla was the Vidya Charan Shukla...and this guy's name is ...I’ll </span><span style="color:#262626;">''(read as- ‘it'll’''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) come back to me. ---[Kai: Sharma? or...?] ---No no... I’ll come back to me. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">35:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And Willie Lazarus...will...is he still around?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">35:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : No, he died...he died. He has died. Among </span><span style="color:#262626;">those people who will do, Jolly is alive. He is quite okay. This should not…</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">35:55</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And this </span><span style="color:#262626;">Chaman Bhardwaj?  </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">35:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : </span><span style="color:#262626;">Chaman Bhardwaj  is dead. This chap who covered I&B and he had personal access to Vidya Charan Shukla. He was Shukla's man. He was Shukla's man. It's only in recent years that I'd talked to him but you know because that day I never remember---- [Kai clarifies: the one whose name you can't remember?] --- Yeah yeah..'75… the way he spoke to me and he complained about me to Lazarus and all that. I never forgave him for that. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">36:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I'll come back to me...don't worry. I'll call somebody. It'll come back to me.</span>
|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Whether in touch with foreign correspondents </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Myron Belkind</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----Mrs Indira Gandhi’s visit to Colombo…and TB’s act of defiance by deciding not to circulate her message on freedom of press in India.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---TB not realising that Samachar was the source from where news was being disseminated. </span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---TB being reprimanded. </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- confusion over the identity of Shukla.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---narration of the reprimand.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- Reprimand from the GM, William Lazarus.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- TB undermined the implications of spiking the story.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- TB as a result being transferred to another desk</nowiki></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Non-aligned News Agency Desk</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">description </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- journalists not doing much work during Emergency because of censor and tight control---pass time</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---TB’s move to International Institute for J</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">ournalism, Berlin in late 1976.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----difficulty in obtaining passport.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---call from Ministry of External Affairs encouraging TB to go to East Berlin instead.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- TB in London when declaration of impeding elections made ---returns to India</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----back in India in time for elections</nowiki></span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---TB continues with Samachar.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Reaction in </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Samachar to Janta Party’s victory and Congress’ defeat.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- K. K. Jolly, toady of Sanjay Gandhi.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- Status of other Congress’ toadies.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Confusion over name of Shukla.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--William Lazarus---now dead</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- Chaman Bhardwaj---dead now</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">36:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But when you had come back in Jan then ...they must have caught on pretty soon that the winds were changing and...</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">36:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : Yeah...winds were changing but nobody expected this to happen... no …where...nobody. nobody. I very clearly remember when these guys- Jolly and all, they said '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Haan mahaul thik nahi hai but jeet jayege… jeet jayege.''</span><span style="color:#262626;">' (‘Yeah! Situation is bad now but (Congress) will win…will win’) Nobody had any inkling that this was going to happen.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">36:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">[Kai] : So Tarun, were you there while the results were coming out? That that…day or the evening? (Kai and TB speak simultaneously)</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">36:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : Yea yea, I was very much there...evening I was also very much there.  I remember Jolly and all...their faces fell. They didn't know what was happening. They didn't know what had hit them at the time. And we were ecstatic...were dancing...nobody could stop us at that day. You know, for us it was victory...for us it was vindication, you know. And we were dancing and shouting and they were absolutely silent. They didn't know what to do. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">37:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> They knew their reign was over. They knew their reign was over. You know, there was this guy called- H. K. Kaul... (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note: TB corrects himself''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) H.N. Kaul....who was the bureau chief there. I mean, you know, he…you know you heard that thing ---'you were asked to bend, they crawled'-- He was the guy who fitted the the definition to a 'T'. You know, he was the guy who was asked to report on the Turkman Gate demolition and I still remember, I wish there was some way, someone could say--it's a classic dis-information. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">37:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And </span><span style="color:#262626;">Goebbelsian </span><span style="color:#262626;">propaganda in terms of giving complete lies and presenting it as the truth and how after the demolitions had razed so many huts and destroyed so many homes… how he presented it as…how…. ‘beautification of Delhi’ and how things are going to be rosy and everything was going to be...flowers in the garden and Delhi would become the best city in the world. I still remember reading it and I was horrified. ...horrified. But there was nothing we could do. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">39:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : okay, I'll make him a priority. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">39:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB]: V. P. Ramachandran...he was asked to go to all kinds of places in Madhya Pradesh, in Bhilai and talk about the steel production and how factories were doing very well, how trains were working on time, and how...basically to talk stories about how industrial production had gone up, and how lot of development work was coming up, how bridges were coming up, how roads were coming up and all these cooked-up developmental stories. He was made to do that and we used to feel so humiliated because he was our Deputy General Manager, and he was being, you know, sent all over the place to do stupid stories...propaganda stories from the so called Indian hinterland. </span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- Whether Congress’ defeat expected? Any changes at Samachar after Janta Party’s victory?</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- Presence of TB when results were declared.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---various reactions</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- H. N. Kaul, bureau chief--- he ‘crawled’ for the Congress in reporting---covered the demolition of Turkman Gate and guised it as a positive and progressive action of the Congress Government---- </nowiki></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Goebbelsian </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">propaganda</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----TB being horrified at this reporting.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----V. P. Ramachandran (Deputy General Manager), another good guy forced to promote Congress Government’s development works on various tours.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">40:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But tell me in this phase between Jan '77 and the elections in March, did the reporting change because restrictions were, I mean, for the newspapers it certainly became easier but here there was no inclination I suppose?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">40:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : Not easier...I don’t remember reporting change that much. You know, what I remember from before the time I went off there was all these people who were doing Prime Minister's office, Foreign Ministry, Information Broadcast...they were the key ministries at that time. You know, they would march in at odd hours and say, 'please do this story...so and so minister has told us or Sanjay.' Sanjay Gandhi's name was very, very frequently invoked or Shukla was invoked. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">40:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> very frequently...these people have told us to do it and so then everybody said, 'Ohhhh'...mad stories... </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">40:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai]: They were making priorities of these (stories)?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">40:59</span><span style="color:#262626;">[TB]: There was a priorities for everything. That refrain was very much there, you know...so and so has told us. And they would in a very self-important manner they would walk in, and ''so... (TB imitates sounds to indicate self-importance) I've been told.' They'd all feel very important that the … the...the… the lord and master --- [Kai: the big sources] ---- have they themselves have said that, you know.  I've told them to do it and because Samachar had become a powerful organ and powerful organ of disinformation and propaganda. And was being </span><span style="color:#262626;">followed by international news agencies etc. and then the same thing distributed to all these other socialist countries and other things.  So all these Sanjay Gandhi was directly controlling the information through Vidya Charan Shukla. They used to speak with Samachar directly. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">41:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> They used to speak to Samachar directly and it became the main government organ...main government mouthpiece. It was the main principal government mouthpiece. All kinds of information, disinformation, warning, </span><span style="color:#262626;">propaganda...what have you...lies and whatever else they had to peddle at that time. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">42:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai]: And what were the consequences then after the elections for Samachar and… and...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">42:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : Well the first thing I remember was we clamoured that we have to go back. They said no. These guys said no. There was a section of people who didn’t want to go because the perks and privileges had gone up. People were getting more money. You know, at Samarchar... At UNI we all got a pittance </span><span style="color:#262626;">and since we had nothing else to do with that we couldn't do much with that money so we spent all our time in the office. Even after confirmation you got 350-400 rupees so everything went up. It was double in Samachar. So there was a large section of journalists who lobbied for </span><span style="color:#262626;">''status quo''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> this thing. And not </span><span style="color:#262626;">''status quo ante. ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">But we younger people said, 'no we must go back,' and then there was a lot of lobbying, there was a lot of memorandum ... this...that and one of the first things that the Janata Party did, even as it itself unravelled was to restore UNI. I think...I don't know the date...I'd really have to see...about another ...took six months I think, at least six months for us to go back to UNI. I think '77 by end of '77 we were back, I think at UNI.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">43:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And was there any counter reprisal now against the PTI -Congress loyalists (long pause) in Samachar?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">43:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB]: No, I think there was some shuffling and again people who had stood up to the Emergency obviously they were again rehabilitated and people who were good and you know, who had not taken a stand or not, you know, prostrated themselves. Some of them were </span><span style="color:#262626;">rehabilitated. </span><span style="color:#262626;">Lazarus was removed I know. This chap Shukla...what his </span><span style="color:#262626;">''naa''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...He's also Shukla I can't be sure. Maybe this chap is also Shukla, then why the Shukla name ...? His name is 'H' </span><span style="color:#262626;">''se kuch hai''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (‘starts with H’). H. C. ...maybe this chap was also Shukla...H.C. Shukla </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">44:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> . I think this chap was also Shukla. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">44:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But I'll get it, he's around. He's around...He's around. (long pause). I will give you the email id of my colleague Arul Louis, he was a JNU guy, and he was also a big rebel. In fact, he's the one when he left...he didn't want to stick around in PTI. So he applied to Columbia and got a scholarship to Columbia. He left very early, I think within three months of the Emergency he left. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">44:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> He said, 'I can't stand it...'</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">44:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : There was a lot of resourceful people who thought that. (Kai and TB speak simultaneously). They just had to get out of for one reason or another.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">44:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB]: He couldn't take it. He just couldn't take it. I think within three months he left for Columbia. And he didn't come back since. He didn't come back since. He just stayed on over there. He also...I'll give you his numbers. He also has a lot of memories of the whole thing. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">44:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And he can give a lot of the JNU perspective...what used to happen. I'm sure you've spoken to others in JNU and others but he was among those who did a lot of underground work at that time.</span>
|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- Did the interim period affect reporting?</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Not much s people from ministry would still come in to check.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- self-importance of toadies of Sanjay Gandhi.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---importance of Samachar and why it </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">was still being monitored.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Consequences post-elections</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- economic perks of the journalists etc increased during the Emergency and post-Emergency</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----power struggles within Samachar</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---TB back at UNI by end of ’77</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---any </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">counter reprisal now against the PTI -Congress loyalists?</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---shuffling took place</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----Arul Louis leaving for Columbia within 3-4 months after Emergency.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- a lot of resourceful people left post-Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----Arul being a god source for JNU related politics at the time.</nowiki></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">45:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai]: Some people have mentioned to me an epic party on the day of...the night rather of the results or maybe immediately after. Do you remember </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">45:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> of journalists particularly but possibly there were several?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">45:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB]: Possibly there were several but remember we were very junior...very, very junior at that time...extremely junior. So we may not be part of those parties other than where we barged in and we just ...so. I mean Kuldip Nayar would be a huge possibility. What about Virendra Kapoor?  You're not meeting Virendra Kapoor?... Coomi's husband. --- [Kai: okay] --- Both of them were jailed, she was jailed. In fact, he was in IIC yesterday. Meet him...meet him.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">45:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : He was sent to Bareilly or something?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">45:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : Yeah yeah, he was sent to...Virendra would be of lot of information. Of course, the husband-wife, they will give you a lot of information. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">45:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Then (long pause) then who? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">46:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : So tell me more about first about how it went for you in post-'77? Did you stay on in ...in UNI for extended period or did you find the climate very...?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">46:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB]: No… no… no, I left by '78. I'd gone on to </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. By '78 I left.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">46:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And did you find that particularly exciting time?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">46:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : Two years in </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and then I'd joined DPA in '80.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">46:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But is that any sort of golden period for you there...immediate post-Emergency '77-'78?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">46:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] Yea, yea, it was a very good period ...very good period. That was the time we were, especially the two of us -Arul and I- some of the younger people, we got a lot of encouragement and that was the time I remember, that's a little story by itself... where we were encouraged by Mirchandani to do out... for the bigger stories and not to be constrained by beats and we were still desk people, and he tried to get us to become reporters. But we were quite happy with the desk and doing what they called the 'special stories' at that time. And we had some diplomatic friends here and I had some man, I remember going to his house. He was an Afghan or something and we used to go, I think it was Jor Bagh or Golf Links, I don't remember. And there we one day got to know about this coup --- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">47:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai: The Taraki Coup] ---Taraki coup...this was a second coup. And and then we got to know that Taraki was in India just a few months before...he came...before he took over. So that was a big story and so I remember that he was in hospital in the Cantonment Hospital, which is now </span><span style="background-color:#ff0000;color:#262626;">RandR.</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So we gave a story that the Afghan coup leader was in Delhi for treatment. So the implication was -- [Kai: yeah that India...have been involved] --- that India could be involved. And I remember it was the front page of </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. So the bureau people here they had no idea that the story had gone, and when </span><span style="color:#262626;">the story came, they were pulled up to say, 'how did you do this story?' And there was the, I think, the spokesman was some </span><span style="color:#262626;">Purushottam, who has died. And I still remember the bureau chief, Rangarajan, who's the ...who's the father of M</span><span style="color:#262626;">ahesh Rangarajan. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">48:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai: Okay] -- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">48:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : He coming in and telling- 'who's done this story? and what is this? Purushottam has called and...'</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">48:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : So this is in post-Emergency but but Ministry is still pulling the strings?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">48:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : Yea, yea, so we didn't know how to react and then, I think, the News Editor, he said, these boys have done it- Arul and ... --- [Rangarajan] : 'How did you allow them to do it? ---------You know the implications and what it means and you know that India might be involved and that India might have been implicitly supporting that and all that. --- [</span><span style="color:#262626;">Rangarajan] '' What is the source? How was such thing sourced? What do you mean and...? Was a diplomat?" --- 'No', we said, 'informed sources or something.' ----</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">48:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So but we stuck to our story. So then I remember we get a call from our source that there is more information and if you could come. So we told the New Editor and he said, 'no… no… you can't do it. You shouldn't do it. You let the ...because they are creating a lot of trouble...this bureau people.' So we went and told ...I think he told the General Manager. So I still remember... you've seen the UNI office...kind of a bungalow...old style bungalow?</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So we were standing outside and there's a flowerbed there and...in the morning...and I, Arul and couple of others...we were just chatting, when the General Manager came in. And so he came in and says, 'So Basu anything more on the story?' and so I said, 'Well yes sir, but I think I’d rather not file.'--- So then my colleague, I remember telling him that we had some information that this guy have had venereal disease...that time there was no AIDS nah! But some venereal disease. But that was, I mean, we were not even sure so. I still remember as he went in, he says, 'Basu, keep at the story, don't leave it even if it means sleeping with the nurses..do it but get the story!' </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">50:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So he was that kind of a person, you know. And he said it in the full view of the bureau chiefs and senior journalists, and the signal </span><span style="color:#262626;">was that, 'we would not be intimidated by anybody. If there's a story, we'll run it.'  </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">50:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So that was the kind of person he was and so...now I remember this Mirchandani association. We used to put a lot of backgrounders, you know. UNI had this backgrounder service. And that time used to put out a lot a backgrounders and of course clandestinely about what is the state of affairs in the country at the moment...state of the media...state of…on something...the politics of the day...something of Jayprakash Narayan ---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">50:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai: These, I've seen these yeah!]---- Used to put out those and he used to give it to me, I used to edit them. He used to write it and get written; of course we were not senior but I used to edit them. And then I used to come back to him and he would look at ...look at it; and he used cyclostyle it and print it and then have it distributed. We had these backgrounders there. I was remembering…it was more than just a little clandestine...these little sheets.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">51:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : I've seen those, yeah. We had some of those, I remember, had them in my father's collection.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">51:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : yeah… yeah, we used to do these backgrounders...a lot of people read it at that time. I'm trying to remember there were couple of others who were...but quite a few of us are...people have died in the last few years. (long pause)</span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----Any information on the epic party after election results declared?</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---TB not aware as he was junior.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---TB gives references—Kuldip Nayar, Virendra Kapoor, Coomi Kapoor.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---TB in post-1977 period.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---TB by 1978 joined </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Hindustan Times''</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''' '''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Hindustan Times ''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">and later DPI</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- what was TB’s golden period?</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- the learning curve during the Emergency</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- taking initiative ---example of scoop on Taraqi coup-</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> the leader being in India before the coup for medical reasons---implications being that India was also involved in the coup.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---getting reprimand from the bureau people through Purushottam, and bureau chief Rangarajan (M</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">ahesh Rangarajan’s father</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">)</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Ministry still pulling strings post-Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----Narration of reprimand over Taraqi coup story---being told to cool heels.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- But General Manager encouraged to pursue the story.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- Underground rebellion to Emergency---Mirchandani taking out </nowiki></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Backgrounder service''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> clandestinely---TB and others helping in circulation---range of topics</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Kai familiar with backgrounders</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">51:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And in England were you in, or in Germany were you in touch with any Indian associations or people? (long pause)</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">51:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : no… no… no... nobody...nobody...nobody....no one ...no. No… no, I was not (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''TB took some long pauses in recalling this''</span><span style="color:#262626;">). In London… I travelled a couple of times and in London I met a few people who kind of encouraged us to, you know, start some underground information and </span><span style="background-color:#ff0000;color:#262626;">trying</span><span style="color:#262626;">. But, you know, information was not easy to get at that time. And they said they could help us if you could set-up some kind of clandestine information...underground information network or something. But we were not successful. I mean how to get that information. Who'll call...who'll make that call? Who will take it? You know those...first of all putting calls through was not easy at that time. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">52:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : You weren't in touch with Achin Vanaik for example over there?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">52:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : No...no...no...no. None of those guys. (long pause).</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">52:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And the shift to </span><span style="color:#262626;">''HT''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;">)? How did that come about from UNI?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">52:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : That was when I'd joined a magazine. There was a magazine called </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Contour''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> at that time. They started their first magazine as a rival to </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today...''</span><span style="color:#262626;">magazine called </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Contour''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. And it was supposed to be a weekly.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">52:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai]: No, I don't remember it.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">52:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : For....it was shut later. It was...ran for what...hardly a year. ---- [Kai: And who was in-charge?] --- It was a guy, Jackie Dhanda, who came in from publishing. And after Jackie Dhanda, there was Chotu Karadia, who came from </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. But that was too late...he hardly...there were three issues and they shut it down for whatever reason, I don't know...some internal politics...we ran it for not more than six issues. We took...there was a long gestation period.  They took about nearly a year for dummies and other things to be done. And I don’t think we did more than six or seven issues and suddenly overnight, we came...we were told the magazine has shut down. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">53:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai]: They tried to sell it in as an independent publication?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">53:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : Independent weekly...and it was only then that </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> turned a weekly after that because </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was a fortnightly for a long time.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">53:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : No! </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> turned weekly in the '90s after </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Outlook''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> came out.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">53:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB]: '90s? ---- [Kai: Yeah yeah---- stayed fortnightly] -------- [TB: okay then okay....]    </span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----Was TB connected with others while in Germany and England?</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---TB was not even though some suggested establishing underground network---idea given up.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Achin Nanaik</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---TB’s shift to HT.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---TB joined </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Contour''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">, a weekly magazine set-up to rival </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''India Today''</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- Jackie Dhanda and Chotu Karadia</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- Contour shut down shortly and the reasons.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---long gestation period etc.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- Confusion of TB over </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> turning into a weekly.</span>

|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">53:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai]: B</span><span style="color:#262626;">ut do you remember to cut back to the Emergency ...do remember any news or gossip about the setting-up of </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">which happened, </span><span style="color:#262626;">I think,</span><span style="color:#262626;"> around '76...they started?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">53:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : This...this lady was there...who started it....these two sisters...--- [ Kai helps: Uma Chakarvarty...?]---- Uma and what's the </span><span style="color:#262626;">others name...? ----[Uma Chakarvarty...I think that was the name] ----- no no not Chakarvarty..no .. no...no ...no … Vasudev. ---- [Kai: Uma Vasudev, sorry] ----- Uma Vasudev and her sister Aruna Vasudev. They're still around. ---- [Kai: Acha?! (Really!?)] ---- They're around. I can put you in with a person who was with me in the Hindustan Times...unless they're very ill, they're around.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">54:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Uma Vasudev and.... ---- [TB and Kai simultaneously: Aruna Vasudev]. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">54:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">The two sisters they were the ones who started </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. I'll just find out...wait. (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''long pause as TB searches''</span><span style="color:#262626;">)</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">54:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : I'll take all the numbers from you.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">54:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : I'll … I'll get you all that...I'll call people up tonight and see who all are...I must be remembering a few other people also who were active at that time. Off-hand I'm not able to recollect. I will...I will. I'll get you all that…some other people. And I'll talk to Arul. Let me get some more people.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">55:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : So Arul left then in the post-Emergency? </span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">55:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : yeah, he left in the post-Emergency but within three months after...three-four months not more than that. He didn't hang around.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">55:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But he applied for his fellowship or whatever...?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">55:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : Yeah, he applied for his fellowship. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">55:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] And then this </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> experience was confined to this magazine or you moved to the paper then?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">55:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : No ... no, I was confined to the magazine. And then I got this offer from DPA because the Indian person who was there G. B. Malkani, he… he... he died suddenly. And then Helmut Räther ---- [Kai: Yes, I know him.] --- he kind of was looking around and he told Kutty (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note: K.P.K. Kutty perhaps''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) ...UNI person News-Editor...knew somebody...so Kutty recommended me...so December 1980 I joined DPI. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">55:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> '80 to '88 I think I was there.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">55:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And in terms of perspective, if you're willing to talk about....what the Emergency meant...in a lasting way for...for...the media </span><span style="color:#262626;">and … and… and press freedom and the way things are today...Do you think it left a significant lasting resonance or it's just an episode that came and went? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">56:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : See...you're talking from '75 ....I'll not...you know...that generation has completely gone. We were...I'm not talking just us...we were very junior. So the Emergency and what it meant is just a footnote in History for people now. Most people if you ask any journalist today...most of whom do not read...and ask them what is the Emergency and what it meant...they'll be blank I can assure you that. Nine out of ten would be blank. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">56:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I am not exaggerating...I'll be very surprised how many...There would be people who'd know. I mean nobody bothers to read up history and what the Emergency meant other than they'll say '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Haan haan Emergency mein kuch huah tha''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...eighteen moths something </span><span style="color:#262626;">''kuch huah tha. Emergency tha''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...' </span><span style="color:#262626;">''(‘Yes yes…something happened during Emergency…eighteen months something happened’''</span><span style="color:#262626;">)--- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">57:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai: Well actually even politically it’s so significant ] --- '....</span><span style="color:#262626;">''log arrest huah they''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''(‘people got arrested…''</span><span style="color:#262626;">)....but what it meant and what it did to India, lessons that were learnt and what...what </span><span style="color:#262626;">catharsis that---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">57:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai: Even the ..even the characters who are ruling us today, it was a trans-formative time for them.] --- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">57:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB]: It was a trans-formative time...it was a cathartic time for all of us in many ways. It left us deeply shaken. It left us...I mean all of us at least value our freedom in a very very significant way having gone through it. But today's people don't value it at all, and I... where ever I've spoken in journalism institutes, this is something I said...and people when they have talked about it, they didn't know all that...they don't...nobody knows all this. They said, ''yea!". I mean I said -today you take your freedom for granted </span><span style="color:#262626;">''yaar''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...very clueless.  Never take your freedom for granted because still that freedom of expression is not there in a lot of countries, including countries like China and all whom you, you know, hold so highly. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">58:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So, you know, that is just not there for the asking.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">58:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But by that token do you not have serious concerns and fears for independence of the media in this country at the moment in </span><span style="color:#262626;">recent times?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">58:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : See Emergency kind of things cannot come back but it is in many ways it’s scary what is happening. And I was reading this Manjula Narayan's (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note: Manjula Narayan: Editor, Brunch, HT''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) piece in Hindustan Times about the Jaipur Literary (festival) and you know the last of the events was on – ‘is freedom of expression absolute’? </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">58:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And where Anupam Kher said that there is no such thing as absolute freedom of expression ----[Kai: And the crowd rooted against…] ---yeah and the crowd rooted and people chanted 'Modi! Modi! Modi!' --- [Kai: Oh really!?] ---Yeah yeah...so things are...I mean there is, I mean, you know they will not go in the Emergency...there's not going to be censorship and in a very indirect way people are scared. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">58:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> People are scared...people I see in our offices and all that...People are...cannot openly...you criticise Modi and there are people are worried... what will happen to them if you openly criticised Modi, you know. Some ABVP goons or VHP goons or some other such goons would come down and then...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">59:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And the culture of getting a call from a ministry or politician...do you think that still happens?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">59:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : I don't think that is there...It does not. No, I mean...I have not...I am not an editor any more...I've stuck on but I don't know...that does not happen. Maybe if they call up the correspondent that...no...no I don't think they have the courage to do that as yet. They work through people who they think are pliant and who they think will do their bidding. ----- [Kai: You don't think warnings ...warnings ...warnings are sent?] (Kai and TB almost speak simultaneously) But calling up editors and saying 'don't do this...don't do that' is...I don't think. They do take to more... that it is still more subtle. That used to happen but they would now send their goons. They would not really do it themselves. They'll send their goons</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">59:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">59:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And and...do you think the owners as in the corporates are playing a more significant role today in ...in nudging a ..the press into obedience or...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">60:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : See you cannot generalise --- [Kai: It's an old thing also] ---- and say it's the press...it's a very...all kinds of people today in the media. There's media and there is another media. You are talking about registered over ninety thousand newspapers and magazines. There are four hundred news channels. ----[Kai: Networka and websites… ]---- All kinds people are in the media. There are </span><span style="color:#262626;">''raddiwalas''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''collectors of old newspapers or trash etc.''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) who are owning newspapers and steel barons and coal barons...real estate people...all kinds of people...there is no... Anybody can start a newspaper today and get away...so I mean there are media....so of course there are people who are beholden to the government...to a government who support it. But there are also anti-establishment, </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> for example. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">60:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> It's still fairly anti (establishment). </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindu''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> has been for ...there. People are writing what they feel like and you know I think initially for the first few months of the Modi era people were scared. It was a fairly critical. I read this quote, 'Modi is saying that not a day passes when I am not criticised by people today and I only see criticism of my government in the media...' or something on those lines.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">61:23</span><span style="color:#262626;">...just last week. So I only am now used to only criticism about me and my policies...something on those lines.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">61:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : The mood has changed. ---- [TB: hmm?] ---- the mood has changed since the early days (since) the (2014) elections. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">61:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : The mood has changed and I don't think people are going to take it lying down...even whatever these ABVP and others are doing. There's a criticism of that and that will continue...that will continue. I mean going back to... there will always be a section when asked to bend they'd crawl. But then again there's a lot of young people ...and young people also know...like when we were</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ...you were...they're rebellious and that kind of thing will continue and that I think is the positive aspect of this profession. I think today if you open any channel, the people...the faces that you see...the reporters...are all below thirty. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">62:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> One thing, they come cheap and ...and people, you know, they...people are there for a few months and then go and go on leave...go to another</span><span style="color:#262626;"> job and ...endless supply chain of journalists ...provided...(</span><span style="color:#262626;">''quite a few muffled spots). ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">I mean that way people are, quite a few at least, some of the </span><span style="color:#262626;">channels are pleased. They have people who have fire in their belly and not scared of the establishment. But you know again the problem is, you must be knowing that, it's not easy to run a new media organisation today. There's no money in the market. You cannot monetise news any more. If you cannot monetise the main commodity, which...for which you have been trained ----- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">62:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai: then you need people who have money to burn] ---- so you need to have money and then you have to start compromising. And if you don't compromise directly then you compromise indirectly. And compromises are happening all the time everywhere. And I don't think anybody who can say that -I'm doing without compromising my professional values---- [Kai: That's true] ----- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">63:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] When people talk of the launch of India Today, though they obviously had a </span><span style="color:#262626;">''sarkari''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (government)</span><span style="color:#262626;">'' ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">support at that time but they said, in the start they said, their business plan was (based on) news stand sales not advertising, (a model) which has vanished long ago. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">63:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [TB] : Vanished long… long ago. Now see advertising has become so fragmented and so splintered the pie is not increasing, if anything the pie would have shrunk. So the same thing that was going around to fifty channels is </span><span style="color:#262626;">now going to four hundred channels and ninety thousand others publications -magazines and newspapers. So everybody is just getting a little bit here, so where do you make money? You cannot monetise news, you're not getting that much...you're not able to get that much advertisements so then try and get it from other sources and then you sell yourself to all kinds of hustlers who are now owning media or trying to get share in the media or trying to get control of the media...all kinds of hustlers and political wannabes and all kinds of other racketeers. </span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">Interview Ends Abruptly</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span>
|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- On </nowiki></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''India Today''</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---TB refers to Uma Vasudev and Aruna Vasudev as starting </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''India Today.''</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">''<nowiki>----</nowiki>''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> TB promises to find more names and contacts.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Arul Louis</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- TB’s shift to DPI</nowiki></span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--sudden death of </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">'''G. B. Malkani'''</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">'''---'''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> Helmut Retha looking for a replacement.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---TB recommended by Kutty</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- Implications of </nowiki></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Emergency for media---freedom of press.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Emergency generation has died…</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---people now don’t understand Emergency and its implications and many don’t know.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----but for many they were trans-formative years.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---value of freedom</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----Any possible concerns about press in present times?</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Emergency cannot come back…times have changed</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- Manjula Narayan’s article from Jaipur Literary Fest--- on Anupam Kher---diverse views points</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- no censorship now but people wary in different ways.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---ABVP and VHP goons likely to hit back.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- on possibility of interference from ministry or politician?</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- interference more subtle now</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- on corporates’ hold over media</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---not new----all kinds of people can enter media</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> this brings its own set of problems---lack of onus+ limited scope of ‘breaking news’+ mews no longer can be monetised+ lack of check on the content</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---people are also now fairly vocal in their criticism, example Modi’s quote.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---on the quality of reporters’ now.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- will always be some rebellious people.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- lack of </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">accountability of media.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- little scope of monetisation of media left </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---those who have money to burn can start media related medium since business plan no longer relies on news stand sales as it did for </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''India Today.''</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- compromise present in media either directly or indirectly.</span>
|-
|}

.NjM5.NDE

2017-11-03T11:48:36Z

Bhanugs:

<div style="text-align:center;"><span style="color:#262626;">'''INTERVIEW </span>WITH <span style="background-color:#ffffff;">Sanjoy Hazarika'''</span></div>

<u>'''INTERVIEWEE'''</u>* Name: <span style="background-color:#ffffff;">Sanjoy Hazarika [SH]</span>
* Occupation: Journalist

<u>'''INTERVIEWER'''</u>* Kai Friese [Kai]
*

<u>'''Medium: Audio recordings'''</u>* Format: Audio .wav
* Language: English with a few Hindi exclamations
* Location of Interview: Residence, <span style="color:#262626;">Press Enclave, Saket</span>
* Date of the interview: 20 February 2016 11:40:22

<u>'''Clip name/DURATION: '''</u>* Kf_SHazarika_raw.WAV
* Length 00:48:24
* Bit rate: 1411kbps
* Size: 488 MB
* Date modified: 20/02/2016

<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>

<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:17.244cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">Interview Starts</span>
|| <span style="color:#1f4e79;">Keywords/Phrases</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">0:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Interview with Sanjoy Hazarika on 20th February 2016 at his residence in Press Enclave, Saket. Sanjoy if you can tell me first how you entered the field of journalism and</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SH] Well I ...actually after school I went to England, I studied there. One of the things I did there was a course in journalism, course in printing in London. And I started writing, you know, very occasionally for local papers in England...small, you know </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:45</span><span style="color:#262626;">[Kai] : This was when?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SH] '72. I was very young. Then came back and one of the offers was to work with Rajmohan Gandhi at that time, and basically help bring out</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Himmat.</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">So (SH talks to someone in the house about turning </span><span style="color:#262626;">off the tap) </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:18</span><span style="color:#262626;">[Kai] And </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Himmat''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was being published out of...? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SH] : Bombay. I was living in Bombay. And it was a small team- Kalpana Sharma, Rusi Lala (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note: R. M. Lala''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) was the editor, Founding Editor, then Kalpana took over from him. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">1:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">Shahnaz Anklesaria (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Aiyar''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) was there. Anklesaria ...she was there. Hmmm there was Vins...Vijay Seth, the cartoonist. So it was small team...couple of others...David Davidar also came ----- [Kai in the background: Oh really!] ----  later. So it was this group essentially who put the paper together. And it was fairly anti-establishment, you know, we covered the Assam Movement much later very strongly. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And at that time I was in-charge of writing, I mean… there was a page called </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Briefly Speaking''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> in which basically you...satirical you know...made fun of people in a nice way but sharply...about things they said, events which had happened and so on. And I was </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">???</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> .And I used to do a lot of the copy-editing, deal with reporters who were sending in copy and stuff like that. I was an Assistant- Editor, basically. And it was a great high, you know because you used to put the paper to bed in Fountain </span><span style="color:#262626;">''(Note: Fountain was where the presses were located''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) and then see it come out and so on.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">3:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And then the Emergency came when we saw the </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">???</span><span style="color:#262626;"> march of that sort of thing coming up. And when it was declared we had choice - whether we would sort of follow the</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''dikats</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">of the government or sort of try and defy the system.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But how did...how did they (Note: they as in the 'censors') approach you immediately because I mean in major newspapers of...in Delhi of course there were all these stories of the power being cut and you know, very direct and quick uhmmmm fiat in terms of censorship and so on. How did the government and in Bombay...?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SH] : Well I think</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Himmat</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">was a fairly well known small feisty magazine that </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Opinion''</span><span style="color:#262626;">... I mean it was much bigger...it had circulation of about 10,000 or something, so it was fairly...in those days it was fairly substantial. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">4:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And we got a note, I think...it was from the </span><span style="color:#262626;">Censor, Chief Censor chap called Binod Rao, (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note: he was a former resident editor of Indian Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) who was actually a Principal Information Officer </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">Kulado</span><span style="color:#262626;"> retired and sent to sit in </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">4:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">Sachivalaya</span><span style="color:#262626;">. And saying that essentially you have to... we started publishing without caring for the censorship regulation, then we got to know of the saying that  - you have bring yourself, and we chose what to take and what not to take. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:49</span><span style="color:#262626;">[Kai] : And where were...where were...where did the Censor sit?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SH] : In Sachivalaya in Bombay. So it my task ... initially I think Kalpana used to go but then I went...many ..many times. And you'd see him, you thing quite innocuous...he'd just literally put the blue pen through it- 'this won't do Sanjoy, you know'. I kept listening...watching. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But then there came a point when we decided - enough was enough- we would not show anything to the censor. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Because I'm trying to compose this within our own experience so... </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And then they put pressure on the press- Janmabhoomi Press in Fountain saying that - 'you have to stop publishing these guys otherwise there'll be difficulties for you.' So we were told to, you know, that we're no longer welcome at Janmabhoomi...so we had to find another press. So that was basically the strategy to throttle us by ensuring that we could not publish; and </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">6:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> when we find another publisher...again the same thing happened. So finally we decided to raise money for our own press. That's how we managed. You know we raised the money --- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">6:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai" Yeah? What kind of ....] ---- ...letterpress --- [Kai: letterpress] --- ...yea yea. And you know good old letterpress. --- [Kai : How lovely! And you had some training in this yourself? ] ---- I had some knowledge of it but then there was a time when I left and came to Delhi. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">6:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I think it was a year and a half after the Emergency. So after that I was not really...I mean I kept writing for </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Himmat''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> so on ...basically what was happening over here. And the time came when I joined the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> as a sub-editor...junior...the lowliest of the lot. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Was this ... Verghese's time? (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note: </span><span style="color:#222222;">Boobli George </span><span style="color:#222222;">Verghese''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) or that Karlekar </span><span style="color:#262626;">''(Note: Hiranmay Karlekar''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) was there?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SH] : No...no Karlekar was there. Karlekar of course </span><span style="color:#262626;">was too establishment. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Related to Siddhartha Shankar Ray, people say .</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SH] : I don't know about the relation but certainly he was very Congress, he talked about being a Leftist but he was very Congress in his conversations.</span>

|| <span style="color:#1f4e79;">---SH’s background</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---studied in England and took course in journalism and printings – wrote articles in local papers in England. </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> 1972.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Return to India ---job at </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Himmat''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> with Rajmohan Gandhi.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- Details of </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Himmant''</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---published out of Bombay – Kalpana Sharma, Rusi Lala as the Founding Editor, ???, Vins or Vijay Seth, David Davidar.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Nature of Himmat—fairly anti-establishment---Assam Movement. </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Briefly Speaking''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> a satirical section.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">SH’s profile- copy-editing, deal with reporters, Assistant Editor.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Imposition of Emergency – Himmat team left with two choices – to follow censors’ or to defy.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---How was Himmant approached by the Censors?</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--Himmant with circulation of 10,000 fairly well know --- </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">received a note from Binod Rao.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Himman published without heeding to the Censors until told that someone from the team would have to bring in the material for checking. –Himmat defied ---took material selectively. </span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Censors’ office at </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Sachivalaya.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--description of Censors’ checking material.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Himmat chose to outright defy and publish whatever they wanted.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--Censors put pressure on the printing presses to stop printing Himmat or else face closure. Ex, Janmabhoomi Press and others.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--Himmat finally raised money to buy a letterpress.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--SH’s move to Delhi to join </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> a year and a half after the Emergency--- for personal reasons.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---B. G. Verghese not there but </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Hiranmay Karlekar and on later’s close connection with</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">Siddharth Shankar Ray</span>

|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">7:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : That was quite a change from </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Himmat''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> to </span><span style="color:#262626;">''HT''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:49</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [] No! But I went partly because I needed to start a professional career, you know. My mother was alone, my brother had just started ...he was not working, he's still studying and in Medical College in Guwahati. And my father had passed away some years before that. So I had to make some very difficult choices at that time. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">8:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And I felt at least that there wouldn't be any pressure on my mother if I was earning something or the other. Friends said we can stay with us so ... so it was good. And then ...what I do recall of the ...because once I came to Delhi I joined the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;">... I think it was December or January...December '76 or January '77...within a month Mrs Gandhi announced elections.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Okay you came at that time</span><span style="color:#262626;">.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SH] : So in a way it was a fortuitous timing and I was able to see a lot of the…travel a lot and see a lot of the...electioneering...I was there at the meeting when JP came out and first spoke...first meeting when Moraji Desai spoke after being released, Jagjivan Ram and Vajpayee...what's his name Bahuguna </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> The atmosphere was really electric. I mean it was something quite unbelievable...very powerful. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Of course there's been nothing like that since, you know. I mean even Anna Hazare and all that was really nothing in comparison. And you realised how ...what Advani (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Ref.: L. K. Advani''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) said at that time…I'm sure you'd be seeing it- 'that when journalists were asked to </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">10:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> they kneeled and decided to crawl'. Because it was so...you </span><span style="color:#262626;">know how the main papers behaved, how the journalists were sort of hanging around...because my uncle was a president of the Congress Party. I was staying with him part of the time. And it was very...I mean...very visible to... </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">10:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [</span><span style="color:#262626;">''SH talks to somebody in the background: Unko boleye adhe gante ke baad ana- Tell them to come after half an hour].''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">10:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> How they were sort of...how desperately they were trying to curry favour...very senior journalists coming into the house and you know...making sure that the things were okay with them and so on. And another...another thing which was... ----</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai : Care to say names or you don't want to go there?] --- No… no ---  </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai : okay, don’t want to talk about it….I’m satisfied.] ---- Some of them have died, you know...one or two are still alive. Verghese wasn't certainly one of them. In fact, I remember meeting Verghese when the Emergency was still on and he was then I think a consultant with AVARD (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note: Association for Voluntary Agencies for Rural Development''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) ...You know the Gandhi Peace Foundation; and he had an office in Scindia House...small office in Scindia House. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:39</span><span style="color:#262626;">  [Kai] K So close by.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SH] : Yea, so ...I went to meet him and he was late for some reason. I couldn't ...I didn't now...no mobile phones at that time so you couldn't connect. When he came his hands were all stained with, you know, grease. He said, 'I hd a car breakdown.' So my first meeting with Verghese was like that, you know. He talked about those...he didn't talk too much about it but he just said that it was not something he quite expected. First the this this dismissal from the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> because of his position on Sikkim and then the way the press sort of caved in after the Emergency and the way people were constantly hounding other, you know like him, the Gandhi Peace Foundation because that was one place where a lot of people come and hang out and stay and move on. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">12:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But I think that another of the more abiding impressions of that time is how how ...you had younger people who were very keen to do things but were quite afraid of doing anything, you know. In the ... </span><span style="color:#262626;">in the business of journalism. Because nobody knew what the...I mean there were certain limits...it's like this government, you know...you don't know quite where you stand with these people because something that is legal and constitutional is interpreted as anti-national and at that time ... if you're not with the Congress...you're virtually the enemy of the state.</span>

|| <div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---personal account was SH joined </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''HT''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> even though it was markedly different from </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Himmat.''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">—financial stability.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Announcement of elections.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--SH got to see a lot while election campaigning was going around –heard JP, Moraji Desai, Jagjivan Ram, Vajpayee, Bahuguna.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Even enthusiasm of Anna Hazare’s cannot compare with that of the above mentioned.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---On the position of journalist who tried to stay within the confines of Censors.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--exceptions to those currying favour- B. G. Verghese & some details on SH’s meeting with Verghese.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---details of meeting of SH with Verghese –Verghese dismissed from HT due to his stance on Sikkim, and latter’s views on the treatment of people during the Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>----Young people wanted to defy but </nowiki></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">knew very little on how to --- feeling of mutual distrust- legal and constitutional rights did not mean much.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">13:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Yeah...Anti-Indira --- Anti- India. But what was, I mean...could you give me some sense of the mood among journalists in </span><span style="color:#262626;">''HT''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. I've spoken to some who were young at that time and said, you know, it was terribly depressing and they had a sense of embarrassment and shame even compared to... because you know...other newspapers being...</span>

|| <div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---On feelings of depression and </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">embarrassment by the journalists who couldn’t do much.</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">14:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SH] : I joined at a time when things actually picked up, you know.  ---- [Kai : Right! You joined just when it was getting easier] ---- ... just before the announcement of elections. When I went in, it was really as in ...people glum, they were, you know, not interested in what they were doing. There would be, you know, jokes cracked about Mrs Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi and all that but it would be sort of on one on one. You wouldn't, you know, many of us if you're in a group, you know, you talk about things in the group; here it wasn't like that. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">14:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So I think that conversation...normal conversation took a beating during the Emergency because ---- [Kai: People were scared] ---nobody was quite...quite sure who you would...where it would go to if you talked something against the government...is one. The other thing is that a lot a people were also listening to the BBC and the Voice of America. I mean those were the only two stations that were really accessible. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">15:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And that's when I think Mark Tully during the Emergency became, not just during Blue Star and all that, but really during the Emergency, the BBC at least </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">15:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">???</span><span style="color:#262626;">  became a major ... major...major pillar. In fact there's a sort of story about him going somewhere in U.P. (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note: Mark Tully going somewhere in Uttar Pradesh)''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> after the...when the elections were on; and he is </span><span style="color:#262626;">travelling....you must talk to him about this because I remember him vaguely telling me...and people heard that he was coming to the village, somewhere in UP and there was  a meeting going on and he was sort of put up on the stage so that people could see - 'yeh Mark Tully sahab aye hain.' So there were stories like that. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I remember going to Tis Hazari when George Fernandes was to be produced in the Baroda Dynamite Case. And when the Emergency was lifted he was still in jail. And just before ... because he fought his election from jail...because he had like...that thing is still true...if you've not been convicted you can still contest...any one...it’s a huge majority. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And I remember there were a few press people at that time. I don't know if your father was at that- Tiz Hazari Court but he was in shackles, you know ---- [Kai : Yes, I've seen the photos.] ---- He just ...he's not just being, it was the country which was in chains and there was...I recall this also very clearly ...there was one day I think in January or February '77 when we ...there was a call for fast to support George Fernandes. I never ...I've never fast in my life. I said it was a good thing to do ...so I fasted. I know how many else...how many others ...journalists otherwise fasted at the time. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">17:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Any way when you're young you have certain ...there's some romanticism about things...I mean you see the things that are changing in front of your eyes. Of course it all fell apart, you know, ---- [Kai : Very fast!] ---- ...within a couple of years. But the fact that it could be done that people's movement could bring down a dictator. </span>

|| <span style="color:#1f4e79;">---SH on the ambiance at HT...cautionary, glum, people were scared.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---BBC and Voice of America being accessible.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- Mark Tully became a major player during the Emergency reportage.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--Anecdote of Mark Tully being famous even in interior of UP.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- SH going to Tis Hazari when George Fernandes was being produced—shackled—allegory with India being shackled.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--SH and others holding a fast in support.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---idealism of the young changing to cynicism but not before it was clear that people could bring down a dictator.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">18:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But how did the....how did the senior editors in </span><span style="color:#262626;">''HT''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> deal with this phase? I mean do you have a sense of that they caught on that things were really changing and going against Congress?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SH] : No, I remember </span><span style="color:#262626;">Karlekar coming ... Karlekar coming into the New room late at night and says, ''nothing will happen...Opposition rascals will get a beating and ..''...you know...don't use this but...he was very very Congressy..shall we say... ---- [Kai: Haan Haan] ---- ... that </span><span style="color:#262626;">thing...totally kowtowing to the establishment. They were others like the news...one news editor was fairly balanced and wanted a range of things to be reflected in the coverage. And the other one was extremely conservative and very very worried about how it might affect the paper adversely. It's a Birla paper...what could affect it?!  </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">19:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> It's K. K. Birla (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note</span>: Krishna Kumar Birla)''<span style="color:#262626;"> ! So I think that and there were assistant editors like Nayar and so on who ...basically they all shut up...you know, they didn't...they weren't given a chance to write anything during the years of the Emergency. There was a cartoonist, </span><span style="color:#262626;">Rajinder Puri, who </span>is Rakshat Puri's brother ... all these...all the critical cartooning completely stop everywhere. 19:59 I think only the ''Common Man'' kept on going in some ways <span style="color:#262626;">because he was too ...too much of an anti-establishment.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Well I've seen some ...only recently and very peculiarly in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Illustrated Weekly ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">but I was surprised at how sly </span><span style="color:#262626;">some of the Mario (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Ref.: Mario Miranda''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) cartoons in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Illustrated Weekly ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">were. ..very clever but really sticking it in...probably too smart to be caught by the Censors.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SH] : Miss ... Bundu...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Haan, Bundaldass, Miss Fonseca ---- [SH : </span><span style="color:#262626;">Miss Fonseca and Bundaldass yeah...and the Mantri!</span><span style="color:#262626;">] ---- ...the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Mantri ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">always yeah.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SH] : So ...I think that's where ... I think our sense of humour took a beating during that time. People were so scared that they wouldn't like to talk about anything. Of course we had the smaller sort of discussions and meetings and so on if that was possible. I remember in Bombay going to a meeting where...what's his name...Mrinal Gore was speaking and that socialist leader, great socialist leader, what's his name..</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">21:17</span><span style="color:#262626;">  ----- [Kai : </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">??? NAME]</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ---- .....?? no no no…</span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">NAME</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was in jail. Uhmmm Joshi..Joshi...He was speaking and it was smaller, it's a room...crowded and he was saying that 'whether we are covered or not...whether the press is there or not..(long pause) we have the first republic, we'll have a second republic...we'll have a third republic </span><span style="color:#262626;">also...how does it matter. We'll ...we'll fight.' </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">21:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So then there was that ...it wasn't quite an underground meeting but it was there, you know, it was happening. So all these things were happening all the time. The RSS of course was very active during the ...during the ...some of the time...other times, I think, they sort of bowed their head and ---- [</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">22:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Kai : </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">????]</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ---- ...yeah. Later licked the boots of this character. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">22:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So there was I think in the overall, if I look at the situation...looking back...as a young journalist it was a real bloody...you know...you came face-to-face with the state in it most elemental and incomprehensibly virulent forms...intolerant, you know...intolerance is a good work now-a-days, you know, where anything you said would be interpreted as anti-national. That's why when I see...hear these words you know- anti-national, intolerance, I'm very amused...you know our memory is so short because many of the --- [</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">23:18</span><span style="color:#262626;">  Kai : These people came out of that.]---- people...they have no idea. These people, you know...I remember going to JNU during the Emergency, I was telling Prabhat Patnaik yesterday...I came here and one of my friends was very active in the thing in the hostels there. He just became member of the Planning Commission in the last Government- </span><span style="color:#262626;">Saumitra Chaudhuri, and Tripathi who was one of the NCP, he was the guy which everybody was trying to catch because he was the. ..what Kumar this guy yea?....The guy who's just been arrested by the ... the JN.. ---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">23:54</span><span style="color:#262626;">[Kai : </span><span style="color:#262626;">Kanhaiya Kumar? ] -----... Kanhaiya Kumar....but Kanhaiya Kumar got caught but this guy was leading the police on a wild goose chase everywhere, you know one day he'll be there, another day in Nepal...somewhere in Delhi. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">24:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So it was also an exciting time...when you are young and you could see that there was resistance ...you couldn't see a way out of resistance but when Mrs Gandhi made the fatal error of listening to her son in the IB saying that, 'it's cake walk madam,' you know...we also saw the change because the moment the elections were declared you should see the previous day's reporting in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''HT''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and the other papers, and the next day, you know. People testing the...there was a substantial change.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">24:50</span><span style="color:#262626;">  As the days progressed (it) became sharper and sharper, you know, it was almost as if the nightmare had been left behind and </span><span style="color:#262626;">people were finding themselves again. So I think it's a...one of the lessons I learnt at that time was that it's in the nature of the state to be repressive...it is not in the nature of the state to be progressive and democratic and open and transparent. It will only become that when it's really pushed because we're ----</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">25:25</span><span style="color:#262626;">  [Kai's voice overlaps with SH : Constitutionally constrained.] ---- ...yeah... Even the justices were emasculated...Supreme Court was emasculated. Only Khanna took a position in ...then he left because he retired. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">25:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And how easy it is for that to happen, you know. I mean there have been time when I think the Emergency has been remembered at various events and .... by journalists and so on. And it'll also never again...well...you're seeing a different kind of censorship which can't be called censorship but it's really like going the other end, you know. I mean this is not relevant necessarily... ----</span>

|| <span style="color:#1f4e79;">--On how the senior editors felt when tides changed against the Gandhis.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- Karlekar believed that Congress will be back after elections.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---different attitudes to </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">post-Emergency within </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''HT.''</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- HT owned by K. K. Birla—so safe.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Most people just followed orders--- Rajinder Puri, the cartoonist’s Common Man kept on with the criticism.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--satirical cartoons by Mario Miranda popular.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Characters of Mario Miranda’s comic- </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Bundaldass, Miss Fonseca and Mantri.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--SH’s narration of a meeting in Bombay where Mrinal Gore, Joshi spoke</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- presence of desire to fight.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---RSS defied but not much.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Emergency as being a tough love for the journalists—frustrated-unsure etc. </span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--SH compares the uses of terms like anti-national with when used during the Emergency. </span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Saumitra Chaudhuri, and Tripathi active in JNU during Emergency and comparison with </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Kanhaiya Kumar.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Saumitra Chaudhuri on the run.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---exciting time in spite of restrictions.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Mrs Indira Gandhi’s error in listening to her son. </span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--Pre-and-post-Elections reportage.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--On SH’s understanding of the nature of state.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Justices were also emasculated with the exception of Khanna.</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">26:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai]</span><span style="color:#262626;"> : Well it's a question I've asked a ...several people ...because many people do see  a diminution of courage and independence in the media in recent years and one wonders whether ... I mean many people also say this is because of pressure from the owners. And the question is ...is..is...is whether owners also learnt during the Emergency that ... that journalists and editors could very easily be pushed around. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SH] : </span><span style="color:#262626;">I think the owners knew that all along. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : That's probably true because things have happened earlier.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:05</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SH] : This was that the owners ...that the editors  and journalists could be pushed around by the other powers...much more substantial than the owners because political power is certainly more stronger in many ways than...than financial power. It can drive financial power underground. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">27:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So the only person who stood up at that time was Ramnath Goenkar for his...for his paper. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Irani (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Ref.: C. R. Irani of Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) has some reputation also at that stage that's a complicated history himself.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SH] : Irani of course because...yeah I mean...as he said he was the son-in-law uhmmm to...he was like Assamese because he worked all </span><span style="color:#262626;">his life in tea gardens in Assam. Yeah that was...The </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> had a thing...had a position...took a position...flew the flag...The </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindu''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> tried ...at least Ram did. But I think on the whole...because V K Narasimhan with the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and  </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">28:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> to a degree Irani as the owner whose...I think his business interests were affected earlier by Mrs Gandhi and her thing so that was his personal factor than anything else. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">28:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But if you look around what I haven't been able to do is look at how the local press, the regional press, the district press...how these guys ----- [Kai :...were affected and reacted.] ---- functioned. For instance, I once went to Muzaffarnagar....Muzzafarpur...Muzzafarpur.... (SH debates about the correct name) ----- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">29:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai : Muzaffarnagar is in Doab...Muzaffarpur is in Terai...I mean Bihar side nah? ] ----- ...No here...</span><span style="color:#262626;">Muzaffarpur .... ----- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">29:19</span><span style="color:#262626;">  [Kai: Nahi...you mean the Jat side?] ---- [SH in the background: The one near ...near Meerut] ----- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">29:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai : That's Muzaffarnagar] -----</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">29:23</span><span style="color:#262626;">  [SH] : That's where ...yeah…that's where a lot of the sterilisations took place. So I think it was Neerja... Neerja Chowdhury and I ...we went ...you should talk to Neerja about this because....have you talked to her? ---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">29:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai : Not yet.] ---- Because we went and spent some time there, and then we went and met the maulvi of the local mosque and this is just the campaign...the campaign was, I think just under way. And he said a couple of things which we found...which I certainly found very striking. One is that...I can't remember it in exact words but it was basically about this.... </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SH] : Can I just take this call? ---- [Kai: Sure, I'll just pause this.]</span><span style="color:#262626;">    </span>

|| <span style="color:#1f4e79;">--Whether the owners realised that they could push journalists around?</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---They always could.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--political power more powerful than financial.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Ramnath Goenka stood against the Censors.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--On Irani and his background.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--The </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Hindu''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> too stood up , along with V. K. </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Narasimhan of the Express and Irani. But for Irani, it was personal as his business’ interests were being affected. Press on the whole bowed down.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Not sure if the local and region presses cowed too.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--SH on his visit to Muzaffarnagar and opinion of a local maulvi about sterilisations.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- Neerja Chowdhury</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">30:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : The maulvi you were saying....</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SH] : The maulvi was saying that - 'just because we don't protest doesn't mean that we will.... (corrects himself)...doesn't mean that we won't.' That was one thing. And the second thing was that 'Just because you suppress information in people, doesn't mean that people have stopped thinking.' You, it's very simple thing because it came be very </span><span style="color:#262626;">refreshing...like you're surrounded by this pall of discipline and then you come to a little village and then this guy is saying this. And of course he talked about the sterilisation and said ...there will be some...something... people have got to pay for that. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">31:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But the most...so the...so the darkness of the Emergency is in my mind overwhelmed by the amazing power of the election process which one witnessed. I remembered Charan Singh, you know, very powerful speaker, I don't know if you've ever heard him but ---- [Kai: Yes, I have.] ---at Idgah ...the Idgah Maidan he was speaking and you know, must be a lakh of people...I mean I was going to places never knew existed in Delhi. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">31:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> About a lakh of people turned up to listen to him and one thing stays in my mind and he says, </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''duniya ki pradhan mantri aur rashtrapati kabhi jhoot nahi bolte lekin hamara pradhanmantri jo hai woh sach kabhi nahi bolte hain. (trans.: The Presidents and Prime Ministers of the world never speak a lie but our Prime Minister never speak the truth.''</span><span style="color:#262626;">)'</span><span style="color:#262626;"> You know, these things stand in your mind, you know. And what were they doing? They were giving not just good copy they were encouraging people, you know be courageous. Moraji Desai when he came out first thing he said, '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Nirbhay...Kisse dhar karte ho''</span><span style="color:#262626;">? What are you afraid of? You're afraid of....you should be afraid....do not be afraid of yourself because that is the biggest fear. Nobody else should be able to fight you because the weapon to fight you....your fear is n you. (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''trans. Be fearless…who are you afraid of?''</span><span style="color:#262626;">)' Two- three lakh people...pin drop silence.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">32:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> JP speaking and then when Bahuguna and Babuji ...Jagjivan Ram left the Congress and formed the CFD (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Read as Congress for Democracy''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) there another rally at Ramlila and Babuji said one thing that I remember and Bhauguna said another thing which I remember or was it Vajpayee. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">33:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Babuji said, </span>''''es desh ka sarkar dedh aadmi chala raha hai...dedh.’(trans.: One-and-a half government is running this government.) ''<span style="color:#262626;">Congress ka...   'What is the Hindi word for its symbol?' ------ [Kai : uhmmm] ----- ...whatever it is! "...</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Kya hai...jante ho nah''</span><span style="color:#262626;">?" (trans.: What is it...do you know?)It's a cow and ....cow and calf ----- [Kai : </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Gaye - bachara''</span><span style="color:#262626;">] (trans.: cow and a calf). </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">33:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Then I can't recall whether it was Bahuguna or Vajpayee because both were very good </span><span style="color:#262626;">orators. You see the thing for them was not just to get to into the paper but to give utsaa to people...courage to the people, you know, because otherwise without that, you know, people would still be afraid to go to and vote, you know. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">34:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And he says,...'vote....' </span><span style="color:#262626;">''haan''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Vajpayee, ' vote </span><span style="color:#262626;">''baat rahe hain...baat ne do''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...vote </span><span style="color:#262626;">''lo''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...  (SH corrected himself) no...no... note </span><span style="color:#262626;">''baat rahe hain...baat ne do...note lo....vote hame do'''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. (trans.: they are distributing notes…let them distribute…take the notes…give us your votes.) Typical Vajpayee, you know. So I think...these are the things I remember when I remember in Bombay...concerned about the fact, you know, that there might a knock on the door...you might be taken away all that...He said, we saw all that because we had taken position... we refused to submit to the Censor and he was pissed off...all of them...because I think the fact that Rajmohan Gandhi was Chief Editor (Note: of </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Himmat''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) ---- [Kai : oh! He was] ---- ...and because he was the Mahatma's grandson, he was arrested on Gandhi Jayanti at Rajghat while offering prayers and so on, you know. So there was a pretty much an outrage because that sort of thing is something that's flashed across the world - 'Gandhi's grandson arrested'. This was not the nakli one ...not the asli one so ...I think that probably also later on played a role, you know.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">35:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Not being ...we were harassed....accused  acutely but ---- [Kai : But not shut down] ---- ...not shut down. They tried their best to shut us down not directly but indirectly so that's the thing. You were constantly aware of, you know, like this Censor was everywhere...'so well written...hmmm...I wish I could let it go but...I don't think so it should go...' Then he says, 'why do you need to write it this way?', I said, 'why should I not write it that way?' You know so...these are the things that really bugged you. ---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">36:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai : Haan haan...it must have been...] ---- ...feel like punching that guy. There was one chap, I think, his name was Wilfred de Souza or something...who was the first Censor  ----- [Kai : But that was in Delhi, no?] ---- ...in Delhi but he got so stressed out that, I think, within a month or two he sort of retired from the post or something. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">36:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SH and Kai digress : Can you smell of something burning? ----- Kai: There's some argarbati kind of smell. ----- SH: uhmmm...]   ----- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">36:54</span><span style="color:#262626;">  </span><span style="color:#262626;">''The Hindustan''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Times used to be absolutely </span><span style="color:#262626;">blank you know. There was </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">Balram Tandu</span><span style="color:#262626;">, he used to write for the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Daily Telegraph''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and came from a very rich family...lived in Western...so his job was to put the editorial page to bed at night. So he would come in, smoke his cigarette, you know, crack jokes about the Emergency, and lighten everybody's mood, and say that 'Oh you know about the bitch (muffled spot because of laughter) this sort of thing...one of the stories joke he used to say  that, 'you know what the thing is about Indira Gandhi, you know...when the election was on?', ''kya hai?' He says, 'Indira hatao Indiri Bachao.' (trans.</span>: <span style="background-color:#ffffff;">Get rid of Indira and save your penis</span><span style="color:#262626;">) (Muffled spot). </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">37:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So there was ...so there were people like that who were writing for the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Daily Telegraph''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and all that, you much</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">they published I don't know. But who were very critical within the system. He was the Assistant Editor and he really didn't give a damn. He was absolutely openly contemptuous of Karlekar. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">38:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Many of us did not like Karlekar and there were some people who just wouldn't look at him when he came to the newsroom. So in many ways that was also ...</span>

|| <div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Opinion of the maulvi—both comments indicated that people were conscious of what Emergency meant for them.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---SH on the amazing power of election processes. Charan Singh’s speech at Idgah.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--SH recounts some famous lines from the speeches.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> Moraji Desai’s speech.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--Others who spoke were JP, Bahuguna, Babuji and Jagjivan Ram</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---line from Vajpayee’s speech.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Incident of arrest of Rajmohan Gandhi on the occasion of </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Gandhi Jayanti at Rajghat while offering prayers ---widely publicised. </span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Awareness of the omnipresence of the Censors.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--SH recounts one personal visit to the Censor.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---SH recounts who would make fun of the Emergency and who wouldn’t.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Balram Tandu of Daily Telegraph</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- Openly contemptuous of Karlekar.</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">38:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : I don't know how much time you have but can you talk a little bit about that post-Emergency Phase and...I mean ...the euphoria ...arguably the new kind of journalism that ... that, you know, happened or flourished in ...in ...a lot of it is looking back on.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">38:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SH] : One of the things that happened after the Emergency was that there was a lot of investigations about what happened in the Emergency...not just by the media but by the Shah Commission was there ..so a lot of information was coming out in public...in the public domain.... -----</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">39:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai : And there was interest in it.] ---- ...And there was interest in it because everybody had a story. You know, this is the thing...everybody had a story. It was a question of whether you were able to get it out...whether you were able convey it compellingly. Kuldip Nayar of course about his experiences. There were many who did that but I think the ... the most interesting stories were those who came...which came out in the investigations which were ordered by the ... ----- [Kai : state.] -----....government. And I remember going to the </span><span style="color:#262626;">Shah hearings and ... ----- [Kai : Which one?....Patiala House?] ---- .... Patiala House....Justice Shah was a very impressive character. I mean...very no nonsense sort of character. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">39:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And I think it was Romesh Thapar who was testifying and ...because </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Seminar''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was also very badly ----- [Kai : Their presses were also intimidated] ----.... yeah...I think they closed once or twice, I'm not sure. And all the editions...all the issues...and Romesh Thapar talks about...talked about how at a particular meeting at which he was, somebody very senior in the government, because Justice Shah was asking - how did this play out? ---like... He says, 'we'll go to this place and get the bastards. You know this is our chance.' </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">40:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So it was a lot of...what came out through the Shah Commission was not that...not the ideological moorings of the Emergency but how petty and if not desperate ...how personalised the thing was, you know. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">41:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> People they didn't like went into jail. People they .... ----- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">41:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai : Vindictive streak.] ---- ..... yeah! There was a lot of that. I mean there was lot of political, of course clear BJP guys will have to go in, you know that well. I mean...what is that...the Jan Sanghis and the Socialists but there was this deep element of vindictiveness which the bureaucracy bent over backwards to accommodate and you know even support. I mean these things would not have happened... I mean Mrs Gandhi literally ...one of the ministers saying - 'trains are running on time.' During the Emergency, the trains were running on time! ----  'People were disciplined'. I mean you'd see these slogans everywhere...anushasan (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note: self-discipline''</span><span style="color:#262626;">), you know ...was the word of the day. 'Discipline is the need of the hour,' you know and she stood between the order...that was the other poster...- She stood between order and chaos. She saved the Republic. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">42:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Reminds you of  what's bit going on here (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note: This is a reference to the events at JNU in February 2016).''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">There were kids shouting slogans...what the hell...he's bringing down the government...I mean...you can't even...government is so shit scared of kids who are shouting slogans...they think it'll bring the government. I went to JNU yesterday. It was really painful to go through there because there was nobody on the roads. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">42:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Everybody's left. The classes are </span><span style="color:#262626;">closed. I'd gone for a seminar. Seminar had people but there are no kids on the roads. The hostels are empty. I've never seen it like that even in ...during the Emergency.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">43:05</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : yeah! </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">People are happy ?????</span><span style="color:#262626;"> It's an exciting time over there. Well, similarly everyone hopes that it'll ...it'll end for the best...this kind of...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">43:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SH] : No, one thing on this is that a lot of young people of course were involved in the Emergency...the underground movements in Bihar and UP and Madhya Pradesh...they were all there...largely younger people ...not just...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">43:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : By the way were you aware of much of a pamphlet - cyclostyle publication underground thing? ----- [SH : I was... ] ---- Yeah? Have you got any? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">43:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SH] : Nah but coming back to the point you made about the sort of flush of freedom post-Emergency in the writing....I think they didn't go overboard but they ...I think there was also a sense of vindictiveness in the media...going after the Gandhi family in ..not just Gandhi but also going after people like R. K. Dhawan and all that because in all the people who used to do the chores, in a way, organised the cars for the rallies ...all this information started coming out. For the first time in India, I think, even this kind of detail information of how the system like that was working...how much corruption and how maleficence and how much control was given to a handful of people...minimum were not elected...and most of them who were businessmen. So that's the other layer that emerge </span><span style="color:#262626;">''nah''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. It's like here. The power that was given to business to do things.</span>

|| <span style="color:#1f4e79;">--On post-Emergency phase---was there a new kind of journalism?</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--Post-Emergency</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> lot of investigations, example Shah Commission</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---the investigations initiated by the Government were very interesting--- testimonies of Kuldip Nayar, Romesh Thapar of </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Seminar.''</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---SH points that during Emergency it was very personalised targeting of people.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---the </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">vindictiveness</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Ways in which Indira Gandhi </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''et al''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> publicised the benefits of the Emergency –order and discipline.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Comparisons with events at the JNU in </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">2016.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--What did JNU look like when SH visited in 2016. </span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---young people being involved in the Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--On </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">cyclostyle and underground materials.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--Post-Emergency the press also displayed a sense of vindictiveness towards the Gandhis but also those associated with them, ex. R. K. Dhawan.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Details of how the system worked during the Emergency were coming out.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- The power that was given to business to do things.</span>

|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">45:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But that revelation hasn't changed things in any deep way, you know.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">45:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SH] : Yeah lets...I mean media is in the pocket of Mr Ambani so. (long pause) But that's about, you know, if I think of anything else that I...strikes me...I'll...I'll certainly let you know but there was this pall...pall of fear and concern that you would be next kind of thing, you know; and as I said to you in the beginning I felt that but then I said, 'thik hai! Jo hoga so hoga.'</span><span style="color:#262626;">  I mean I think felt reasonably sure that I would be...was partly protect because of my... ---- [Kai : By your family's connections] ---- .... connections. Although I've never talked about this but you know the people who were really on the frontline of defence in Bombay with </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Himmat ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">was Kalpana Sharma...she was the Editor. She... I mean I was there for about a year and then I left to come back...come to Delhi. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">46:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;">Shahnaz</span> (Note:  Shahnaz Anklesaria Aiyar<span style="color:#545454;">) </span><span style="color:#262626;">came later...yeah...two or three others carried the load. Here you should see Neerja Chowdhury and ... yeah lot of the things that happened after the Emergency were quite remarkable. Lot of the investigative journalism started, like Neerja- the bonded labour story, you know. People who'd been in jail suddenly realised that a lot of people who are called under-trial prisoners...I mean people who had no business to be there. They'd been there for a theft for fifteen years. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">47:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So I think it set trend of very strong positive investigative journalism into things that really affected the life of various people----- [Kai : Turning the lens on the state also]---- ...lens on the state but also what affected the lives of the people. The state by its nature is like that. Its blind to the conditions of people who are living. Here you are talking about 'Make in India' (Note: Reference to Narendra Modi's slogan) when the country is going through third successive drought...forty percent of the country is under drought, you know...that's about fifty percent of the </span><span style="color:#262626;">population. It's crazy. People don't have enough resources to get fodder for their animals and this joker is talk about 'Make in India'. I mean it's a atrocity. So...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">48:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Great! Thanks a lot.</span>

<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>
|| <span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Power-Business nexus still present.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Ambanis and media.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--SH being fed-up with Censors but because of his Uncle’s Congress connections, he was safe.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Himmat after SH left</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> Kalpana Sharma, </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Shahnaz</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">, Neerja Chowdhury.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Neerja did lot of investigative journalism—bonded labour story, under-trials.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Post-Emergency reportage was about what affected the people and turning the lens on the state.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--SH on Modi’s ‘Make in India’ and the </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">successive drought.</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">Interview Ends</span>
| style="color:#1f4e79;" |
|-
|}

.NjM2.NDQ

2017-11-03T11:47:16Z

Bhanugs:

<u>'''INTERVIEWEE'''</u> * <div style="margin-left:1.27cm;margin-right:0cm;">Name: Rashmi Saskena</div>

<u>'''INTERVIEWER'''</u> * <div style="margin-left:1.27cm;margin-right:0cm;">Kai Friese </div>

<u>'''Medium: Audio recordings'''</u> * <div style="margin-left:1.27cm;margin-right:0cm;">Format: Audio .wav </div>
* <div style="margin-left:1.27cm;margin-right:0cm;">Language: English/ Hindi </div>
* <div style="margin-left:1.27cm;margin-right:0cm;">Date of the interview: 10/02/2016</div>

<u>'''Clip name/DURATION: '''</u>* <div style="margin-left:1.27cm;margin-right:0cm;">RSaksena.wav/ 01:11:32 </div>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:16.512cm;"
|- style="border-top:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;border-bottom:1.5pt solid #9cc2e5;border-left:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;border-right:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <u>'''TimeCode</u> '''
|| <u>'''Transcription</u> '''
|| <u>'''Remarks</u> '''
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| RS: Is this going to bother you?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 00:04
|| KF:… '''No, we'll be okay. Interview with Rashmi Saksena on the Tenth of February, two thousand (sixteen) * at the IIC at Delhi. ''Uhm,'' thanks Rashmi. If you could begin by telling me a little bit about how you got into journalism in '71, you said. '''
||

<nowiki>* Disrupted by beep. </nowiki>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| RS: '71, I joined formally.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- Okay. And before that?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''00:55 '''
|| - Well, I was doing English (Honours) from Delhi University which I graduated. And after that - you know there was a choice as to whether I should go in for my masters or I should pick a line by which I could, you know, work. The main idea was to start working because... I'm talking about the late '60s. This was – I passed out in 1969. And that was a time, you know, when women had started to look off- look at careers for themselves. And at that time, it seemed like the only option which my father sort of thought was the right one ''uhh,'' was, because he himself was a senior bureaucrat and from the civil services. So he said you take the civil service exam.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''''Achha'''''.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''01:34'''

'''02:17'''
|| Now there were two reasons I didn't want to do it. One was, I thought it meant a lot of putting you nose down and, you know, really studying. The second thing was, I don't know – I would, ''uhh ''I would just like to remind you. That was the era when – there was this very- the youngsters were very left oriented. And there was this great feeling of, you know, being anti-establishment. You know? And I thought to myself that if I took the services exam and I did get through, I'd be part of this establishment. Which you don't – just didn't seem so fashionable, if I may say at that time. And also, you know, us the entire student … life was marked by taking part in protests – you know it was a very vibrant student community at that time. And very left oriented. Not only in ideology et cetera. But even the way we dressed. It was like we had said no to Western clothes... and, you know... I remember we had all decided we would wear this big ''bindi ''cause that seemed to be... you know, like a thing saying that you were actually cutting off from the colonial ''uhh...'' you know, influence. Coming into your own. Not going to listen to establishment. And, I think a lot of it also had to do with the college I went to, Lady Shri Ram. Because, I was this very free-thought ''uhh,'' you know, which was encouraged and there were lot of debates and seminars. And we were really exposed to a lot of the left ideology. So that was it. So, I said no, I didn't want to take the civil service exam... I didn't want to be a teacher. There was no way I could go into medical because I was not a science... student so I thought the options were really ''uhh,'' limited. And I did like writing. In the sense that even for my school magazine, college magazine, always been writing. And ''uhh, ''even in school I was – right from class three till I finished my higher secondary. I was the best essay writer. So, I mean, not that it had anything to do with journalism, but I mean, at that time, my concept of journalism was writing. That's all I knew. So I said, let me join this course, you know, there was a one-year course.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 00:03:38
|| '''- Where?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''In Delhi. Women's Polytechnic used to run at that time, a course in journalism. There was- the other option was, which came later, I think, Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan. But none of the colleges or universities except one in Chandigarh, which my parents were not too keen to send me to. So I just joined this, ''uhh ''course. And ''uhh, ''well, now that I look back it didn’t tell you so much about journalism. It told you the basics, you know, of – One thing which I'm very thankful for that course, thankful to that course is for, they- we had an entire subject called Press Laws.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- Okay.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 04:21
|| - Which told you... you know, what you could write... in the legal sense, you know, and how you safeguarded what you wrote et cetera. Which I think is not really happening these days. Anyway, having said that, when I – I was about to finish my course in 1970, mid '70s. And I said now what do I do with myself and there's nothing I can ''uhh,'' you know, because... there was the Times of India that you had to sign a bond for five years if you join, which, again, I didn't want to do. I thought, you know, let me just see what I – this thing- And my father said, why don't you go abroad and ''uhh,'' you know, study journalism further. But I was just dying. To start working. Because, for me, that meant independence. You know? And I was not looking at it purely in the financial sense, because I knew I would still continue to be with my parents. But this whole, you know, feeling, that I was now going to be on my own, whatever it meant at that time. And I was really encouraged by my father, who, his first thing was: don't think of getting married, you know, do something. Which was rather unusual at that time. ''Uhh,'' you know, people thought you had to get married by the age of twenty/ twenty-one. Most of my friends in college had got married. But my father's main thing was you have to have something in hand which will always help you. To be financially independent and to use your mind.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 05:54
|| '''- ''Hmm.'''''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''Because there were many jobs going, you know. Air-hostesses were being recruited ...''' '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- Glamourous at that time. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''06:20 '''
|| '''- '''Very glamourous. And I thought that was the key to seeing the world. I had been selected by Air India. And I remember coming home to tell my father, this was in the final year of college, that I'd been selected and... if I could go. And he said, ya, sure! But then, you're taking a decision for life. So I said, and what is that? He said, so, now your face is going to be your fortune. Not what you studied. And it... sort of you know, really hit me. And he sort of went back and said, look, I sent you to the best of schools, to the best of colleges and... it was a financial strain for a bureaucrat to send you to a convent in ''uhh ''on a hill station, et cetera. So if this was it. If you were really going to really rely only on what you look like I should have sent you to a fashion z... finishing institute. So they were very harsh words but, you know, it really got me. And I said, no-no-no, I have to do something. So as soon as this course finished, I went from newspaper to newspaper, with my CV to say if could do anything. And ''uhm, ''the first thing, you'll be surprised was that most officers, their answer was, but we don't take women. And ''uhh...'' I mean, I had never thought of that. You know? So I said, but why not? No-no-no, world of journalism is not for women. So... and there were some women, who were doing things like, you know, a desk job. And basically they were to look into fashion pages. We didn't have fashion pages but columns and gardening and things like that. So I said, this is really-really sad. At that time, Hindustan Times used to have an evening paper which they still have called the evening news.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 07:57
|| '''- They still have it? I haven't seen it in years. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Oh, you haven't?''' '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''It was that small, tabloid-sized – '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''08:15 '''

'''09:20'''

'''10:25'''

'''10:57'''

'''11:59 '''
|| - I think they probably merged, maybe they don't have it now. I'm not so sure. So I went there and ''uhh,'' I went to the editor. The evening news editor. Mr Gyan Singh. And I walked in and ''uhh, ''there was a stunned silence when I walked into this room. Those days we didn't have these cubicles and things. Everything used to be in one big hall, you know. So there was a – Not a sound, when I walked in. So I thought, god, what had I done, you know. And I walked in and I was very nervous and I told Mr Gyan Singh, Mr Gyan Singh, I've come to see you without appointment. Somebody said you can walk in and meet editors anytime. So he just put his hand out. Okay, what's the hand out? So I said, no, I have a CV. So he said what for? I said I want a job. He said, no-no-no I don't have a job and I can't give you a job but ''uhm,'' we need people who do some freelance work for us, would you want to do that? So I said yes but what will you make me... write? So he said, whatever you want. I said, no, I can tell you what I don't want. And I don't want to write on fashion and I don't want to write on flower shows. So he said, and what makes you think you can write on anything else? So I said, ya, but what makes you think this is only what I can write on? And there was about – Must have been fifty-sixty people sitting in that hall? And I was like, dying, I said, you know, what am I going to do, he's going to throw me out... or something. He said, okay, I'll give you a fair trial. In twenty minutes, can you go to... ''uhh,'' this hostel? ''Uhh,'' which is ''uhh'' working women's hostel? And there's some trouble going on there, can you go there and come back and ''uhh...'' Write a report. So I just didn't want to say no. I said okay. I didn't even know where this place was. So... I said okay. So, as I was going d- getting out the room, you know, whole lot of guys sitting and they sort of looked at me and said, young girl, do you know where you're going? So I sort of just turned around and said I'll find out. (laughs) I went down. And these guys followed me down for some reason. And they said, Oh! So you have a chauffeur-driven car, you're never going to make it as a journalist. So I said, no, this belongs to my father. And, I'll ask the driver where the hostel is. He said, you're not going to make it! You're not going to make it! You know? Anyway, so I asked this guy I said can you help me and tell me where this is? He said, come I – you give me a lift and I'll tell you. And then I realised he wanted to go that hostel. And he was a reporter with the Hindustan Times. I remember his name Najmul Hasan, he's no more. So... on the way, I asked Najmul, I said look, I have to do this and I really want to make a go of it. So he said, ya ya! He said, do you know what writing a report is? I said, ya, I've done journalism and I know. So, I'll you because my girlfriend lives in this hostel, what the problem is, I'll introduce you to people. And that was it. So in about two hours time, I'd come back, Gathered all the information and I sat and I told Mr Gyan Singh, should I bring this tomorrow morning? He said, do you know you're working? If you want to write, you write today. And you have to write it now because my... paper goes to bed at two o'clock. So, I said okay. So I sat down and I... typed whatever I knew and I wrote the story. He had one look at it and he said. 'ow', very good. Can you order some... biscuits and tea? So I said, why? Your first by-line is going to appear. (laughs) So that's how I started.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 12:06
|| - '''Sweet story. ''Hmm.'''''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - But ''uhh, ''what I wanted to tell you by this whole thing was, though there was a resistance, to having women in the newsroom, I think there was also this great recognition of talent. If they spotted talent – I'm not trying to blow my trumpet. But what I'm trying to say is, there were willing to give you a chance – but you had to prove yourself. And they were not going to make a concession because you were a woman. You know? So that was what I felt. And the moment my first by-line appeared, all these people in the room who had been sniggering and frittering* and everything. They were so nice. They all came and congratulated me. I mean, I had gone there in the morning at ten, and by five, I was already in print. And I really felt that I'd been accepted by everybody and... -
||

<nowiki>* (Best I can make out.) </nowiki>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 12:55
|| - '''Have you kept that first... piece? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| You know, unfortunately, I don't have it. I don't have clippings, you know? Just so sad. ''Tsk''. Anyway. So... and then I think because evening news was very short-staffed, he started to say you come everyday and come and do some assignments for me. But I will pay you -
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''As a freelancer.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - As a freelancer. So I did that for almost eight to nine months. You know?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 13:22
|| '''- And what- and what were they paying you... for those articles?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Uhh,'' something like twenty-five rupees, per piece? And after some time they said, that, you know, we can't pay you per piece so we'll pay you hundred rupees a month. Or some – something like that. It really didn't matter to me because this whole excitement of being part of the news room, was, you know... - and look at the amount of exerience I was able to gain. Because I was listening to what was going around, you know – it was like a full, regular office. I used to come in at ten and leave only after the paper was out. So I really felt that I was part of the reporting team without really, you know, being part of it in that sense. And ''uhm'', I mean, I used to attend the editorial meetings... and everything because, you know, we were only three reporters or something – we had to bring out... -
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 14:15
|| '''- This was in the same HT building that was on Baba – ''uhh... ''on-on Curzon Road?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''This was the same HT building that – no-no, this was in the LIC building in Connaught Place.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- Meaning sc-sc- ''haan, ''Scindia House ''mey?'' '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''No-no, just where Barakham- ''uhh...'' Where...''' '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- Where LIC is now, you mean? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''No. Where the building is now?''' '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''''Hmm?'''''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| As you go towards Connaught Place? Right there. Where they have that restaurant, milk bar and all that. Just as soon as that road ends.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''You mean if you're coming from Janpath? Or on-on Curzon Road – Kasturbha Gandhi?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Yes. Kasturbha Gandhi road, the moment you hit Connaught Place, that outer circle- was right there.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''Okay.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''15:22'''

'''16:00 '''
|| - So it was one of those LIC - I think it was one of those LIC building, and the entire Hindustan Times was housed there. And this huge hall, where we were sitting, had also the morning reporter. That is, ''uhh,'' the people who were working for the HT main paper. So I really interacted with everybody and learnt and sometimes, these boys would also take me on their assignments, you know? The ones who were doing the daily reporting and say, come-come. You know, it'll be a good experience... So, in those six-eight months, I had virtually learnt to cover whatever there was. Those days cub reporters didn't do national politics. You know, so, our coverage of politics was ''uhh,'' confined to the... We had the municipal corporation, the... New Delhi Municipal Coporation, and then we had... ''Uhh, ''the ''uhh... ''assembly. The Delhi assembly. So, I got to know all that. And then I remember, our editor, the Hindustan Times editor-in-chief was B. G. Verghese. And ''uhh,'' I mean, I used to see him around, … … I sometimes used to get two to three by-lines in the same paper every evening so everybody knew me. So one day he just called me to his room and said ''uhh, ''you know, you've been working and you've been working as a freelancer. Don't you want a permanent job? I mean, I thought to myself: please! (laughs) You're asking. I said, of course. So, he said, you know, Hindustan Times has this programme where we take people every year. For our training programme. So, why don't you apply for that? And we'll see. ANd there's a written test and all that and ''uhh,'' so he said but there's one condition. So I said what. He says, if you don't make it, you know, you have to continue like this. You can't say, now my status should change, you know. I should become part of evening news. Evening news didn't have a separate staff. It was the same, staff. So I said okay. So, I applied. And after about a month, there was to be this interview. And since I knew everybody, I found out, you know, from the … ''uhh,'' clerk and everybody as to how many people applied and he said, hundred people had applied –
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 17:25
|| '''''- Hmm.'''''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - for this training programme.''''' '''''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''And how many seats?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''18:23'''

'''19:05 '''
|| - And I said, and how many are they going to take? He said, ''woh toh ''only the editor knows. So I went to the editor's PA. Who I – I knew everyone. And I asked him, I said, Satish, how many people are they going to take? He said, I don't know, formally what it is, but I know on an average they take two to three people. I said oh my god! What's going to happen and – B. G. Verghese had already told me that whatever your work with evening news has been, that's not going to influence this. You're not going to... I mean, gain any marks for that. This will just be an independent thing. Okay, so we had a written test, hundred in one hall we all had a written test and... then we were told that now we will screen and find out, you know, so after another ten days, there was the interview call. And we had roll numbers, you know, like a proper exam. And I remember appearing – coming. I mean, I just walked from the evening news room to where the interview was because I was still doing my work there. And I saw a news editor. The news editor of – of the daily paper. Who was raving and ranting and, you know, screaming at the top of his voice. So I sort of just stood there. And then, you know, he looked at me and he said, You … You shouldn't be here! So I was so petrified, you know? Anyway, everybody was very petrified of him. His name was Mr Hariharan. And ''uhh,'' I sort of – I was almost speechless. So I just took off this slip which had my roll number, and he said – he just took it from me, tore it up, you know? And he said, this means nothing to me. I didn't know why he was angry. I had no idea. So I sort of looked around and somebody just said, you know, waved to me and said, come away-come away. So I went and he said, you know why he's angry? I said, why? He says there are only three seats. And the people who've maxed in the written exam are two girls and a boy. So he says he's- there's no way he's going to take two women.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''Oh!'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''20:15 '''
|| So, I said, but that's so unfair. So this guy who I was with who was telling me all this said, so? If you have the guts, go and tell him. That it's unfair. You know, they were just having fun. But I think I really was so mad at the situation, that I just went up to him and I said, Mr Hariharan, why are you so angry at me? Are you angry because I've done well in this exam? So he sort of looked at me, and said... no! So I said, then, why did you tear up my slip? ''Ah'', so, he said, no-no anyway! Come for the interview. You know. And he wouldn't tell me what it was all about. And I went into this room where Mr B. G. Verghese was sitting. Mr Ajit Bhattacharya also used to be a … editor. And Mr Hariharan. So I refused to look at Mr Hariharan, you know. I just looked at Ajit, who was, a very... you know, very sober, gentleman and sort of, very kind. And Mr Verghese, was really... a person who never – never lost his cool, you know, or did anything. So I just looked at them. And I think I must have had tears in my eyes, you know. And ''uhh,'' Mr Ajit Bhattacharya said, are you nervous? So, I said, no, I'm not nervous, Mr Bhattacharya. But I am very upset. So, he said why? I said, I think Mr Hariharan knows why I am upset. And ''uhh,'' I don't think it's fair, to be angry because I've done well and I'm a woman. So... Mr Hariharan said, just sit down. I'll offer you another job. I thought he said I'll offer you a job! So, I said, no, I want to go through the interview... He said, no-no, and he picked up the phone and, I'm going to speak to somebody in Air India, I know the, very well. You can go and work for them.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 21:28
|| - '''My god. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''22:22 '''
|| - By then, I think, you know it was the last straw and I really thought I had nothing to lose. So I just got up. I said, ''uhh,'' I looked at everybody. I said I'm sorry if the interview is going like this, I haven't come begging for a job somewhere else. I want to qualify and take this job. However, if it's not available to me because of my gender, then, I'll continue to work as a freelance. But I want to tell you, Mr Hariharan, that this is against the constitution of India. You know? The moment I said this, he sort of really calmed down. And he said, at least she knows about the constitution of India. (laughs). Then Mr Verghese and Mr Bhattacharya started off, you know, asking me questions... you know, whatever, the interview... And ''uhm,'' so I looked up, and as I was leaving, I said, Mr Hariharan, I hope, you will not use my gender against me, you know. And I left. You'll be surprised, they took three people and they took the two of us, the two women.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''Who was the other one?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''23:00 '''
|| The- her name is Shalini Dewan. She left journalism and then retired as – she went away to America. Then she retired as the... the information office- information... head for India. For the UN. That was her last assignment but then she worked in America with the UN all along. So, anyway, having said that, I want to say, what a good guy Mr Hariharan finally turned out to be. Once he knew that I was in, I – I think he was my best teacher. In journalism. I mean, he had a very harsh way of speaking, but I think journalists those days thought that was the style, you know? To be –
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''Brusque.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''24:15 '''
|| - sort of – very brusque... and, ''uhh...'' I remember him coming and saying... the moment we got selected. We were very happy and you know, we turned up the next day. And we had to meet Mr Hariharan. And the only thing he said to Shalini and me was, all this dress will not do! You know? So we said, what? You have to wear a saree from tomorrow. So... my first – can you believe it, man? My first reaction to this was, I don't have money to buy sarees. And my mother's not going to let me wear hers. So he said, no-no-no, I can have you people come like this and distract my boys here. ''Uhh... … ''I said, Shalini said, can we get an advance to buy a saree. I still remember all this stupid conversation going on. But we were then put through... a very rigourous one-year training programme. And our salary was two hundred and fifty rupees, as, a stipend which they called. And ''uhh, ''we went through every department, and we were the first lot who also went to work down in the press. Those were days of the Linotype machines and you had to make the headlines with the molten lead and … we did all that. And, I really want to tell you -
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''The press was in the same building then, or where was it? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''25:25 '''
|| - the press. Basement. Ya. In the LIC building. And it was- those were the days of the union, you know. The union was very strong. And ''uhh, ''so... … so, we went down to the press and Mr Hariharan told me, look, you have to manage once you're in the press. That don't say these guys are drunk... you know? This is the staff there... and all that. We were a bit nervous because we had to be there at night, you know, when the paper was going to bed. And, it was a very... unionised ''uhh...'' Staff. And, well, they weren't ''uhh...'' People who were journalists, they were just workers in the... They were not used to seeing women down in the press, which they thought was their territory and all that. So... the proofreader, who was the chief proofreader. They made us stand in the middle of this press and, told us all the do's and don'ts, you know. ''Saree pehen kar aana hai. ''Cigarette ''nahi peena hai, sharaab nahi peena hai'', you know?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''Gosh, you'd think a saree's actually dangerous around those machines.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - I know! It was! Because of those machines, you know. And ''uhm...'' ''Idhar-udhar ghoomna nahi hai'', I don't know what he meant by that. Anyway. But, again I have to say that, once you had crossed that initial hurdle, they were all very nice. And they wanted to teach you everything. And we also learnt to sit and have tea with them, joke with them and the whole attitude at that time was, in a way, patronising. To say that – but also they were very protective of you, you know? And they all used to say, Oh, we are very proud. ''Poore ''Delhi ''mey,'' in all the newspapers, we are the ones who have these two women who are being trained because, the others didn't. So we did our night shift, we did everything and after one year, we were asked, you know, whether we wanted to work at the desk or... we chose reporting.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 26:49
|| - '''In the main paper, now? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''27:50 '''
|| - Yes, then we moved... ya! Because, this is where to had to be. And ''uhh – ''But in that one year we worked, in the evening news, we worked in ''uhh...'' They had a … paper which used to be sent abroad. So we worked in that department – we worked in all the departments, as I told you, including the press. And ''uhh,'' I think after that one year, it was such a thorough training, I think we were so confident that we would be able to handle anything, anything. And the test was when they put you on night shift. Because then you were, you know, on your own. Whether it was at the desk or it was in reporting, or working in proofreading. Proofreading was quite something you had to work down in the press, proof was downstairs, and this great pressure of, you know, doing everything on time. And I remember the one of ''uhh, ''very senior guys in the press, after about a month, he said, what's the point of you people working here if you've never sat on a pile of newspapers which was still hot from the press! And I remember he lay down this pile and Shalini and I jumped on it, sat on it, lay down on it, you know. I saying all this to tell you the sort of environment there was. And... the pride, in being part of this. For a man, to say, if you hadn't sat on a newspaper which is still hot from the press, what sort of a journalist are you? So that excitement of seeing the line, the headline which you had made, appear as the … you know, main headline. All that excitement was fantastic. So that's how I got into journalism and I stayed in HT for... thirteen-fourteen years. So that is it.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 28:44
|| - '''So this, now you started, I mean, they took you on as a full-time employee then around '72 - '73? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''29:10 '''
|| ''Uhh...'' No-no-no, I was full-time by... seventy... sixty-nine, seventy...? '72. I remember, second October was the day I joined. In 1972, and I told myself, why am I being given a letter on second October? It's a holiday. They said, no, there's no such thing as a holiday on second October. That's you know, I still remember that date. So, that's how I got into journalism. And once I was in the reporting team... then it was this battle to prove – You know the, first, choice of the chief reporter used to be to give you a soft... assignment. But, they were willing, to let you do any other assignment if you had proved once you can do it. ''Toh'', there was this constant approach we had, as in Shalini and me, to prove that we were better than the boys. It was not good enough to be equal. You had to be better. And because the question always was, why should I give this assignment to you, so ''XYZ'' can do it, why you? While the boys didn't have to... face all that. But it was all in a very competitive manner and I think they were also trying to make us … ''uhh,'' sort of prepare us for everything. I remember those were the days of the Remington typewriter, you know? Those huge heavy things. And ''uhh, ''the first outstation assignment I was given, I think that must have been after a year – two years, was the Kumbh mela - was the Kumbh mela. It was in Haridwar, not
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 30:30
|| ''- '''''Allahabad.''''' ''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''- ''So, ''uhh...'' I had a... news editor, Mr Subramaniam, so I went to him and I told him, look, I want to cover this. So, he said, why? I said, there are two reasons. One, the chief engineer and the person who's really in-charge of the Kumbh mela is my uncle, so I hope I'll get a lot of information from him and all that. And I've never seen the Kumbh mela, so I want to go. He said okay, but do you know how to send stories from there? Those days we used to get this telegraph card. You had to go to the P and T department and those days, the telics stand in a queue and then, ''uhh...'' So I said, ya, I know all that. So he said, and who's going to lug the typewriter for you? I hadn't thought of that. So I said, it doesn't matter, I'll... you know, do something. He said, okay, I'm going to make an exception in your case, and in your bill, when you come back, you can write the amount you've paid for the coolie to lug the typewriter. (laughs) So those were sort of things they would also do but they were very happy to -
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 31:41
|| - '''But you did, you lugged around... the big typewriter from...? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - We all – we all used to do it, those days. There weren't any other typewriters. And everybody had to lug it. So even the guys used to hire a coolie, it's not that I was going to do it.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''And the portables were...'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| '''31:54 '''

'''32:25'''

'''33:48'''
|| - there were no portables those days. Not only that, you had to carry your entire bundle of papers you were going to type on – those ''uhh,'' 4A. Plus the carbon copy because those were days of carbon copies, you know, and ''uhh... ''you had to jostle for space to be able to... keep your typewriter in a place like that, because – they used to have a media centre, which was always in a tent! Or a – five tables or something. And the biggest challenge was to be able to get your story through from that P and T outfits. There used to be only a makeshift guy with one machine sitting there. So you had to stand in a queue. And if you're story got delayed, I mean, you were late for the paper. So I remember, I went and I – I went to this guy who was a clerk at the P and T department and I told him, I said, see, I'm the only woman here, and these guys, you know, they always outrun and come here. Just because you sit and have chai with them and they offer you cigarettes, and things like that, I get left behind. So he said no-no-no, what you should – and they had this system, you kept your paper or copy on the pile, so it went according to – what? But these guys, guys as you know, used to make friends with them. Cigarettes, drink... all that used to go. Which we weren't able to do. So then, he said, no. What you do is, you write one para and give it to me. So that it becomes first. And then you just keep giving it to me, and I'll just say this is a continuation. So this is how I learnt how to ''uhh,'' you know, get along my way and do everything. But, there were good times … and finally, got to a stage where I was given assignments which the guys didn't want to do. You know, for example, there was the first dacoit surrender. In Bateshwar. I think it was nineteen … ''uhm,'' seventy-four, if I'm not mistaken. I – I, I don't really remember. And I remember the news editor calling one of the male reporters, and saying that ''uhh,'' to go there. And I heard him say that, he didn't want to go. He had some engagement or something. I ran into the news editor's room saying, I want to go – I want to go! You know? Those were days of the of the little partition so you could hear everything that was going on. And he said, ya. But, can you believe in my enthusiasm, I landed up four days before the … -
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 34:28
|| - '''The event.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''35:30 '''

'''36:45 '''
|| - actual … event. Which was very good. Because I was able to get to this place, which had been declared a no-police zone. But these dacoits were coming at that time for negotiations. And they were negotiating with the Sarvodaya workers. They were the go-between. I remember, I went there. And there was another girl in Statesman, you must be knowing her, Tavleen Singh. So Tavleen and – back then the other rep – women had joined, you know. I mean, a few of them in newspapers. So I rang up Tavleen, I said, look, this assignment is going, you ask your office also to send you. And, she managed that and we were so excited, we just didn't get the date right. So both of us, pushed off there. I had a staff car and as we arrived at this place, Bateshwar, the police stopped us and said, you can't go any further. I said, why? We are going for this. He said, ''abhi toh ''date'' bhi nahi ''decide ''hua hai, ki kab ''surrender ''hona hai, aap kaise aa gaye yahan par''? So, we told the driver, okay, you just wait here and I asked the guy, how far is Bateshwar, and he said, ''pchh, ''about fifteen-twenty kilometers. And we trudged it. And we trudged it and by the time we got there in the evening, it was such a lonely spot. You know, it was a river bank, and it had these seventy, one-roomed temples. Like a chain. Across. And there was pin-drop silence. It was about six/ six-thirty that we landed up there. And we walked in and I remember this Sarvodaya guy, worker he just looked at us and said, what are you doing here? So we, you know, flashed our identity cards. He said, you realise, now you can't leave this place. Because this is a protected area now. Anybody who comes in, can't go out till the day of the surrender. So Tavleen says, but when is the surrender? He says, that's exactly what we are negotiating. So I said, what to do? So I said, okay, we won't go back. But we need to send a message to out driver, who's waiting twenty kilometers away. So he gave us a cycle. So Tavleen and I rode that cycle, went to the... driver, gave him a chit, and said, you call the office and tell them, this is what has happened. But, you come back and stand here. You know, we didn't even have STD at those days. So – I think STD had just about started. So... (?)<nowiki>*</nowiki>, we made the most of it. We were filing everyday so we used to, talk to people, meet this dacoits get human interest stories, whatever. Go to the driver with our copy, who would take it to the hotel in Agra. You know, we were staying in Agra. Where we had, sent a letter to the manager, that, can you then have this faxed?
||

<nowiki>*</nowiki>(Indiscernible word.)
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 37:35
|| - '''Fax ''bhi nahi tha uss... - '''''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - I don't think there was a fax. There was some other way. No! You know what he used to do, he used to call the office, the news editor. Who would then ask his stenographer, to call him back. And he would read the story. That guy would take it in shorthand and ''uhh...'' You know, that was how... we worked. So, we were there for five days. And when the surrender took place, the entire media landed up and they said, what have you people been doing, writing two-three stories everyday, front-page. We had no idea. That it was appearing front-page and all that. So it's not that they didn't give you opportunities, in spite of the resistance – gave you that opportunity. But. The pressure on us women was always prove that you could do a job better than what the boys were doing. Well, that's... how it was. … You wanted to ask something else?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 38:33
|| '''''Haan. Uhm, ''did you get into political reporting, at all?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Not when I was a cub reporter. The only political we did was the local politics. And ''uhh,'' see, junior most, we were given the crime beat. Again, there were no women doing crime beat, but I had to do it to prove that I could. So then you moved on and then you did – and finally, you started to cover either the Delhi administration, which was the assembly, or the corporation.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 39:05
|| - '''How long did you do crime for? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| For about a year? … Which I thoroughly enjoyed. (laugh) You know? I was, I think responsible – the police headquarter building was coming up – the new one.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''The one near ''uhh...'''''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Ya. And we used to go to the old one and ''uhh,'' I wrote to the head of the – they didn't have a commissioner at that time, I don't know who what was. Police commissioner. To say that I come here everyday, and you don't have a washroom for women. There was no washroom for women. So when your new building comes up, you must make a washroom for women. So that's how they made a media room and a washroom, which everybody was... Having said that, Hindustan Times, in the old days, didn't have a washroom for women when we joined. But we had the privilege of using the editor's ''uhh...'' Washroom. And the ''chaprasi'' used to – we had go and to tell the ''chaprasi'' to, then, tell everybody to clear out and they would stand outside and whatever. But it was fun time.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 40:08
|| '''Can we cut to the Emergency? Where were you when that ''uhh – '''''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| I was a reporter then, still with the Hindustan Times.''' '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''you were still with Hindustan Times?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - with, still with Hindustan Times. And, ''uhh,'' we were part of the reporting team. And it really came as such a shock to us. One was the excitement of that this had happened. But there was such a feeling of numbness, let's put it like that. We just didn't know what had hit us. And, since we were cub reporters and, sort of, junior, we just waited for directions from the editor and from whomever, what we were supposed to do.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 40:48
|| - '''The editor was now... who? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Mr Verghese. And -
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''He was still there. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''41:05 '''
|| - That was, you know, in I think, in nineteen... seventy six, Mr Hiranmay Karlekar came, so it was still the... Emergency. And I remember, we all used to sit at the reporters' room, not wanting to go home. Because, we didn't know... what was happening – the first two days. And we kept asking each other, now what – what are we supposed to do? The first day, the press censorship hadn't come in. You know, that we were all supposed to do this and... We would keep discussing, now what, what are we going to – and I remember my Chief Reporter saying, you all keep filing what you have to file, and the carbon copies used to be kept there. What is going to be used or not used, let that decision be, at the desk. But we all wanted our stories in, you know, that is how we had been, you know, trained to work. I remember when we used to do stories, we used to hover around the desk, give it a good display, do that – so you know, we wanted our story there. The first two days it was – everybody was just stunned. And I have to say, at that time, that for people like me, who were cub reporters, who were junior, we really felt that the seniors had let us down. In the sense that – on two counts. One: there was no direction, as to what we were supposed to do. And when it finally came, it was to say, lie low. Where we had actually expected a person like B. G. Verghese -
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''To stand up.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - to stand up and fight. You know – And we were all ready to join him. We had done it on other occasions, you know. That came as a great shock. And psychologically, psychologically we felt that, you know, the end had come.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 42:45
|| - '''And were you aware, did you feel that things were different in other papers – the Express and Statesman …?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''43:13 '''
|| - the Express. We always thought – but then, you know, but then what was told to us at that time was, oh, Express was anti-establishment. You know. And we thought that to be anti-establishment was the right of a journalist. It would hardly be seen as – I mean, this what we've been trained and taught by people like B G Verghese, that you write what you see. And that's it – that's your job. And you're not the conscience-keeper of the government, this is what we were always told. And here was this person who was telling us that, you know –
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''So how was this conveyed to you – to lie low or... as you put it, was there a meeting held or was something passed around or what? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - It was like, the chief reporter would tell you, then we would walk – then we would come down. We would walk over to B G Verghese, it was, you know, those days, there was no editor sitting in a … ivory tower or something. You know, you were interacting all the time. And he would say, you know – like, I remember going to Mr Verghese and saying, now what, are we never going to write? And he said, you know, it's better to get few lines into print, than to have the paper shut down. So that was an argument which was always given to us. I remember the first day when they came out with a blank editorial,
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 44:01
|| - '''Did HT also do that? Statesman did, Express did, I know. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - I don't remember whether HT did -
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''I don't think HT did.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - But there was this conversation that it was going to happen, I remember. We were discussing it, we knew it was happening. And we thought, you know, oh good, we are taking a stand. And next morning, nothing. What a disappointment, we didn't know what to do. By then the press censorship thing had come in the thing, and we were told that every copy has to be sent there and all that. Till then it was fine. But then it came down to saying, that if you were doing copy, which was being constantly rejected by the censor, That itself, was a big no-no.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 44:44
|| - '''''Achha.'''''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| See, the problem at that time was, there was actually no resistance. At least in HT. There was no resistance. And – which is what everybody say that they were asked to bend and –
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 44:57
|| - '''And downstairs, in – in the presses, in the unions, was there any – any rumblings or... they also stayed out of it? Or was it a Congress union? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - No. No. Not at all in the unions, you know, simply because ''uhh, ''you know they had come down under this essential, ESMER –
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''ESER. ''Hmm.'''''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''45:42 '''
|| - ...whatever it was called. So, the union was very scared that, you know, everything would be considered banned or out of – they were a – that was a different thing. But as journalists, I think, our seniors never told us to push the boundary as much as we could. Instead, it was, fall in line! Be more cautious. That was the approach. And later on, I realised, it was happening – the Express was doing what it was doing because the Goenkas wanted it so. That was not so with the Birlas. The Birlas, too, were falling in line, you know. So I feel it must have percolated from there... -
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''From the top.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - from the to whatever.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''Statesman aslo, it was Irani who wanted to... – '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''46:10 '''
|| - you know... So, I mean, which we realise at that time. That this was not because the journalists in Express, were willing to stick their necks out but it was because the proprietor, the ownership was... – it was something we didn't realise. But after a few days, we started saying, ''yaar, ''Birla ''toh bara chamcha nikla...''and you know. But, by then we had all learnt to say all this in a very hushed tones. Because you didn't know, who was carrying tales. That atmosphere had already creeped into Hindustan Times. Which was, as I had explained to you earlier was not there. Everything was so professional, everybody was friendly. They wanted to you to do good work. People would help you do good work. That changed. And slowly we started to say, that the people who were – if not pro-emergency but had taken kindly to it, were benefitting. You see, that is when we saw this happening.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''Benefiting professionally you mean, in the paper – '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - professionally, they were being given more responsibility, better designations, that was the time when B G Verghese was out and Mr Hiranmay Karlekar came. And ''uhh...''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 47:02
|| '''Where did he come from? Or was he already in the hierarchy somewhere?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''No-no. He was a complete outsider. Hiranmay Karlekar. He was Siddharth Shankar Ray's ''uhh, ''nephew or cousin or something.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- Okay. Alright. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''And, ''uhh,'' you see those days of being able to sit in the ''uhh...'' Reporters' room. Snigger at the establishment, say what you felt like. Have discussions on – heated discussions which we often used to do and lead to people throwing things at each other. All that vanished. You know, it was like we were almost, dead. You know. And no interest in what we were doing. But what I think bothered me later. Everybody seems to have even lost their sense of humour.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 47:51
|| '''- ''Hmm.'' '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''48:11 '''
|| '''- '''because I remember, I was on night shift. And the person who was on night shift in the reporters' - there used to be only one reporter doing the night duty. That was from seven in the evening to... twelve-thirty at midnight. Past midnight. You had to do the weather report because that used to cover – and I was so irritated with what had happened, so I wrote out the weather report and sent it to the censor. You know. I thought that was my way of telling them that, look, things have come to this that whether the censor has to see the weather report. Much to my dismay, it came back with a stamp saying, approved. I mean... I just thought to myself, what's happened? You know everybody's just lost this. And ''uhh, ''at the editorial meeting, the next day, when the copy was this thing – Mr Verghese looked at me and said, - ''uhh'', no Mr Hiranmay Karlekar was there. He said, Oh, I'm so glad, everybody's being so cautious, and you sent the weather report.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- Wow. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''I said, god, is this what we've come to? That nobody wants to even see the sarcasm in what I have done? Or doesn't want to recognise it. It was a question of not recognising, because after the meeting was over, he called me and said, don't be too smart.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- Oh. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''So, he had understood. But he didn't want me to repeat that so that whoever was the censor sitting there, would understand what was happening. I mean I remember saying, he said, you know, you people are too young. And ''uhh,'' you should know, you know, how to... take things as they come. And that for me was a big disappointment. You know, I mean – already I'd spent so many years in journalism and I thought I was this great reporter who could do whatever felt like and … But the worst was, after that, when we had to start covering Sanjay Gandhi.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 49:50
|| '''- How was that – okay. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''You know. Because even when earlier, nobody had thought much of Sanjay Gandhi. And I remember... –
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- ''Hmm.'' Now you were directed in terms of actually...'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''50:13 '''
|| '''- '''No, we had to assignments like he's – some corner meeting he's addressing. Please go and cover it. And I remember – it was not only me, there were other people who also asked in the meeting, that, why are we covering Sanjay Gandhi? In the terms of, what is his official designation? What is he. There was no answer. And we all had to do it. So our rumblings stayed within this group of reporters. But none of the people who were in a position of ''uhh,'' well, I guess they couldn't have taken a decision also. But at least we expected them to share our discomfort. Which they didn't. They had just clamped up. You know, people who had encouraged us to be anti-establishment to write what we tought- thought was the truth. As we saw it. Without fear. Were people who had just clamped up. You know. I remember going to my news editor, Mr Kala, one of the news editors, I said, I don't want to cover Sanjay Gandhi. And he said, as a reporter, you cover whatever you're assigned. I mean I expected him at least to say that I – you know, it's so uncomfortable, the guy is a goon. Nothing. That would have made things less humiliating, let's put it like this. And then we used to go to these functions, this Sanjay Gandhi was such an arrogant guy. Things had completely changed. In the sense, the media the way they were treated before and after … you know, this was pre-emergency. And it was like, we were some sort of riff-raff. We weren't even offered chairs at his function – he was like, telling us that you don't mean anything to me. That arrogance and that ''uhh.. –''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 51:54
|| '''- And yet you were being forced to come.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''And yet we were, you know, it was extremely humiliating. Extremely humiliating. And suffocating –
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| '''52:04 '''
|| '''- Was there a lot of distrust of Mr Karlekar then given that – you said that he was related to Siddharth Shankar Ray. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''No, it didn't – see, this is another thing, there was no protest. They just sniggered and laughed. And said, ''arey – yeh to uska... woh hai.'' ''Arey, ab toh yeh karna hi padega. ''It was like we had no other option. And we admired what was going on in Indian Express. But then, they were seen as a rebel group. You see? Because everybody –
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- Did Verghese tell you anything before... leaving, I mean...?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''No. Not really. Not really. It was a very sad parting. It was a very sad parting. And he looked a man who was very sad at what was happening. But, I think for us, what we were really expecting, was not a total revolt, but at least somebody to say. To us, that, look, we share with you, what you feel and what is happening. And we are part of you. That was not happening. Because there was so much of mistrust. Nobody knew who was tale-tattling. That was the atmosphere.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 53:08
|| '''- I mean, you thought … journalists, editors, were... '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''No, we didn't know who was doing it, you see, that was it. Because, it could be just anybody but there was this fear psychosis going on.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- But one from HT group got picked up in the end. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''No. But I remember, that you know, when Virender Kapoor was arrested, a petition came and we all signed. Saying that this should not have happened. But we didn't have anybody senior to come and put their signature there. Cause it was left to the reporters to do it. And there were some reporters who didn't do it. So that divide had already started, you see. So you started – earlier, as I told you the atmosphere in room used to be so friendly and so nice. All that had changed. You know you – people who were so friendly with suddenly, you say, my god, this person didn't sign, what does it mean? And you couldn't even have those good, old arguments which we used to have. They used to throw paper balls at each other – paper weights if the person disagreed.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 54:17
|| '''- Was the Press Club an institution by that time, or not yet - it was? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''Ya, Press Club was very much there. But –
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- What was the mood there? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''55:08 '''
|| '''- '''I told you... – No. Same. You know. You see, suddenly the ones who were … pro-emergency, had suddenly become so important. You know. As if this lot was now the dominant voice. And everybody else just kept quiet instead of questioning anyone. Nobody wanted to question anybody because you didn't know what was going to happen. And for us, we thought, the questioning should come from the seniors, who we would support. That was not happening. We were not in a position, we thought, at that time to take the lead into anything. And especially after Virender was arrested. Virender Kapoor. This fear that even a well-known journalist – I mean, Kuldip Nayar had been sent to jail. We had seen editors and people like him – Who were we? If Kuldip Nayar could be sent to jail, what was Rashmi Sahay as a reporter in HT, I mean it didn't mean anything. But I still remember, all of us felt extremely ashamed of what all of us were being made to do. And the worst used to be covering Sanjay Gandhi. That was the worst. Because you had to come back and literally... –
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- And you couldn't say anything nasty.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''… invent! And write – no, we had to invent these wise words coming from this guy who was a total – anyway, he's not a fool. He had his own agenda. But you know, we had to think. We used to sit for hours saying, oh my god, what is going to be the opening line? Because he hasn't said anything. And then, we couldn't write about things we saw, you know. The way he had all these women all over him... and his glamourous lot. You know, son of Sultan – in the streets of Old Delhi... with her... chiffon sarees and, whatever. I mean, that's not the sort of people we had interacted with earlier. We had interacted with hardcore... politicians, you know. Even if they were women. And I remember Ambika Soni was-had become a terror by then. You know. I remember I went to the Delhi University for this meeting with Jain Prakash Narayan*, just before. And the mood was so upbeat and everything was - and the very next day. The mood changed. You know. So... it was a terrible, terrible time.
||

<nowiki>* Jayprakash Narayan?</nowiki>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 56:51
|| '''- Ambika Soni being a terror in what way – I mean, to journalists or...?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''57:25'''
|| '''- '''Yes. Because, you see everybody had taken on – all these people had taken on the arrogance of ''uhh,'' Sanjay Gandhi. And they had started to treat us like, you know, as if we were just some... something the cat had brought in, you know. Which we were not used to. Not... – We were not looking for being pampered but to be given the due importance and ''uhh,'' respect to do our work with dignity. And I think that stemmed from the fact that they knew – that you were actually powerless. Your pen didn't mean anything now.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- You weren't independent anymore. Yeah – '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''So they were treating us like they would treat any old bureaucrat or whoever and whoever. And especially of you were from Hindustan Times. Because Hindustan Times had literally... –
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- Caved. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''...caved in, you know. So, there was such a drastic change because I remember, earlier, Hindustan Times was the largest circulated daily. So we used to walk in with great... ''uhh,'' you know, feeling of self-importance and pride. Oh, I'm from Hindustan Times and everybody would get up and offer you... whatever. And now we hardly wanted to utter the word that, look, I'm from Hindustan Times. And some of us were recognised in the … local this thing, beats we were doing. And we saw this now this whole importance now been given to people from Indian Express, ''uhh,'' you know. But we all used to meet and laugh and talk about it. Shed tears. But we just felt that there was... no way out. No way out.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 58:29
|| '''- But then, when it turned – when it … it was announced that elections were ''uhh... ''emergency would be suspended and elections would be coming, did things change quickly...? In those last months.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''Overnight. Overnight. Overnight.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- ''Haan, ''tell me. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''As I'm saying, you know, the way things changed overnight, when emergency was imposed and the day that – I mean, the mood was so upbeat, you know. It was like, okay... fellows, now we are going to show you. You know, it was that feeling. That, you know, okay, you've done this to us, now watch. And we were more than enthusiastic - then. In going about our work and... –
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 59:12
|| '''- But how did that work with – Karlekar was still there? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''01:00:39'''
|| '''- '''Karlekar also changed. I have to tell you. Which is where, I think... I'm not naming just a person but – that is the time, I was so disillusioned with the profession I had taken. Because when I'd joined HT, I almost thought that, here I was, you know, a person who was... this fighter... and we were going to set society right. And my pen was going to be so strong. And my job was to expose what was happening. I almost thought I had taken this very ''uhm,'' what should I say? Sort of a profession which was for martyrs. You know. And that changed overnight. When the emergency came. What were we? Stenographers? We were made to feel suddenly that this is what we were, and nothing else. And yes, I do remember, some of us used to say, let's resign. But the point was, then go where. Where would you go. There was no other newspaper, so where would you go? Many of us did think, oh, let's leave all this and just – I remember somebody saying, oh, we can open a shop, we can do something, all these things were discussed, you know, over coffee. So, that was it but the day … elections were announced, it was like, you know, ''uhh...'' Sort of, wilting plant had been given water and we all sort of spring up again and – Things changed. But that is when I also learnt, not to see my editor with awe and respect. Things changed forever after that.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- Forever?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''01:01:05 '''
|| '''- '''Forever. Because, you know, I could just never get back to just looking up at this man who was the editor. Because B G Verghse had... always set the tone for things which were upright and right. You were supposed to take pride in the fact that nobody could suppress you. And that's how we are being trained. And now we had seen people who were making compromises and adjustments, so what they had taught was either wrong or it didn't mean anything and ''uhh...'' I think, that was the time when I, let's say, stopped hero-worshipping my editor. And things never got back the same way. I'd learnt to question and ''uhm...'' Question and also to some extent even suspect my editors. And always looked into... why is he saying, what is his interest?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- Because you knew he was likely to be influenced by the proprietor or the government or both. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''Ya. And things have changed over the years, after that. Things have changed. That is the first time, which later on I realised, that it was the prorpietor who actually decided the policy. But till then... You see the editorial had been kept absolutely insulated from … ''uhh,'' the proprietors. … … it was just one floor, the management upstairs. … Jounalists never went to the management floor. Nobody from the management ever came down.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- ''Hmm.'' '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''01:02:33 '''
|| '''- '''… you know. But I remember after that, the editors who came in, Hiranmay Karlekar, Khushwant Singh... were summoned by the general manager of... ''uhh,'' Hindustan Times. We had never, never seen this happen before. Then the... advertising section, became so dominant. Earlier, we used to look down on people who were in admin-''uhh, ''advertising. We had nothing to do with them. They started to take part in editorial meetings. I'm talking about post-emergency. Which had nothing to do with the emergency. But slowly – or maybe it is because I was getting into more serious slots, the reality was now exposed. That ''uhh,'' it was a business. It was not this great profession... –
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- Crusade. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''whi- crusade which, we had joined. And... now things are totally different. Now it's sheer business. I mean, people openly tell you, you editors and people who matter, that, look, ''uhh, ''this is what brings in the money. And we didn't stop to question it. Because the power doesn't lie with us, you see. And over the years – and it's not only the Congress, I must tell you. That – post-emergency is when I think the RSS and Jan Sangh decided that they had to infiltrate the newspaper and...
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 01:03:58
|| '''- This was their first taste of power also, ''na''. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''01:04:15'''

'''01:05:25 '''
|| '''- '''You know, no. Because they realise, that the Congress had used... all these people. So, their youngsters, who were RSS people started to enter newspaper offices and I don't think anybody realised what was happening. But over the years, I have seen these very people reach positions of power and influence. And they dictate now, what is going to happen in the … … publication. So it was a very sublte way … of inflitrating newspaper establishments, you know. And ''uhm...'' I must tell you that you know, even, earlier, the Congress used to have journalists who'd use – but never as a party. It was individuals, who cultivated journalists, you know. Usually the regional setups(?) and things like that. But I think the RSS went about – and the Jan Sangh went about it in a very... ''uhh,'' what should I say, they had thought it out. And they were looking at ten-fifteen years ahead. If you start looking now and seeing the editors and their... party leanings, you see, now there was a change. Having, for a – a journalist to have a party leaning, was not considered bad. In my time, when we had started – our religion was to be objective. We didn't want to be termed as a Congress or RSS or Marxist or whatever whatever. But, now, they wear it on their sleeve. And these are the people who have reached ''uhh...'' places where ''uhh – ''they are the decision makers. So that's how it is – you don't need a government then to do your work. Okay? Now you already have these people, they get their dictate from wherever and they do it. And the owners also, the proprietors, they've learnt. They play it both ways now. Whoever is in power, they go with them. It's as simple as that. But it's become far more blatant now than it was earlier.
||

Unfamiliar word
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 01:06:12
|| '''- But do you think in that sense, the emergency was a turning point, because, both politicians of either stripe and proprietors'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''and the journalists!
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- … and the propreitors saw that they could do this to journalists. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''And the journalists! Who realised, that if they toed the line, they would benefit. So it works on – at three levels. That was a time that journalists also realised that being objective was not the mantra. It was to write what people wanted – and then you would reap the benefits, you know. So, that's how it, I feel – and when people ask now, that does this government do it … The BJP government doesn't need to do anything,, it already has RSS people as editors, as opinion makers, whatever. And they then get their own people and then that's how it works, you know. So... the in that case, the emergency taught a lesson to everybody, you know. And that's being used now. That's how it works. With the visual media, it’s entirely different, we didn't have visual media that time. So... that's how it is.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 01:07:28
|| '''''Hmm.'' So, with some people and in some sense, the... that brief period after the... emergency was – was a bit of a golden age. You think that is not – suddenly there was a new ''josh'' is crusading... journalism, there was a sense of righteousness, perhaps self-righteousness. Do you think that was a brief thing, a false dawn or...? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''01:08:16 '''

'''01:09:38 '''
|| - ...no! You saw that – a revival of that. When VP Singh came to power. (cough) Sorry. You know, when, Rajiv Gandhi was thrown out, again there was this lot of journalists. Not one lot, but journalists as a whole, who thought that, you know, they could play a role and you know, start bringing about a change, which was right. You see? So that same ''josh'' you saw at that time, also. The formation of the Jan Morcha and VP Singh coming to power. But I think after that, things changed, again. Even ''uhh – ''as I told you, the journalists who had learnt their – a lesson from the emergency, and you now had journalists who could be put Iin slots. ''Yeh toh ''Congress'' ka admi hai, yeh toh ''RSS ''ka admi hai, yeh toh ''leftist ''hai.'' You had journalists now, who take a break from the profession and go and work for a particular party. And then they come back and join the organisation. You have journalists who now join parties and fight an election. All that was unheard of. I'm talking about the '70s. So I think there has been a change. And nobody's defensive about it anymore. I don't think I should take names but, you have them from all shades. And it's not only that they are from BJP and RSS, you have the guys from the Congress, the left parties as well the ''uhh...'' The BJP. They are not ashamed to say that they belong to this party, in fact the argument these days is there is no such thing as an objective journalist because every human being has a tilt towards some ideology but that's not the point. What we were told that whatever your tilt, it should not reflect in your writing. But now it reflects in the writing so that's the change. If you ...I mean, it's almost come to the stage where you just read the by-line and you know what the content will be, which was not there earlier. So that's the real change.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 01:10:07
|| - '''''Haan. ''In the early days, it was a long time before by-lines became a thing, ''na''? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Firstly, by-lines were very rare. You didn't get a by-line for every piece you wrote. To get a by-line in itself was an achievement. But now, everybody gets a by-line for every two lines they write. So it's changed, you know. That's also changed and ''uhh,'' ''Par'' I think now the biggest difference is that wearing your party affiliation on the sleeve is the fashion for journalists which was not there earlier. And you have arguments, you always have arguments with these people who think belong to a certain party, and their argument always is that, yes! Because I genuinely believe in this so I write. Now this distinction between reporting and editorial itself is becoming so blurred. Earlier, your viewpoint in the editorial … remain … as objective as it could be, it's not so now, I mean you have to just see the papers to know, you know. Now you know, this magazine is left, this magazine is right. This magazine is right of centre. And you know, it's like that... (buzz) Anything else?
||

Feedback disruption through this bit till the end.
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''I think I'll have to release you. Thank you so much.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''Thank you.
||
|-
|}

.NjQw.NDA

2017-11-03T11:46:24Z

Bhanugs:

<u>'''INTERVIEWEE'''</u> * <div style="margin-left:1.27cm;margin-right:0cm;">Name: Rajinder Sachar</div>

<u>'''INTERVIEWER'''</u> * <div style="margin-left:1.27cm;margin-right:0cm;">Kai Friese </div>

<u>'''Medium: Audio recordings'''</u> * <div style="margin-left:1.27cm;margin-right:0cm;">Format: Audio .wav </div>
* <div style="margin-left:1.27cm;margin-right:0cm;">Language: English/ Hindi </div>
* <div style="margin-left:1.27cm;margin-right:0cm;">Date of the interview: 01/03/2016 </div>

<u>'''Clip name/DURATION: '''</u>* <div style="margin-left:1.27cm;margin-right:0cm;">kf_RSachar.wav/ 01:28:45 </div>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:16.484cm;"
|- style="border-top:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;border-bottom:1.5pt solid #9cc2e5;border-left:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;border-right:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <u>'''TimeCode'''</u>
|| <u>'''Transcription'''</u>
|| <u>'''Remarks'''</u>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| '''00:00:03 '''
|| KF: '''Okay. Interview with Mr Rajinder Sachar at his at his residence in New Friends Colony in New Delhi on the First of March, Two Thousand and Sixteen. Mr Sachar, if you could begin by telling me a little bit about your early life and how you entered the legal profession. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| RS: You see, we belong to Lahore. Our generation have lived in Lahore, frontier et cetera. My father was a Congress man, from the beginning 1920-20. Boycotted it. Enrolled(?) Gandhiji's ''satygraha''. He was a practicing lawyer till '30. Then we- then we were living in Gujranwala, that's about thirty miles from Lahore. And then we shifted to Lahore in '30s. And my father started a insurance company called the Sunlight Insurance Company. And, he was a Congress man so he contested 1937 – Punjab assembly election. And he was elected from urban areas from Rawalpindi, which is between … And, of course he was jailed in 1940
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 01:29
|| '''- During the war.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| 1942... '42 was an interesting thing. What happened was, you see, '37, of course, you know, they picked him up. Thirty. Then at forty-two... You see, my father... (?) sort of thing, so, he used to go every week to Arya Samaj. It was his, you know, sort of a... (?), not the conservative type. He didn't believe in idolatry and all that and others.
|| Mumbling's a bit incoherent at times. Apologies.
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- Okay. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| '''02:03'''

'''02:51 '''
|| So swami Dayanand's... thing. So... those days, you know, children listened to their father, it was taken for granted. (laughs) ''Uhh...'' I mean, like, if you're... parents told you something, it was a fact – you don't question it. So my father was keen that I should accompany him. So I was accompanying him, right from the beginning, from school and, you know... I was then in... my fourth year in '42. So it was Sunday, it was also Sunday – Ninth. So... we had gone there and when we came out ''uhh...'' The papers, were of course not available, but it was spread by news that Gandhiji and others had been arrested (?) at the meeting. Naturally be expected that the police will now come for him. So we went home, and ''uhh...'' Packed up the things, we were used to it. But by eleven or twelve... no police came. So you can imagine – it may be very odd to you, fact of the matter is, all of us were very disturbed.
||

Background noise
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| '''03:20 '''
|| '''- ''Hmm.'''''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| We were wondering why the hell the police doesn't come. Not that the police hasn't come for us... we were uneasy. So... at that time, then … what the problem is... So, father informed the Congress unit that please, I will be holding a meeting in the Lahore area. So then, probably it spread and they came at five and took...
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 03:49
|| - '''Arrested him. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''04:30'''

'''05:23'''

'''06:10'''

'''07:23'''

'''08:22'''

'''09:32'''

'''10:23'''
|| Ya. And the second reason, because my uncle, the younger brother of my father had quite a resemblance to my father my uncle, the younger brother of my father had quite a resemblance to father and he with his family had gone to river Ravi. River Ravi, there was some function or just in the- so some policeman saw him and reported that Mr Sachar has gone to river Ravi and (?) … And well, that was very bad day because, I mean, they packed them up, they didn't inform us but we had our sources. My, our younger brother – two year old. So, they took him to Campbellpur – Shahpur, which is down there in Punjab. Horrible things. Where (?) was. At that time it was all ''jungal'', forest. They didn't get any beds, they had to sleep in floor. And, these cockroaches and others were … They also had, inside, hunger strike and they provided them. And they... (laugh) brought the first one to father and said, you are the leader and so he said no. First you supply to all of them, and I'll take the last one. He had that moral, so anyway. So after that, after spending in jail, then came out and '46 again there were elections. And ''uhh...'' '46 elections, the Congress was – from the Muslim league was the probably... Congress was the next. There was another unionist group, which also consisted of Muslims, who had been in power prior to '37. When it was a combination of West Punjab, unionist Muslim – mainly Jaats dominated and of Haryana dominated. So there the government- but then they lost so Muslim League couldn't form the government. And the Congress, those- those unionist party, mostly Muslim, they formed the thing. And my father was the Finance Minister in days of the Congress. ''Uhm...'' and then after years... came the partition. ''Uhh...'' My father, us, family, we weren't inclined to shift. So we had decided that we'll stay over. The conditions were but one- frankly, nobody expected the conditions to go that far. Though, in retrospect, one thinks that one should have... but, you know, sentimentally one was so tied that one could never think of it. When Muslim friends, we used to call them ''Chachaji, ''uncles et cetera. So... see, my father represented Lahore constituency. And the constituent assembly, when the constitution was to be drafted, one of the principles adopted was that a person who belonged... to a particular constituency, he would become a member of that constituent assembly, to which- for example, Lahore belonged to Pakistan. So father would become a member of constituent assembly of Pakistan. Like, Liaqat Ali. He belonged to UP. So he became a member of the UP constituency. That was the thing, so my father became a member of the constituency of Pakistan. And, then we were going to attend the first* meeting, in Karachi. Since he was going (?) by then. And I said I'll come, you know... I said I'll come with you. So we and our server, we booked our seats back also, to Lahore. And, went there, attended it for couple of days. (laugh) There are one or two interesting things there. You know, in constituent assembly – Father had done Persian. And naturally, Punjab, we spoke amongst the population, Urdu. So my father wanted to speak in Urdu, not in English. (laugh) … Jinnah ''sahab;'' No, Mr Sachar, you have to speak in English. That's the language of the assembly. (laughs) ''Uhh... ''and, as now I say, after Mr, our IK Gujral said, I say I am probably the only person in India and Pakistan, who has had the privilege to listen to original Mr Jinnah's speech, 'from this day onwards, you don't go to your Mosques, you don't go to your Gurudwara. It has nothing to do with this, we are all Pakistanis'. Because that was his first speech. And, after three-four days we were to come back. We had taken our server. But you, know, at that point of time, the... ''uhh''... air service had started. Between Karachi and Delhi. There was no air service before in Lahore. So, frankly, I didn't travel by air because there was none – Air India. So... (?)… I told father, let's go via Delhi. We'll fly to Delhi then go by train to Lahore. We sent back our servant. Later on we found out that the train in which we would also have gone back, was attacked at Mughal Sarai, it is very near Lahore. They had quarters of railway. And that old fellow, fortunately, escaped. Ran away et cetera. So when we landed in Delhi, father naturally, had to see ''pandit'' Nehru. In the normal course. So he ran out, went there and (laugh) hardly had he entered when Nehru said to my father, where have you been? I've been looking for you for couple of days! You're not to be found. So father told him, ''arey, panditji, ''you know I'm a member of the constituent assembly, so, I am coming from Karachi. So you don't know? He said: what? Punjab is on fire. (???) My father took the (?), I stayed on in Delhi... So went and started with it. And then, of course, after that, he settled down, for some time – a year or so. In Andhra Pr- Amritsar, because those days were terrible. Both sides. To be very frank. It's not fair to evaluate which committed greater atrocities. And you know, very touching, I must tell you. […]
||

Sir Goddart?

Sargodara?

<nowiki>*first/house?</nowiki>

Cannot make out

~ Break of some sort ~
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 11:41
|| '''Yeah. We had reached Delhi. You had – your family had gone to Amritsar for a while. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Haan. ''For a year, because of rehabilitation et cetera. And then we came to Delhi, you see, as I told you, we had our insurance company. So that was one part- father kept up in politics. I think he went- he led a goodwill delegation I think. Probably in '48. Went to Pakistan. ''Uhh''... then, you see then there were people who were members of assembly, they became members of this side also – in by '49. So my father was, in '49, was Chief Minister of then Punjab. Which was, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal. That only, because of the internal thing... lasted only six months. And ''uhh... ''then there were elections in '52. Father was elected from Punjab and he was made the Chief Minister, of Punjab.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 12:50
|| '''So very much Congress, still. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''13:20'''

'''14:30 '''
|| Congress Chief Minister... total. Then in fifty-… six, Khan ''Sahab ''Mijbu*, he had differences with Nehru. It was a very small issue, I'll give you the... background... I have written about it, in... Tehelka; Nehru, my father and myself. It'll give you a good deal of... thing. So father resigned in ''uhh, '''56, one year earlier. Then this – but then I think'','' Nehru probably felt ''ki'', I mean, a little unfair to him. So then he appointed him to Orrisa... then to Andhra Pradesh. My father... then the – During Lal Bahadur Shastri's time, he appoint- he was appointed High Commissioner for Ceylon. But then he resign earlier. The term is two-three years, but he resigned after one year. Wasn't feeling very comfortable. (laughs) Being a diploma's slightly very different. I mean, there's a laughable thing – the... I, of course didn't have a (?) to go there but other friends and family went. There the... younger diplomats there in the... High Commission, you know, laughably complained,… one of the pleasures of being posted outside is, new duty drinks! And this new High Commissioner has said, not only don't drink, drinks will be serve - even official parties. (laughs) So then he came back and... devoted himself to... you know, Khadi Gramodyog – constructive work. Away from day-to-day politics. And also... he was associated with JP – Jayaprakash ji in that anti-corruption movement. So on.
|| Name unfamiliar.
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 15:02
|| '''''Hmm.'''''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| See, I was practising in Chandigarh. Right up to '70. But Delhi used to be once a part of Punjab so, Chief Justices et cetera came from there. So then, in seventy-… '70 I was appointed a judge here in Delhi High Court. And... then, we were...
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''And did you, yourself, maintain any contact with the Congress party or...?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 15:30
|| I?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''Yes. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''16:12'''

'''17:35 '''
|| No, I had become, in that sense, a rebel. I joined socialist party, 1946. When I finished my Law. And I had made up my mind that I am going to be old-timer(?). I'm not going to practice or do anything. So I told father – father that way was very accommodating. I said I'm not going to practice and I'm going to work. And I joined the socialist party, In Punjab. And... I worked for some time, no... … Congress at that time, Gulzarilal Nanda, the Labour Minister, he had an organisation of labour because he had done good work in Ahmedabad textile thing. So father talked to him and he said send him to... Bombay, for taking training. So I went there. Father knew somebody, businessman from Punjab. Word is shop, business. You know, younger days, that big shop. And then there was small ante-room here, which the ante-room probably some person... meat shop out there. So I spent my days there, that ante-room. I was there for a month or two and then August forty-sev – Six, we had a very big communal clash in Bombay. And also the labour areas were affected. So... it was not possible to do any labour work there. I think in Gurdwara Nanda ''Sahab... ''You see, in Delhi, they were one Joshi was... socialist and tra- working on trade union. And there was Bhrahm Prakash who was the first Chief Minister of State of Delhi. When Delhi was constituted a state in '50s, he was the first. Then, Congress people Shobha(?) Joshi, Nayar et cetera. They were having a (?)*, in Karol Bagh and ''uhh...'' … Sixty rupees is the only thing you could spend. And we were looking after – I mean, because I was working on trade union... So, our trade union, the social party controlled trade union, which we called Hind Mazdoor Panchayat at that time later on. And now it's Hind Mazdoor Sabha.
||

<nowiki>*commune? </nowiki>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 18:24
|| - '''''Hmm.'''''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''19:27 '''
|| ''Uhh...'' Working in Delhi cloth mill workers which were, at that now now. Now it is all, you know, finished. Delhi Cloth Mill. ''Uhh...'' It's no longer there. So we were working there and earlier to my coming there, we had a strike. But unfortunately, it had not done well so there was lot of ''uhh...'' Discomfort among the work men. So our main programme was to go there every day and talk to them and tell them that these ups and downs happen and most of them were there. Now... though my father wore this dress, this dress I never wore. Right from my beginning, I wore my knicker and the college pant because I was a sportsman also, in my college days. And when I was triple* league champion of Punjab. - Tennis. In '46.
||

<nowiki>*(Best guess) </nowiki>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- In? - Oh, I see. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''20:17'''
|| Singles, doubles and mixed both. Frankly my college days were the normal ones. Though I was reading a lot, but not practical anything, apart from '46. So... we were going one day with my some other colleague and we were talking to some worker who was going there and we said, you know, don't get disheartened ''uhh''... these things happen. We were, boosting up his morale. We were talking to him when suddenly ''kya hai! Ek taraf ho. Ek taraf ho – ''came from outside. And started walking and I … uttered some words like, the ''sahab's ''come. Because I was in my other dress. Trousers. ''Sahab aa jatey hain! ''What do they know about our condition? So I... somehow was quite hurt and I thought, ''mujhe toh ''- I genuinely come for him. I believe in this cause. And, why's he suspecting? And I don't know suddenly struck me ''ki'' possibly my dress made him a stranger. Because in those days, you know, workmen et cetera never put on these trousers. Their common dress was ''pajama. ''And the Congress only, of course, only. And I thought that this man instinctively thinks me a stranger. He does not think I'm genuine about it. So I changed my dress. Then, of course, here working in Socialist party and trade union front. And then, in '48 we had a token strike so we spent four days in jail. (laughs)
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 21:26
|| '''''Achha? ''Which jail?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - because the – Government took us. Then in '49, the socialist party held a demonstration outside the Nepalese embassy. Because at that time, Rana –
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 21:45
|| - '''Mandi House.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''22:20 '''
|| - No. Rana... in Nepal had taken over from the King. You know, Nepal the King was titular head. But the real power was Rana, the Prime Minister. So, as a protest against that – because we had lot of friendly relations with the Congress and socialist workers there – Korana brothers. They were very close to our younger generation. So doctor Lohia led us. And there were fifty of us. I mean fifty of us were picked up (laughs) … … it's normal but inside we were demonstrating and they had declared one forty-four – we were violating, so they had brought the trucks. And starting putting plain people – get in, get in. So they started getting in and I was also shouting at little distance, when suddenly I saw the truck moving. The moment you see trucks … … and I was at a … … and I, one of my friends, colleagues – socialists, he was in the thing. And fortunately, you know trucks that when... put it up. And truck back, with luggage done, until you fill up with thing, it is down.
|| Doubt about name; Khurana /Koirala?
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 23:10
|| '''The gate.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Haan. ''So I shouted to him. I said, ''eh!'' I've been left behind, what about me, ''hain? ''So I ran. I ran and I asked him, I said, give me your hand, pull me up. … … Such was my general (?) as a man. … … … I unconsciously felt it is not right, I am violating the law as my colleagues, they picking up, why should I be out? So they took us to jail. Jail at that time was, where this Maulana Azad College is here. This, central.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 23:47
|| '''Meaning Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg ''uhh...''?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''24:40'''

'''25:30'''

'''26:23'''

'''27:25'''
|| ''Uhh... haan. ''… … Opposite our stadium also. When you go on Bahadur Shah Marg, crossing there. That Maulana Azad was the jail. (laughs) And, you see, Delhi didn't have a state. So all Delhi administrations were officers and others, were mostly officers borrowed from Punjab. And, for example, Delhi... was a jail looked after by Punjab government. But Delhi didn't have a state. All its officers were from Punjab. Deputy Commissioner's from Punjab, Health Officer, Jail Officer. And my father was the – and my father was the Chief Minister of Punjab. So the jail was under him. (laughs) ''Achha'', since, you know, one forty-four, the party had decided matter of principle, there'll be no asking for bail. So spent the day in jail. And doctor Lohia, you know, at one time, was very close to Nehru family. Because when he came back from Germany, he joined the foreign office, which was run by ''pandit'' Nehru. They were very close. ''Uhh''... of course, when he walked out, and then later on naturally you... were in sense, very unhappy with Nehru. Because Nehru to my generation and even Lohia's generation, means he was an ideal. He was an inspiring figure for us. My father made me meet him. And what he told me I liked it, is earlier... his letter to his daughter, so we were brought up in the atmosphere of Nehru's socialist call. And we were naturally very disappointed when we walked out. Because we thought that this man had betrayed us. But I suppose people at that time, did not take politics to such dirty lengths. So we received a basket of mangoes, sent of course to of course, doctor Lohia, not to us. But quite good two-three baskets because we knew that ''uhh''... from (?)'s house. And Indira, because Indira had also worked with doctor Lohia in... relief, matters in post '47. Riot affected areas. So... and Sardar Patel was very upset. He wrote a letter to Nehru saying, what is this. This man has violated the law and you're sending mangoes to him? From Prime Minister's house. So appare-… … at that point of time. Wrote back, personal relations are very different from political relations. (laugh) You know, at that time, some of the standards were very different. My father came to... inspect the jail. In the normal course. I was then practicing also in Delhi so... we hadn't met for the last four-five months. ''Uhm...'' and since we were under one forty-four, and sort of political prisoners, interviews with us were quite common. In the sense that... for example, I... now brother in-law, Kuldip was my very dear friend right from Lahore, we did a lot together. He used to come, about second-third day and used to have interview. Similarly other – other that news, could also have interviews, not anything favourable to me. It was a normal thing. As a matter of fact, (laugh) you know, that time was... such a funny time that I … if I may – … … because picked up and kept in jail. Not in jail, immediately. Kept for the night at Parliament Street police station. By morning it had spread, Kuldip... came to know. And he came to... there. I think at that time, because of … … et cetera, the police were not – they didn’t think that we would all run away. So I remember, I really feel … I hadn't frankly taken any meals since last- I was hungry. So when Kuldip came – he had a motorcycle. So I said, ''yaar ''Kuldip, I'm feeling very hungry, take me to this Kwality Restaurant, which was there at Connaught Place. I went there with him. (laughs)
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 28:48
|| '''- And then returned? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''29:30'''

'''30:35'''

'''31:40'''

'''32:55 '''

'''33:59 '''
|| Because you know, in the... now of course they've made it a very big et cetera. It was an open ground. They'd asked us to sit till the magistrate come. I went with him, had my breakfast and then came back. (laugh) … So, father came so the... when he was- he inspected the jail, not our... side. And when he was going ''uhh, ''the... superintendent said, Rajinder is here, would you like to see him? …in me, there was nothing wrong, but somehow he had very high standards. He said, no, I'm not seeing him. I've not come to see him, I've come to inspect the jail. He didn't see me. Because – I didn't feel bad, because I understood the –principle. Even if you see me, nobody will say... … … those were different times, frankly. And, then... … tell you very interesting thing about Lohia and Nehru. You see, '51-'52, I was still in Delhi so whenever doctor Lohia would come, we'd meet. So I was sitting at- one day, where he was staying and those days there was no mobile so somebody came to him and said, doctor ''sahab'', your telephone. So he went to the next room and when he came back, I asked him, doctor ''sahab'', who's telephone? He said Nehru's... ''Toh'' I said, what was he saying? ''Kehte'', he said, Ram Manohar, Nehru used to call him – doctor Lohia's name was Ram Manohar Lohia, so he would call Ram Manohar, so... I said, ''haan?'' And then he said, ''suna hai... ''America'' ja rahe ho – ''I understand you're going to America. He said, yes. ''Kab ja rahe ho?'' I (?)fully told him. And... he said – then he was quiet. And then... more talk telephone... ''Toh ''I asked him. ''Maine kaha, ''doctor ''sahab, ''what is this? … … ''Kehte, ''you know what – he used to, he was very... liberally he said, ''kambakht, jaantey ho, kya kehna chahta tha'' – what did he want to say. He wanted to say that when you're going to America, outside, please don't speak very badly about India. (laughs) And – and doctor then went … … ''Mai bahar jaake baat karunga? ''So I told him, mischievously, ''pandit ''Nehru knows you little better, because you're going to speak about it. (laughs) So then I... '53 or so, I shifted to... Singa(?), where we had the our High Court. My father was still the Chief Minister so... in '55, January, our High Court was shifting. I was staying, of course, with my father but my office was separate. ''Uhh, ''and... they had called. The High Court had called ''pandit ''Nehru for inauguration. Inaugurating our building. I was then the general secretary of the High Court Bar Association. So ''Pandit ji ''had naturally come a day earlier. And in the evening, that is, the night before... father, when he came home, he told me... ''bete, pandit ''Nehru have asked for … breakfast. Just a family breakfast. I mean... … , mother. Nobody else, so, he's coming at eight o'clock. He told me at this time because normally I'm a very late sleeper. One or two o'clock. Normally I would get up at eight. So he told me, coming at eight o'clock, better be ready. At that time. (laugh) You know it's funny. How... … one thinks many things*, so I told him, father... father, I'll not sit with him on the breakfast table. And ''uhh...'' He... asked me why, I said no. He was playing very foul with us, I am not very happy with him. And I will not sit. Father and I had a very good equation, so he didn't scold me. He said, you're being very foolish and childish. But I said no. So he said alright, it's your wish. And now I could... go that far. To be at home and ''pandit'' Nehru taking breakfast... and not sit at the table. That was something I couldn't bring myself up to. So I normally go down at eight. Got up at seven, got ready and went out of my house to my... office. … … -that –that, I had written a piece on Tehelka...
||

(best guess)
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 34:36
|| '''- On your father. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''35:35'''

'''36:39'''
|| - on Nehru and my father, where I mentioned all these things. So you see, that was the kind of a... (laugh) relationship. Then one day to Delhi, and as I say, my period of seventy to eighty-five, … ''haan'', … … In April '75, I was a Delhi High Court Judge. So one day... Chief Justice Ray. He was then the Chief Justice. He telephoned me and said, will you come and see me. So I went there and what he told me was that, you know... we were going to make Sikkim as a formal state in May. Fifteenth. So he asked me that I want you to go as Chief Justice of Sikkim High Court. I was little surprised because I was quite junior. Seventies... Delhi High Court, there were seven-eight more senior to me. So I told, Chief, I don't want to go, there's no work there. … … -no question. I said it, what is my purpose in going? So he tried to tell by saying, you know, frankly if you become Chief Justice, in '75, I was only fifty-three. You'll probably there, seniormost Chief Justice after five seven years... very good chances of coming to the Supreme Court. So I told, myself- you know, Chief, I read American law journals and American law. I remember reading Justice Douglas name, I remember... Justice Frankfurter name, Justice Holmes name. None of them became Chief Justice. I don't remember Chief Justice names. So, that might change nothing, if I have no work, I'll feel very bad. So will you please excuse me. So I told him no. Came back, and in the evening, Mr Gokhale was then the Law Minister.
||

( The word, 'Read' is in the present tense.)
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 37:00
|| '''''- Hmm.'''''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''38:04'''
|| I didn't know him very well, but after coming here, I had met number of times. He was also, you know, also worked as a labour... lawyer in Bombay. So, here some of those pro-Soviet Union meetings and others, I had occasion to meet him. And my socialist background. So somehow he told me, he said, Sachar, tell me, you have refused to go to Sikkim? ''Maine kaha, ''yes, Gokhale ''sahab, woh … ''Chief had called me and I said no. He said what do you mean Chief had called you – I had asked him. I had asked him to call you. .. normal protocol, that if Judge has to be asked, he has to be asked Chief Justice. I really want you to go. I said, Gokhale ''sahab'', I don't like going there. We are setting up headquarters, what will I do there, ''yaar''? I have so many days yet to go. I mean... … He said, no, Sachar, I want you to go because, see it's a very delicate state, Sikkim. And... I want somebody to go not only for Judiciary side but with little political background, who understand the sensibilities. And I don't want to take a chance. Because, you know...? Sikkim –
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- Yes.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''38:42 '''
|| - because, you know, annexation had become very controversial. So I told him, I said, Gokhale ''sahab'', it's like this, if you're very keen. I won't go as permanent Chief Justice, I'll go only as acting Chief Justice. And you will keep my seat in Delhi High Court vacant so if I'm acting Chief Justice, I can be brought back as a Judge. Again. He said yes. And I said my family's staying in Delhi, he said, yes, that all will be looked into. Your house will remain with you, your family will remain. Nothing will disturb you. You just need to go for six months and set up the High Court. So I said I'll go as acting. So I went as acting there.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 39:25
|| '''- So you'd gone in...? Which month in '75?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - ''Uhh...'' Seventy-five... April, probably. And, after a month or so, I was coming back to Delhi for a short break, because there was a break there. And I... heard this news of... election results when I was traveling back from Sikkim to... this place. So... that was, we were closed off for five weeks … nothing much, stayed on … Then, after four weeks, or so I was to go back. And, by a coincidence... I was traveling to Calcutta – you see the way to Sikkim was- there was no air. One had to go to Calcutta, then from Calcutta, one had to go by road. So... I was going there, on twenty-fifth of June. '75.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 40:28
|| '''- Oh!'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Traveling by- to Calcutta and the next morning I was to go to Sikkim. And ''uhh...'' I was traveling and behind me was ''uhh, ''Mr Ray. Siddh-
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''Siddharth Shankar Ray.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - ''Haan''. Siddharth Shankar Ray. And his secretary. With me were sitting some acquaintance from Bengal. So nothing, just going ahead and ''uhh, ''in-between some hostess came and told Mr. Siddharth Ray, Siddharth Ray got up, went to the cockpit then came back. And then said something to his secretary in Bengali. So my acquaintance was sitting with me and knew Bengali. So he just asked, he says, Siddharth ''sahab'', can emergency be declared?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''(Snicker)'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - no. Can emergency be declared a second time? Now why he said was because we had declared emergency in '62 – Chinese time.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 41:39
|| '''- The external emergency.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - That was still in force. So I said, no we have already emergency of '62, so I don't understand. I said why're you asking. He says, Siddharat was saying his secretary, that I was supposed to stay on in Calcutta for some time. But I've been asked by Indiraji to come back the next day, so please … back. And... at that time, frankly, it didn't register much. … … -not emergency, was to stay here, but I have now been asked to come back. Immediately. So that didn't convey anything much, didn't bother. But when I got up in the morning, it was all news that it was the twenty-sixth of June. Emergency had been declared in the night, midnight, you know, on twenty-sixth of June...
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 42:39
|| '''Big shock for you at that time or was it something you'd been expecting? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''Of course, of course. It was all a shock, I mean... one didn't expect that ''ki...'' Because everybody was thinking... what'll happen... … … -I was caught up. So I went to Sikkim because my courts had opened at that time. And of course, by that time, there was no communication, nothing to come...
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| '''43:17 '''
|| '''Was there press of any significance – were there newspapers in Sikkim, local papers that were active at all? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - No, nothing. Nothing at all. One knew because, after all, things spread. And then, when they brought emergency properly, that, of course, was published. So those things were new. So, there after some time- I mean, didn't have TV. Only thing was radio, TV... radio. And our Delhi Doordarshan wasn't very strong so normally turn to BBC. And one day I was sitting... at home, switch on the BBC and they said famous journalist Mr Kuldip Nayar has been taken...
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 44:13
|| - '''Arrested. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''45:28'''
|| So, I couldn't tell you, from the next day... didn't contact... after all. I again telephoned my house and my son picked up the phone. So I asked him, I said... my son et cetera called Kuldip, 'papa', because... ''Maine kaha woh papa ko... ''- have they taken papa? So he says, yes, daddy. Not only papa, our grandpa also. Now what had happened was... we were staying in (?)*- official house. Used to be... during emergency, (?), they'd given the guard. Guard used to be outside. Now I rang up my … mother. And – in the morning. And I asked, I said, have they taken father, she said yes, they've taken father in the morning. Now... a small, little thing. How... every person behaves. They came at about one or two. The (?) police station people. Since there used to be guard at my house... this was his bedroom and outside was a covered verandah. So they used to sit inside because... So those poor people told them, look... he's sleeping, he normally gets up morning four or five. So please why don't you come at that time. And those people understood the humanity of it. Then came at five and took him to... ''uhm...'' Tihar Jail. So when he told me, I naturally came back. I wanted, ''achha'', when I came back after two-three days, I was told that he's been taken to Ambala Jail. He was kept here for just two days and then taken to Ambala Jail. In Punjab. So I wanted naturally to see him. And Brahmananda Reddy was then the Home Minister. From Andhra Pradesh. When my father was the Governor, he was also the Home Minister there.
||

<nowiki>* (Can't make out) </nowiki>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 46:53
|| '''Okay. ''Hmm.'''''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''47:32'''

'''48:40 '''

'''49:51 '''

'''50:15'''

'''51:28'''
|| And the family had very good relation. You see, Brahmananda Reddy's wife, there was lot of age difference there. Because in Andhra Pradesh, there's a strong custom... that you marry your niece. Maternal uncle marries the niece. So she was the niece. So there was a big age difference. I mean she was my wife's age group, my sister's age group. … … -friendly. Even when he came here as Home Minister, he probably came to see father couple of times. Before emergency, of course. His wife used to come quite often with my wife. So I rang up Brahmananda, I said, sir I want to see my father. And because you required a pass, permission. So he told me frankly, he said he's there, I'm sorry. I can't. I have no power. All this is now being looked after by Om Mehta, Minister for … And... I said I told, one MP please talk to him because I don't know Om Mehta. Well, for two-three days, nothing happened. Now I before I go to the next, I'll tell you what happened. When my father was picked up, he had written a letter, a couple of days earlier. I'll give you that letter also. To Indira Gandhi. Saying that you all people – Congress people, were … … -social work in Lajpat Bhawan et cetera, are very much depressed at you depriving* press censorship. At press censorship – because emergency. And we remember ''pandit'' Nehru's phase, where ''pandit ''Nehru had said, even if press is irresponsible, I would much rather free have press than others. And we are very unhappy – we're not saying anything about your emergency, but we're very unhappy towards this press censorship. And we, therefore, old Congress people, (?) are saying that if you do not lift the censorship, next by month or so. We will hold ''satygraha'' and fast. At the doorstep. So when he had written that letter, you know Pramod Chandan(?), was a big MP. Was- used to be with father. He was very old Congress-man, right from student's... And he got that letter, and naturally felt upset that this thing – so he talked to Musafar(?), who had been president of Congress, also the Chief Minister of Punjab, at that time was MP. ''Toh'' he said, Musafir ''sahab,'' why don't you talk to... So, he talked to Musafir ''sahab'' and said, Musafir ''sahab'', I think you should talk to Indira Gandhi. And tell her that, such and such, from Punjab et cetera. And if these people go on ''satyagraha'', not a good thing. So you talk to her, get her permission, and you and I will go and talk to him and see. So... Mr Musafir said … … -in the evening and... so he told, Indira Gandhi says – it's okay we'll talk to him. So he rang up my house and my mother picked up the phone. So he asked him, used to call uncle ''chachaji-chachiji. Zara chachaji ko dijiye ''telephone. So he said, ''bete, unko toh subah ''police ''pakad ke le gayi hai.''
||

<nowiki>* (best guess)</nowiki>

(Giani Gurmukh Singh Musafir?)

(telephone interruption)
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''Okay, he'd already been arrested while this was going on. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''52:49'''

'''53:55'''

'''55:00'''

'''56:54'''
|| -… this is where, immediate dishonesty of Indira Gandhi... Musafar talks to him, says, in the afternoon, in parliament, shall I talk to Sachar ''sahab''? Because of this letter. And try to persuade him this way or that way. And she says yes. And, fact of the matter is, right in the morning, father had been picked up. It's possible to believe, you know, pick up my father without getting clearance from Indira Gandhi. There must be lawlessness I know but there is not that lawlessness that ...deputy commissioner or lieutenant governor of Delhi will pick up... him. You know... and... Similarly, Kuldip must have told you how she tried to put up a story when... Then we filed a petition in the High Court. Mr Tarkunde was... on behalf of both... Kuldip and my father. So it came up in front of the bench Justice Rangarajan presiding, so he heard it and he was so particular that he wrote the judgment with the own hand. Didn't dictate. Because feeling that naturally, you know... from and then he, fixed a day for judgment. Now however particular you may be, he's written with hand and now says private consultation, somehow ''uhh...'' The government came to know that he's going to assert the ''Habeas Corpus ''and order the release. Father, of course, had been released earlier. I mean he was kept in jail for a long time, month or so, then because of the public... whatever things had subsided, so government only... released him, saying because of his old... but Kuldip they hadn't released. So, I don't know whether Kuldip told you but, district magistrate went to see him in jail. Tihar. And Kuldip was called there. He thought why has this man come to me. What he tells him is, Nayar ''Sahab,'' Mrs Gandhi is very upset. She did not know that you had been arrested and kept in jail. Now because- next day they wrote to... And what had happened was, that a day earlier, having come to know, they had gone to the court. And said, sir, don't announce the judgment because we have decided to release him, a day earlier. But Justice Rangarajan was very particular, he felt that this is breach in the sense, we have a tradition that matter is before a judge, and you want to take any action against the accused, release him or whatever, you must inform the judge. He said, no, if you had wanted to release him, you should have told me earlier. You can't do it, I have the kept the matter for announcing of judgements, so I'll announce the judgment. So they went to him earlier to sort of... … Of course, then went after Justice Rangarajan, transferred him to Assam, treated him very shabbily... when father was kept in Ambala Jail … how I went to see him. Now when I got this old thing... - You see jails are under our district judges. Jail... the head of jail of a district judge. So... though I was in Delhi, I had practiced all my time in Punjab. So the district judge there, I knew him... junior, very much particular, his father was an MLA when my father was an MLA. So knew his family so I telephoned him. I said, look, I want to see father and... he said, no problem, because he was a tough guy. He was such a tough guy, I remember that when I went, like this, our gate is there, this is very far off... … before you reach his, it'll be where the bazaar is. So I stopped my car outside, I had taken my PA with me. And ''matlab'', when I was going to enter, I saw, … six-seven people standing there inside. So sent my PA inside. I said, please go and see, what is this, so he came back he says the district judge had... got a reception by armed guards for you. (laugh) So I sent it back … I don't like these things. I haven't come – please … So then I went and saw father. Father was used to these things... been to jail. So it was alright, he had somehow … ''uh? Haan... ''So met him for... (laugh) One of the ironies was, when he was sent to jail – it was a newly built jail and the inauguration of this jail was done by Shri Bhimsen Sachar, Chief Minister of Punjab.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 57:31
|| ('''laughs''')
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| (laughs) … so after...
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''He built his own jail. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| (laughs) So then brought him back...
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 57:47
|| '''But did you feel very angry at the time? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''58:30 '''
|| See, angry...? In the sense of political – yes. But being in the jail, from a personal point of view was nothing. Because we were used to going to the jail. We were brought up in certain circumstances. I mean, we were to... expect this and... for father to have written the letter, it was quite common to me that he would write. And I... vaguely that time also thought of resigning. But then, somehow Mr Tarkunde and Mr Soli Sorabjee persuaded and said, Rajinder you can resign if you're very persistent but, do you realise, this is what the government wants. They want you out of judiciary. (laugh) So... that time were very bad times in the sense that there was a panic. I know some of my government friends, who used to tell me, that they were boycotted by some of the other ''chamchas'' because they were independent also. And I had at some point dealt with Maruti... Car. I'd had not agreed to give a clearance because of the defects. And the government...
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- Went after...'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - keep a check on them. And then, there was – I met some of these CPI people. Tried to talk to them, I said please, let us protest, what is this. Response was … no good. And those who were there, they were all in fear. I mean, it was a very disappointing atmosphere … that one felt...
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 59:43
|| - '''But how did your conflict then develop? How did the conflict between you and the government proceed leading up to your transfer?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''01:00:57'''

'''01:01:35'''

'''01:02:38'''

'''01:03:51'''

'''01:04:43 '''
|| - No. … nothing … - I was there... -there was no conflict in the sense that I was there. I mean conflict only was that how people behaved. For example, when I landed at Jaipu-… Jodhpur, where the headquarters of the High Court was – I mean the normal course, you know, of course, the registrar had come officially – that's the... But there was only one lawyer who was briefed, Mr Mridul was his name. He was left-CPI oriented. He just came to receive me. (laugh) ''Haan...'' … … I'll tell you how it happened-developed later on... So I was at Jodhpur, I hadn't taken my family. … … I hadn't taken my car because frankly, at that time, we weren't provided cars. And didn't mind, I used to cycle to High Court. (laugh) … … I went there, the usual thing whatever it is. … … genuine outsiders. But, nothing, in my position, … (?) … so, in the normal course, after some time – this is where it came that, ''uhh,'' our... You see, we – only headquarters at that time was Jodhpur. Then there was a very big demand at Jaipur to open a separate bench. So by January, they agreed that we will have a separate bench at Jaipur. So, our Chief Justice was Mr Tyagi. Tyagi, he an old Congress man and …(?). So I went to him and told him, ''uhh... ''Chief, I said, Chief, you have to sent two-three people. As a separate to Jaipur. And frankly, my... family, as you know is at Delhi. I haven't brought them here. But they have to now come. My daughters, children are at studying age, so if you have no objection... and I was quite senior, in that sense, third or fourth senior. Just consider sending me. So I must say, he was a good fellow, ''toh'' he said, yes, Sachar, I'll post you at Jaipur. So at Jaipur, when we.. went. We went, it opened in January. So we were put up in – I mean there was no house at that time. I don't believe. At that time, there was the old... circled house. That was an old one. Not the new one which they have now built very well. Hardly this room … … ''uhh...'' There.. See, Justice (?) was another person from Madhya Pradesh High Court who had been transferred to Jodhpur. And he was not family – other family was there. So we became quite close... there. I used to cycle for my evening walk till-to his house … So he was also staying there at that time. So I went in the evening, just for a talk and he told me, he said, Sachar... No, we'd got a... circular, saying that Mr Gokhale was to inaugurate our High Court. So we got a circular from the High Court saying that Mr Gokhale is coming in the morning. And, all the Chief Justice and judges are to receive him at the airport. So when I read the... (?) was also staying there, I went to him. He was the senior most in the set, next to the Chief Justice. And I told Sayan*, I said, Sayan, look... ''uhh.. ''I am not going to receive him. This is not about … Chief Justice don't receive ever. And, frankly, earlier to that I must tell you, that in October or so, Indira Gandhi, was visiting Sikkim. And I'd just come home from the High Court when a newspaper man just rang me up – ah!, I rang up- Or he came to see me. You know I used to call these newspaper people, just to gupshup. In Sikkim
||

(Sound obstructed by vacuum cleaner)

Name inaudible.

<nowiki>* (Best guess.) </nowiki>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- In Gangtok.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''01:05:59'''

'''01:06:40'''
|| - I'm talking about October '75. And he says, sir. … … Indira Gandhi's coming here, and you and Governor and Chief Minister are to receive her at airport somewhere. I said, I am not. I don't know. Because, I frankly didn't know that she was coming. I said, I am not. I said, who told you this? He says the Governor told me. I met him and he told us the programme. So I rang up the Governor. As a matter of fact I went and – No I... telephoned him, so I said, Mr Governor I hear that she's coming. You said that, three of us are to receive her. He said yes-yes. I said, Mr Governor, I'm not receiving her. Chief Justice doesn't receive the Prime Minister. This is not our tradition. Because Chhabra when he was the Chief Minister, I think that, somebody came from outside and he was advised to receive him he said no, I'm not receiving. I said, Chief Minister, even when the- even when, when the President- when the Prime Minister come, we don't go – this is not... He said no-no. I said you check up on the protocol. But I am in any case not going, and apart from that, ''uhh... ''that's fine. And, this was another lame excuse I put because I was not … said when he's gone there. Said it is not our working day, it is High Court. But I decided that Saturdays will be working. (laugh) To be very frank, this was a little self-mischief. In the sense, you know we had to work two hundred and... ten days. So if I kept Saturday, though I had opposed Saturday, being working day when I was in Delhi. Because this was our own tradition, right from Lahore, they said it was not a working day. And some friends wanted it, I said no-no... we'll not have. But there... I don't mind confessing, out of sheer mischief I said, we will have – And the simple reason was, this meant fifty-two extra working days. Which means fifty-two more holidays I could declare. (laugh)
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''Right.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 1:07:33

01:08:50
|| - It was a very self centered thought on me... … but I had that excuse. So I said it's my working day also and I'm not. So then he- I went down to see … … he said, yes, probably but you can come in case – I said no, I'm not going. So I didn't receive her. But since she was spending there and the Governor had given a party, and also supposed to be meeting, I had to follow a certain protocol which was to fix a meeting of the Chief Justice with Indira Gandhi. She was staying at the Governor's… So I went there. I must say, she was very polite. She probably wasn't informed, she was five-seven minutes late. and, but… apologised. I had ten minutes meeting with her, there was nothing much to talk but what I had intended to say was because when I went there, I found there was no work. And, as a matter of fact, they had even thought, of transferring some of their – You see, some of their work, which was no good, the- every state used to have privy council. What they called privy council. The privy council was, the States were independent of India. Prior to '47. Prior to '47, the states were...
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- the Princely states.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''independent.''' '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- Yes. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''01:09:31 '''
|| So they used to have their High Court and then they used to have their own privy council. Which was nothing else but some High Court judge from … So the- when I went, Gokhale had told me that we will be... transferring all those High Court matters, of course, to your High Court. But privy council matters, we will be transferring to our Supreme Court. So I went there, I looked at them. And those privy council matters were tuppence. They were matters which our district judges had been … happening. So I wrote to Gokhale, I said please don't do it. I mean, it's a mockery of transferring these matters there. And, frankly, I am the one … because, at least these thirty-forty … will add up. To some kind of a … So I got a – order passed by the government of India saying that those privy council matters will be heard. So I told Mrs Gandhi, I said, … there's no work here. And there's going to be no work here for a long time to come. My suggestion is – because you see, there was a dispute … between Calcutta... Calcutta had ''uhh... ''you know, lot of this Gorkha population. Calcutta has a portion of Lamping which is now which is now Gorkhland, Darjeeling.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''''Haan.'' Not Bengal, Darjeeling, Kalimpong... yeah. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 01:10:35
|| - Kalimpong et cetera. And so they were... So I said, for that reason I understand, it can't become a part of Assam. I mean it can't becaue a part of Calcutta so you can have it that Assam judge comes on circle, just as we used to send when there was not much work in Delhi from Punjab. Delhi High Court was formed only in '67. Prior to that, Punjab used to have jurisdiction over this and we used to send – only in '55, it was three judges on a circuit. SO kindly do that. But I found she hadn't ''uhh...''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''Grasped it.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - ...frankly I think ...bother me these things and she didn't so after minutes, I came back.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''And you had no frank discussion. It wasn't a situation where you were going to talk to her frankly about situation in the country of emergency – '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''01:11:52'''

'''01:12:50'''

'''01:13:40'''

'''01:14:45'''

'''01:15:36 '''
|| - ...no, she didn't talk. No she didn't talk to me anything. She only – I mean, it was a formal thing. I had... , I talked to her. But I found her reaction – I was hoping that she'll probably want to know more because I told her this also. I said, Mr … if you want to take this stand, I have no doubt that the States will separate at that time. Because I said, later on, once it is established permanently, it can be very difficult. Then the local patriotism will come. … But she somehow didn't follow it up. So I … Next evening`we had a ''uhh'', meeting, the … Governor had thrown a day earlier, to my meeting to her, a general meeting. … … all of that. It was a big job. That's why (???)… we went there. So... he was standing at that time, talking to some people. And oh my god, … … no courtesy, nothing much. Then he asked me, have you met ''uhh...'' Sanjay Gandhi? ''Uhh...'' I said, no. He was probably at that other side. ''Kehta'' I'll go and get him ''mai keya ''please don't trouble him. He Iis busy meeting people. Don't trouble him becauase I didn't want to meet him. And I said so... probably he took the hint. ''Uhh'', no. then probabaly, he did bring. I'm sorry. We probably, he did bring. And asked me. So Sanjay said, how are you? What is... ''Maine kaha'', frankly I told PM's … there's no work here. ''Toh ''he said, ''achha hai.'' ''Maine kaha'', no, we are not like politicians. (laughs) We like to do our work, we are happy. We are very unhappy here. … … there's no work but it’s alright. So then he went away. Earlier to that, I must tell you also, Governor had given a small party. Small luncheon for Mrs Gandhi. Very small in the sense... very small, so we had accompanied her. At that time. Myself, my wife, Governor and his wife and Chief Minister and his wife. So while I was talking to, mostly to... Qazi … so lunch was served on table. SO wife was sitting with the ladies, something she told me later at that time, she says, you know, ''uhh...'' Indira Gandhi has a very soft corner for Sonia. I said, how? And she told me that at the lunch buffet, it was a buffet lunch. Indira Gandhi would pick up the thing and say to Sonia, take this, try this, you know that kind of thing. (laugh) So I mean... … then it was, either I came back. I had declared holidays in December so then I came back here. And ''uhh,'' I was to go back MArch. During emergency, had been declared then and I … I told Chief, I told Gokhale, I said, you know, I have written, I have a written document so I must go for six months so will you kindly now bring me back. But I found they're reluctant, so obviously. Now by December I was to open up and emergency had been declared by June so I told – there was a, and I knew that if I go back to Sikkim, they'll keep me there for all the time. And I was unhappy not because of not being in Delhi in any case but Sikkim, there was no work at all. Horrible. So I had declared the... as on, holidays and... I had – I had had a heart-attack in '70.
||

Vacuum cleaner sound.

Sound obscured.
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 01:16:08
|| '''''- Ohh? '''''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| When I had hardly come to Delhi, I had a heart-attack, in '71. In '71, I had a heart-attack... –
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''My goodness. ''Haan?'''''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''01:17:45'''

'''01:18:45 '''
|| - … and I spent about three weeks in … (?)ing. So I was a heart patient in that sense. But not that thing that I couldn't go to … (laugh) so frankly, … ask me very openly. I mean, it wasn't, kind of a situation where possibly, from my point of view, I could not be at Sikkim. Though it was at a height. I mean it was … – I'll be very honest about it. But I knew these people had to be dealt with in a manner they were dealing. So I wrote a letter to the Chief Minister, to the lords, saying, I have... my holidays are finishing in December, … because I had declared in December, I'll come back... three months holiday. So March even came, I used to meet Chief Justice some often asking that, where are you...posting me now? Put me back to Delhi. And he used to prevaricate. So I … when my term came by by March, to open up, I said, I wrote to both of them saying, I'm a heart patient and... doctors had advised, broadly that's... I'm not advised to be at a place like Sikkim, for long period, therefore I'm <nowiki>*</nowiki>informing you that unless I'm transferred, to Delhi, I'm not going back. High Court, of course I'm opening, I have given instruction, if there's any matter, they've to be sent to me here. And I did hear one or two matters here. But... that difficult, no they were not difficult... they were working out the arrangement. And I just … … tell him, Chief, what have you... Sachar, I'll tell you, you know, I mean fran... So one, you know, I met him. This was sometime in April. And... he told me that … we'll tell you about your transfer later on but, we have found a replacement, who we'll be sending there. I said, very good. He told me that he was from Punjab, who was my colleague. One of my colleagues they were sending there. So I said, well, have you decided, yes we are deciding in a couple of days. So I came home. And lo and behold, the same day or probably the next day, ''uhh, ''no. He had told me and in the afternoon, that friend of mine came from Chandigarh and telephoned and came and said, you know, I'm being sent here so I want to know from you the … So he was just sitting there, I told him. We talked just five minutes. So I rang up Chief Justice. India. This gentleman, my friend had come and told me that he had come from Chief Justice house, who had told him – I had written to him earlier, because he had written to him earlier and he got his consent to be transferred. With his consent, of course, because he couldn't become Chief Justice otherwise. So he was happy to go and retire as Chief Justice.
||

Sound obstructed.
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 01:19:57
|| - '''Okay.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - So I telephoned Chief Justice, I said, Chief, have you found any replacement? And you know, such was his temperament, I don't know. I feel very bad. He was our Chief Justice. That, instead of telling me straight, that yes, Sachar, we have found one and such and such is going. He said, yes, Sachar, we are looking for somebody, and we hope to find one in quite couple of days. Such was... –
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 01:20:27
|| - '''It had already been done. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - … manner. Or such a … disgusting behavior. He probably felt that until the government notifies... or (?) at this man, I'm a renegade. I'm a renegade, so far as the government was concerned. You know, that was the atmosphere at that point of time. They transferred my colleague from there, he's sitting with me. He's coming right from the place of Chief Justice, who's told him that you're going and he was going the next week. And on my asking, after this, he tells me that it was not – such was the panic, if the Chief Justice could … (?).
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 01:21:13
|| '''So, how did they finally – when- when were you informed finally that you are going to Rajasthan? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| … - then, on their own, they decided to send me to Rajasthan. So... I was there... –
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''And how did you feel about that at the time? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Oh, ''haan''. What I did at that time was, ''uhh...'' After sometime, you know, I didn't have a house. So there was a house, which was a … built, good one ''uhh...'' By Jaipur... royal family. … for-for being rented out. For being rented out, not for their own private thing. Rented house. And rent was also within the reach that we could have got. So I went to ''uhm... ''Justice and told him that I'm looking around the house. My wife had come, she was staying with me in this separate house. And that's a house which I'm told my deputy registrar had asked him that, ''uhh...'' Because that other house which they wanted to give frankly not... –
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 01:22:26
|| - '''Very nice.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''01:23:34'''
|| - ''uhh...'' No, not ''uhh, ''they were quite, they – nobody had occupied them and they were very out of shape and ''uhh...'' my deputy registrar informed me that the – those people, were managing that house, they had told me that, we can let it out but only for one year. Because then we may need ourselves but we want you to take and this is the rent, which was within the range. So I had told the Chief Justice. I said, Chief, ''woh... ''that house is available, I like it... that's where … So he told me, nooo... Sachar, you know that belongs to royal families, it will not be good for you to stay there. I said, I said, Chief, why? It belongs to the royal family, all that it means is … (?) … wasn't a problem. Because it’s not a demand house, it's within the range of my rental, and ''uhh,'' you know, he went on prevaricating. And then after some time, I mean, not after some time, within couple of days, I asked Sam. A. P. Sam, my colleague.* I said why is it that he's not agreeing? And do you find anything wrong with it. He said, no I don't find anything wrong. But I said, because I don't understand. I have – my family has come, I mean ...(?) … the houses they want to give me are up – absolutely no good shape. This man … off earlier, … he's willing. The (?) is within range. And I won't take any matters … (?) …
||

<nowiki>* Guess at word. Sound obscured by engine noise. </nowiki>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''Royal family.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''01:24:43'''
|| - ...and then he told me. He says, I want to tell you what Chief has told me, that, when ''uhh,'' before coming... even when before coming, (?)cut in Jaipur. Chief, there, had told me sometime in September – October, that, I will ''uhh,'' send you to Jaipur. So, orders had been passed, I had been posted to Jaipur. He said...

… So I told him, that, we had passed orders that Sachar will be sitting at the (?) at Jaipur. Official orders. Sam'''<nowiki>*</nowiki>''' told me that – after- he had told me that same in October. November and December. Novermber. He had been rung up by the … Gokhale. Telling him, don't send Sachar to Jaipur.
||

[Interruption – not transcribed here.]

'''<nowiki>* </nowiki>'''Continuing ambiguity of name here.
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''Oh.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''01:25:42'''

'''01:26:52 '''
|| - … and ''uhh, ''he said but I've already promised him. ''Toh,'' he got the impression that Sanjay had told him to – Gokhale – and Gokhale had passed on the word to him. But I must say, to his credit, … (?) … tough. He was an old freedom fighter also. So he said, look, I have promised him. I can't reverse that order so I'll send him. So then it struck me, when the Chief is not doing all this, ''uhh'', it is obviously for the reason that he got this and he's in a problem, difficult. So I went to him. I cycled to him – Because, I was going on cycle there. I cycled to him and told him, Chief, you've been very nice, and ''uhh...'' ''Uhh... … ''I will, just come to you – I don't want our relations to be … that, you send me here. I said I was very reluctant to accept my transfer when this order was passed. And it's only because of these good friends. That others that I agreed. But, please... if you are, any time... any under such pressure, ''(bahar bithao, do mint mey aya)''

If you are under any such pressure, please call me and tell me. And, I'll resign myself. I don't want you to (?)*. Because you may be under pressure, ''uhh'', to send me back to Jodhpur. I will not go. But if you are so much under pressure... –
||

(minor interruption)

<nowiki>* ("</nowiki>get a plane"?) Trouble discerning.
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 01:27:14
|| - '''Then you can resign.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

'''01:28:08 '''
|| - … then, please, tell me beforehand. So, because then, I'll resign myself and you'll be saved the bother. Because you've been very nice, I don't want you to get the thing. ''Uhh''... so probably, he got the message. (laugh). So, this I told him even before, you know, when we didn't … I told you, ''na,'' I told I'm not going to receive him? So... he said, told me why, I said – he said you'll be marked and then he told me this, and I went and told him. But I told him, I'm not going in any case, And ''uhh, ''and I said, … you may take – I'll certainly receive him when comes at the... High Court. Part of... Then, the poor chief realised, that I will not go and it will create a bad impression – passed an order. According to me, only Chief should go to receive him. He's his guest. He's our guest at the High Court. Then he passed an order saying, no judge will go to receive … (laugh) Because I said, it will look very odd, to you, that if others go and I don't go. It will be marked. And I'm not worried about being separated. But you may be... So he passed an order, no all of you will receive at the airport. And Chief so then, to cover it up. So that's how it is.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 01:28:43
|| - '''Am I keeping you from...? Yeah.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #bdd6ee;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - We'll stop –
||
|-
|}

.NjQz.Mzc

2017-11-03T11:43:53Z

Bhanugs:

<div style="text-align:center;"><span style="color:#262626;">'''INTERVIEW </span>WITH <span style="background-color:#ffffff;">RAGHU RAI'''</span></div>

<u>'''INTERVIEWEE'''</u>* Name: Raghu Rai [RR]
* Occupation: Photographer

<u>'''INTERVIEWER'''</u>* Farah Yameen

<u>'''Medium: Audio recordings'''</u>* Format/ Type of File: Wav
* Language: English with smatterings of Hindi
* Location of Interview: <span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#222222;">Raghu Rai Center for Photography. </span>
* Date of the interview: 06 May 2016

<u>'''Clip name/DURATION: '''</u>* Name:

(1): fy_rrai_raw_060516_2.wav

Length  00: 34:34

Bit Rate  1536kbps

Recording 2  379 MB

Date modified  06 May 2016 16:44:06

(NOTE: Recording 2 is the actual First Interview)

(2): fy_rrai_raw_060516_1.wav

Length 00:25:32

Bit Rate1536kbps

Recording 1 280MB

Date modified 06 May 2016 16:33:26

(NOTE: This is in continuation with RR’s last answer in the above recording)

<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| fy_rrai_raw_060516_2.
| style="color:#2e74b5;" |
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">Interview Starts</span>
|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">Keywords/Phrases/Points</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">0:04</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [FY] : So this is an interview with Raghu Rai, the date today is 7 of May ... --- [RR : Yes...no, 6th] ---- ... 6th of May (Year: 2016) and this the twenty-first interview of the Project.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Who all have you interviewed?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Oh! I have not been interviewing. You're my first </span><span style="color:#262626;">interviewee so far. Somebody else has been doing the interviews. So sir we'll begin with what you were saying about you know, I think you were saying Anti-Indira things were not being published ..and you were saying.</span>

<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] No you see people did publish initially but soon they were sort of the noose was tightened and the messages were sent or they were picked up. And then who wants to go to the jail? It's not such an occasion where you're ready to die for your country. I mean this was stupidity and strange from me that this thing should be happening. And why should you, you know, gag the press? Why should you stop them from printing daily news that is going on? </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">1:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So it was very strange for me but the fact was there was almost no political rallies or political meetings because then the Gandhis were the boss, and they didn't have to have political meetings or together or anything. The decision was taken by Sanjay (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Ref.: Sanjay Gandhi''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) and company, and Mrs Gandhi will put stamp on it...so that was the game being played. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">1:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And I remember, you know, Maneka Gandhi, you know, had started a magazine. I'm forgetting the name.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : I think I read about it yesterday.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : And then she wanted me to give some pictures. I said, 'okay I will.' But then ...by that time the Emergency was declared or something like that, you know my memory s very good. So one day she turns up to my office. She say's, 'Raghu you haven't given me the pictures.' I said, 'ya, take it easy yaar.' So she says, 'you know nah these days I can...we can put you in jail?' I said, 'Maneka anything for you!' </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So things like that, you know, because also you had to have some humour, some strength also to face anybody; and you see like first day we published a picture of Chandani Chowk with, you know, there were quite a few policemen, and life going on. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">3:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And we </span><span style="color:#262626;">simply wrote- 'Life Normal in Chandani Chowk,' because you don't have to say that there are policeman...they're visible. So next ...next day they got a message that you can't be that smart. So and then on important situations, political situations what they did was, they would leave the space blank and print no picture.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : In their editorial? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Yea...no even on page 1 or something we did that.  </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;">?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Yea, </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and Kulpid Nayar was the editor and I think he did go to jail. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Yeah, he did.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : And but I'll hate to go to jail for this reason, I'm sorry. You see some people say, 'Oh! I can die for my country' and when the time comes you hardly see anybody. And I will never that I can die for my country, because when the time comes I'll see; and what is the cause ...what is the reason...do I need to do this? I might do it but I’m not sure. So I'm one of those that who will never make such statements. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">4:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So it was it became a lot of fun, tension and stupidity, which people resisted. And sterilisation, forced </span><span style="color:#262626;">sterilisation </span><span style="color:#262626;">imagine if a man has decided that he'll get himself sterilised and he walks out of his house, suddenly he's picked up by these men from family planning that we taking you for </span><span style="color:#262626;">sterilisation</span><span style="color:#262626;">. He just say, 'Sorry man...wait a minute.' You know it's that simple. So the fact was that bulk of the country was not affected by it. Who cares about freedom of the press, you know because ninety percent of the people don't even get a any newspaper. They don't have access. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So ninety percent, more than ninety percent are gone. Out of those ten percent who many are aligned with them...how many are against them...against Emergency...so maybe, you know, very small percentage. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> It boils around to that. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But I must say a sizeable amount of journalists </span><span style="color:#262626;">people, they hated it and they stood against it. And then I don't know. Kuldip Nayar won't like it but I have to say it. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And I don't have any personal experience of anybody trying to be tough with me or put me into difficulty. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">6:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Yes, we actually...there was another incident. We ...I had worked very closely with Jayprakash Narayan on his movement. And we were printing a photographic book on Jayprakash’s Movement called </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Bihar Shows the Way''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. And he was the guy who got the Opposition and everybody together to stand against Indira Gandhi. So the book was being printed at the Statesman press. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">6:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And then these guys kid turned up and they took away the printed forms. So the printing of the book was dropped. That was one thing which bothered me a lot because for me- young photographer to get a book published on an important issue like that was very important. So I was very very upset and angry about it. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">7:06</span><span style="color:#262626;">  And because previously we had done a book on Indira Gandhi in '71. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">7:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And because it so happened that I came into photojournalism in '66. Indira Gandhi became the Prime Minister in '66. So our career…me as a photojournalist and she as a Prime Minister…we started the same year. So I...it so happened that everyday...almost every second day...Prime Minister...Prime Minister function...Prime Minister here...Prime Minister there, and then anybody else. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">7:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So we were photographing Prime Minister day-in and day-out. So by '71...'71 one of our editors at the Statesman, Desmond Doig, very bright creative man. He said, 'Raghu why don't we '...he had started a magazine called Junior Statesman for young people. SO he said, 'why don't we do a day in the life of Indira Gandhi?' </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">8:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So I spent a day with her. She was being gracious...she was wonderful.  And I took lots of pictures and he did - A Day in the Life of Indira Gandhi'. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">8:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And then he said...you see one day I had taken some grand pictures. ..really which summed up who she is in context to all this...her </span><span style="color:#262626;">party...her social space…everything. So he says, 'why don't we do a book on Indira Gandhi?' So in '71 we did a book called- The... </span><span style="color:#262626;">''The Life in the Day of Indira Gandhi''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...turned around which she released it. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And so you know, my editor and publisher...they were sitting and getting what autographed copies autographed and I was sitting about six feet away from her in a very private space. So these guys got several copies signed and I was just sitting and watching. Then she looked at me and I smiled. She said, 'won't you like me to autograph a book for you?' I said, 'nahi Indira </span><span style="color:#262626;">''ji hum toh roz milte hain''</span><span style="color:#262626;">' (trans.: No, Indira ji, we meet everyday). And very casually and not without any this thing or that thing but the fact was that we meet every day...where is the need for autographs? So she gave me a very warm smile...this guy is .....(RR and FY share a laugh). </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So those were also the very special movements, which you feel stupid also later that 'I shouldn't have said this...I should have got one done.' </span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Introduction of the Project.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--other interviewees?</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">-</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> Reference to Kai’s interviews</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--on RR’s statement that Anti-Indira statements were not being published.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Initially people did print criticism of Indira Gandhi but soon stopped on the threat of being jailed.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--RR didn’t ethically understand the need to gag the press.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- political rallies etc almost nil because Sanjay Gandhi was issuing orders.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Recounts an incident with Maneka Gandhi to indicate the power that she abused.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---RR’s picture of Chandani Chowk titled ‘</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Life Normal in Chandani Chowk</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">’ as a </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">photo-protest -</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">elicited a warning from the Censors.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">leaving blank space as mark of protest.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Kuldip Singh went to jail.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---RR personally didn’t approve the concept of courting arrest without considerable thought.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On forced sterilisation.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---In RR’s opinion bulk of the country remained unaffected by the excesses of the Emergency, like clamp down on freedom of press, as they didn’t get any newspaper to being with.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--very small percentage of the journalists rose up in protest.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Kuldip Nayar</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---RR had no personal close encounter of being jailed.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---RR working on a photographic book on JP’s Movement in Bihar, which was to be printed at Statesman Press</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> Censors came and took away the printed forms. </span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">disheartening experience for RR as a young photographer. </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---on his book on Indira Gandhi- how it came about after doing A Day in the Life of Indira Gandhi' on Desmond Doig’s suggestion for </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Junior Statesman.''</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On A Day in the Life of Indira Gandhi'. </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Birth of a whole photojournal book on Indira Gandhi- </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''The Life in the Day of Indira Gandhi''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> – realised by her.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---personal narration on the launch of the book.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">9:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So you don't have a signed copy of that book? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Not at all! Not at all! I never do these things with anyone, even Mother Teresa whom I loved so closely. Anyway I got one copy singed from her from other and I gave it to my nephew who was unwell, you know. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">10:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Anyway so I mean these...there were these moments she was bright, she was wonderful, she was caring but let me tell you...look back I can say that she was the only Prime Minister that I have experienced. I don't know about Nehru. Nehru was a great lover. She was the only PM who cared for art, culture and heritage. That is also there but then when you are pushed against the wall and the whole world is going against you then you have to retaliate. And this was a retaliation by these people. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">10:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So she had wonderful qualities also. I won’t say that but then it became very (long pause) </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> unclean </span><span style="color:#262626;">and </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> what is that word- divisive kind of attitude out of insecurity. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And then </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> She declared and then the feedback she was getting was that its' not good- you must stop it at the earliest because there were some other people. Also the fact was that she had some very bright bureaucrats like Dhar... ----- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY : Haksar...P.N. Haksar] ---- ... Haksar, P. N. Haksar, Dhar and Kaul, these three guys...they were very bright forthright people. And ...and Sharda Prasad who was her Press Secretary...wonderful man. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">12:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And they must have been giving her the feedback that 'it's enough ...stop it'. So in '77 they declared the elections. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">12:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So you know...you know first twenty years I have been...twenty...twenty-five years I was very closely involved in news events and political situations and all these things. So there was a big rally by Janta Dal when all the Opposition got together ...some of the Congressmen like Jagjivan Ram, and Morarji Desai, they left her so there was a big rally at Ramlila Ground and the...and the participation by the people was so spontaneous that thousand and thousands turned u and it was filled. So we took lots of pictures and next day or after two days or something like that I don't remember there was Congress rally and Congress rally there were lots of people but you could see that it was not a natural flow of people coming to participate but there were lots of people. So what happens- my Kulidip Nayar was my editor but he trusted my.. the way I sniffed around and looked at the world. He says, 'Raghu did you go to both the rallies?' I said, 'yes'. He says, 'what do you think?' I said, 'the first rally...the Janta Dal rally was very spontaneous and unbelievable crowd but Mrs. Indira Gandhi's rally was also lots of people but there was something very strange.' He says, 'what?' I said, 'Mrs Gandhi said- bhaiyo aur behno...is election mein aap apna kimti vote mujhe dena agar nahi diya to mein chheen lu gi!' So he says, ''what do you mean?' mene kaha dekho, 'usne aisa kaha nahi ki cheen lu gi. but the undertone of </span><span style="color:#262626;">the insecurity and anger was - </span><span style="color:#262626;">Bhaiyo aur behno...mujhe vote do nahito mein chheen lungi!</span><span style="color:#262626;">' He says, 'yaar tu kamal kar deta hai. Aisi baate sooch ta hai!' Mein kaha, 'I am an instinctive man...I sniff around. I'm telling you the feeling...the vibrations....ke kya hai.' </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">14:49</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So he said, 'Ache very interesting.' Then he wrote some editorial about it. So elections were held in day...all elections were over in one day all over the country! And the counting started in the morning by 5 O' Clock the results were coming in…major results in one day. Any way so they...the last day...the day of election in Delhi </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">15:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> you know after photographing people queuing up, people voting, people this..people that police here police there after 5 O'Clock when the elec...when the voting was over I was coming back from Old Delhi. One of the major reasons why they lost was the forced sterilisations also. This was one of them. And in those days there were slogans...They had slogans called --- </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hum do Hamare do''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. So this wall in Old Delhi has that triangle which symbolises family planning…red coloured triangle and it has - </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hum do humare do''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. So what I see there is a triangle and where it's written hum do -at that time it has come to symbolise hum do means, Indira Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So ..so -hum do and the triangle and there is a poor man -raddi ekathi kar raha hai aur usme Indira Gandhi ka poster hai ...election ka ...ki janta muje vote de. And he's putting that in his, you know, sack.</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So I was excited I took the picture and I came back. Kulpid Nayar was sitting in his room late in the evening. SO I said, 'Nayar saab...just look at this picture.' He says, 'fantastic Raghu wow..kamal hai ...beautiful. It says everything. But we can't use it.' I said, 'why not?' He says, 'if she doesn't lose them both of us will be in jail.' I was so angry with him. I said, 'if you don't use this picture today....' - (RR remembers) Nah! And also I told him ... I said, 'they are not coming back.' He says, 'Raghu </span><span style="color:#262626;">''tu bacha hai''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.' </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Mein kaha, 'Bacha hoon pur mein sniffer hoon. </span><span style="color:#262626;">Tum log calculate karte ho''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (trans. Raghu, you are a kid. I said, ‘I may be a kid but I am a sniffer. You people calculate’). Your calculations can go wrong but my my response can't go wrong because I get the feel by sniffing around...what is going on.' He says, 'nahi I can't use it.' I was so angry I tore off the picture and threw it on his table, I said, 'I will not come to this office.' </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">17:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So I went away. It was late evening. So I didn't go to the office the next day and then by 5 O'clock it was almost clear that they were almost gone. And then Kuldip Nayar is looking for Raghu Rai, Raghu Rai is not there in the office. So then he rang up; he said, 'Raghu </span><span style="color:#262626;">''tu aya nahi''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.' '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Aree,' mene ka 'kaise aana''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, I told you I'm not coming to this office.' He says, 'Ooo they are..they've lost. There are losing. Now we can use the picture.' So </span><span style="color:#262626;">''mein bhi toda aapni woh dekhai''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and then he said, 'please yaar Raghu, I'm very sorry, please come.' Then he used it six column...big picture on page 1 and then of course they didn't forgive me for this. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">18:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> whatever it was. You see then somebody interviewed me and asked me, 'Indira Gandhi....you are the first photographer, you are the only photographer who's got Padma Shiri. And then you can, you know, do these things. Whose loyalty? Who are you loyal to?' I said, 'loyal jo hote hai who kutee hote hain. Dogs are loyal. I am loyal to you know what? I am loyal to the situations as they speak to me. And what they speak to me is more important than worrying about this party or this leader or that leader, which I'll never do.' </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">19:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So also you know it's not so simple that everybody stood against Emergency. You have to have that mantle, that strength also in you to see honestly and reflect honestly...honestly. To make a difference, you know, and since you are a photojournalist or you are a writer, it's your responsibility that you be his representative; and not a manipulator. So this was and I had some pictures but not...I don't think them to be great pictures but if you put it in that story in that context, it's interesting.</span>

|| <div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---RR doesn’t have a personal copy of an autographed book on Indira Gandhi nor of Mother Teresa.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---RR’s admiration of Indira Gandhi and her appreciation of art, culture and heritage.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---RR’s partial understanding of what motivated Indira Gandhi to impose Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Indira was insecure.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---on Indira possessing some good bureaucrats like Dhar, Haksar and Kaul</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">mayhap they gave Indira the indication that it was time to end Emergency -</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> declaration of elections.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---RR’s observation of the composition, mood and tone of the rallies at Ramlila Ground first of the Opposition’ and the next day of the Congress’</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> indicated that all was not well with Indira’s camp.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Conversation between Kuldip Nayar and RR over latter’s observation of the two rallies.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---RR on the furore of the election day---over in a single day across the country.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> forced sterilisations as being one of the main causes of the Congress’ defeat.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On another opportune picture take by RR which predicted Congress’ defeat ---reaction of Kuldip Nayar who refused to print without knowing the results---RR upset and quasi-threatens to quit. </span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Description of the various aesthetics of that photo and symbolism.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--RR sure of Congress; defeat as he called </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">himself a sniffer of mood and undercurrents.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--After Congress’ defeat was confirmed Kuldip Nayar wanted to print the image but RR was home…had to be cajoled to come to work and print the photo</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">soured relations between Indira and RR.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---In an interview RR was questioned about where his loyalty lies--- RR’s response- Those who are loyal are dogs. And he’s loyal to the whatever the situation brings—This being more important than following a leader.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On work ethic—one has to be true to the situation rather than manipulate it.</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">19:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Sir, you were saying something that 'Kuldip Nayar would not like it'. Is this what you were telling me?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Haan.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Achha. So there's also one picture that you have taken of Indira's poster that 20-point programme across this print. So what this, you know, what the country looked like visually as a photographer to you. Did that change how ...how the reporting of the country and how it was visually represented in the media? Did it change from pre-Emergency to post?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : No, you see at that time of course you know these kinds of slogans and posters were created during Emergency, to show …to show to the countrymen how well she's done on this front .... on that front or nationalisation of bank on removing privy purses </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">20:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> on doing this ...on doing that...and this development and that development...it was...these posters were all over the country. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">20:49</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But then and also very interesting fact, which people don't understand...even the politicians don't...there was only one channel called Doordarshan. This is very unique thing...two things, you know, bear, you know, you have to be very sensitive....one is the fact that why Indira Gandhi listened to him?</span>

<span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">21:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : To whom?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">21:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : To her son (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Ref: Sanjay Gandhi''</span><span style="color:#262626;">). ---- [FY : Sanjay Gandhi.] --- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">21:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> These four guys, you know- </span><span style="color:#262626;">Siddhartha Shankar Ray, Bansi Lal, and those other...two others... </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">21:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ---- [FY : Baruah] --- [RR : Eh? ] ---- [</span>FY : Baruah]  (Ref: Dev Kant Baruah who also coined “Indira is India and India is Indira”)--

<span style="color:#3482b1;">21:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">[RR] : Baruah and these people. They created this plan and sold it to Sanjay and he sold it to mother. Now, you know, concoct all kinds of stories. Simple fact of life is that </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">21:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> she didn't get along with her husband for whatever </span><span style="color:#262626;">reason. She was staying was staying with her father as his hostess. She watched all political situations very closely; and she lost man in her family very early. The father passed away, the husband was not there. He also passed away and suddenly in '7...1975 when she's being pushed and she..she could be hanged in the sense that she had to lose, you know, the job; suddenly she finds a man in her family who's woken up with a proposal...who's offered her a proposal -- look mom this is what we have. And they do it and the whole country is quiet the next day. So this was the simple logic and no other concocted story because there was this...there was that...blah...blah...bullshit. She found a man in the family who could hold her. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">22:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Now second thing- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">23:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ...what was that? For that was really interesting point. (long pauses) </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">23:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Previous to this</span><span style="color:#262626;"> what did we talk about?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">23:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : We were talking about how...why she listened to the person.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">23:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Hmm?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">23:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : You were just talking about why she listened to Sanjay. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">23:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Nahi...that was because of this. Nahi previous to that...yeah that point is gone. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">23:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : You said, 'who is loyal?' and who is your loyalty to?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">23:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Haan...nahi that of course I told you that one has to be loyal to the situation as they speak to you. Also, you know, even you know at </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, when I was a picture editor and, you know.... ---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">23:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Sorry you were talking about posters all over the city and 20-point program and these posters.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">23:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Yea, yea... posters...</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">23:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Haan talking about Doordarshan. ---- [FY : Haan haan.] ---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">23:55</span><span style="color:#262626;"> You know politicians and Opposition leaders used to be very upset that it used to be only Indira Gandhi...only Indira Gandhi. So I </span><span style="color:#262626;">used to tell them, that my understanding is very different. It's very dangerous game to be seen on television on daily basis. Why? You could be speaking some great words or saying some great things or offering some meaningful talk to them, you're speaking the words is one thing, which you guys report very quickly when most people, uneducated mask. When they look at television they can't make out what she's saying. But what do they make out? </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">24:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Her eyes are twitching, her lips are going this way or somebody body language is strange...funny; and they feel something is not right. What the person is speaking doesn't matter to the public at large because these stories, they've heard...many times but the feeling the body language, the expressions...you know they reveal the person... the personality. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">25:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And that is another reason they lost the...according to me...because she was always on television. And used to start to feel the person. Aree this country is uneducated, illiterate ...poor ...very instinctive and that instinct works every time there is a a election. </span>

|| <div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---How did the country look like during the Emergency in terms of photojournalism?</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---RR talks about the situation during the Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--RR on why Indira Gandhi heeded Sanjay’s words ---two reasons (a) lack of a man to fill a void (b) her constant presence on Doordarshan made the uneducated yet intuitive public aware of Indira’s insecurities. </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Role of </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Siddhartha Shankar Ray, Bansi Lal, </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Dev Kant </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Baruah cooked up the Emergency plan—sold it to Sanjay Gandhi who passed it to Indira in RR’s opinion.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Indira’s personal </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">struggles on loss of men in her life.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- Indira overexposed on Doordarshan on a daily basis. The uneducated masses noted not her words but her body language that revealed her insecurity.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">25:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So  sir  in the lead-up to the elections there were several things you know that people talked about...there was corruption, the railway ministry...the Mishra's assassination (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Ref.: the assassination of the Railway Minister </span><span style="color:#222222;">Lalit Narayan Mishra  on 3 January 1975''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) and various things. Did you also report those things...did you photograph those events? JP Naray (leaves the name incomplete)... JP Movement. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Well, yea..of course, you know but photographically you couldn't do much except that the funeral of Mishra...doesn't mean anything in terms of discovery.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">26:05</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : But you would also be involved in the...you would know what was going to the reportage.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">26:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Yea, everybody knew these stories. But let me tell you...compared to today those stories are what?---Peanuts! Not even that. That corruption was even this much...see the size of corruption, crime, you see when </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">26:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> the corruption...money making is ...this level...and that money that you make through corruption will be used for corrupt purposes and that's why there is more crime, there are more killings, there are more rapes and there are more movies, which showed rapes and this kind of rubbish. And they are all related ...related to this system. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">26:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So I was saying sir that the reportage just before the Emergency before the Censor, the pre-censorship rules came through and the 20-point program was declared, how was reportage just before the Emergency different from what was happening during the Emergency?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : No, before the Emergency...everybody had absolutely freehand in writing and saying what they felt was right. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : And what was being reported? If I was ...if I were to ask you to say 12th June what...?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Also, don't forget one thing that in any given time, you know, in any...for any political party in power there are more supporters than </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">27:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> anti-, you know this thing. So you know and in any case ..two years back those who were the closest </span><span style="color:#262626;">''chamchas''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''boot-lickers''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) of Gandhis and Congress, they are back with BJP (Bhartiya Janta Party)  mind you. So what is the difference?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So a ...let me put this into ...suppose we talk about the day the Allahabad High Court said her election was null and void, how was the reported in the paper?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : No, it was reported in ..in total details, you know, by its been said and ..</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : And there was no injunctions from the ministry, </span><span style="color:#262626;">I&B or the Press Secretary of Indira Gandhi?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : No, nothing...nothing...nothing...nothing....nothing. Nothing till the day the Emergency was declared. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : And what happened on the day they...where were you on the day when Emergency was declared?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : No, we were in the office and then you know, you see, we had a editorial meeting -what do we do? So we said, 'all right , we'll find little little stories without making them into negative stories, just report simple details.' And like, you know, I went to Chandani Chowk to see and we said, you know  'Life Normal in Chandani Chowk.' We didn't say that why so many policemen. So you picked a point which irritated you, you know which asked you questions rather than you posing questions, you know...that simple. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">29:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Because you knew, you know otherwise they'll not let you do that. But still even they didn't let you raise any questions through your writing or photographs. </span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">---What did RR capture in the time run-up to the elections?</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Just captured the funeral of Mishra.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Was RR involved in </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">reportage?</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Yes, but when compared to today reportage then was peanuts!</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On difference in reportage in pre-during-post Emergency periods.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Pre-Emergency </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">freehand in writing </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--RR on shifting loyalties of political supporters.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---A lull in situation after Allahabad Court decision-</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> everything blew up only with the </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">declaration of the Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On the decision taken by the Statesman on how to defy censors.--> background to the photo of Chandani Chowk for the discerning eyes. </span>

|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">29:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So were there other photographs that you took during the period where questions were asked about why is this photograph being published in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;">?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">29:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : No mainly this, you know that they stopped, you know, because you had to send your pictures to the Censors. I forgot to tell you that. And my...my memory is not very good and I don't remember how many pictures they must have rejected, I don't remember. So I tell off hand.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">29:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : You don't remember any particular picture that particularly really rankled because you wanted it published and you're like- How could they reject this one?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">29:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Nahi...nahi, I told you the one which I wanted it to be published ...my own editor didn't have the courage . </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : What about the Government?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Uhmm?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : But not the Government. There was no ..there's no particular picture that you remember that the Government rejected?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : I don't know. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : But were there quite a few?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Nahi, you see more than anything else, it was a strange kind of silence accompanied by strange kind of tension and fear, which is not the spirit of </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">30:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> a free nation ... ---- [FY : Journalism?] ---- ....</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">30:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> those of us who were coming from that kind of commitment to </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">30:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> the situations where they need us to speak, </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Sir If I were to ask you to describe to me the tension within the newsroom on the day that the Emergency was declared? Could you remember the conversations for me?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">31:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Not very detailed conversations like this picture also , you see the news editor said , ''Raghu, it's a good picture but we'll ...what we'll do...what we will do? We'll see...life normal and it was done. I said, 'yes, all right.' </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">31:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Because also the fact was that the contents must speak for themselves. Why do you have to mention? So this was the general but I don't remember many things. My memory is very bad. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">31:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : How did the fear manifest itself in conversations between people?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">31:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : No I mean people were not discussing it openly and everywhere. Only few friends when they get-together in the evenings...like-minded people they will share their...they will discuss. ..they will talk about it. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">31:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And they will wonder how long they can last! </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">31:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So for instance what were conversations about the whole Maruti Factory if I were to ask that and how was the </span><span style="color:#262626;">reported in the media?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">31:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : I don't remember.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">32:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : You didn't report on that?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">32:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : No because everybody knew it's Sanjay's baby, it's done for Sanjay so there was no secret about it. And one accepted this that she's doing for her son. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">32:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And that was the downfall of Indira Gandhi's legacy and the political system. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">32:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> You see another very important point...after the Emergency, she lost completely and she was the most insecure person and then she went to see Vinoba Bhave. And I also went to Nagpur to his Ashram. I followed her. And he Vinoba Bhave was such a </span><span style="color:#262626;">''sarkari sant''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> that he must have realised that now she's gone, so she walks in and there is a dari (rug) lying on the floor and he's sitting on a </span><span style="color:#262626;">''takth''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> portion and so she comes and does this to him. And he does this and tells her to sit down on the floor. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">33:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And she's sitting...the picture that I have of him and sitting there and she there with three-four-five other people sitting on the floor. And this is how it was you know. I mean and then ...then they manipulated ... then they played their political game. And then Janta Dal with so many parties coming together just for one cause to defeat Indira Gandhi couldn't hold together. And they fell apart and then when she came back, she was like a ...like a princess ... like a  you know the victory was unbelievable for her. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">33:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : And why do you think she came back? Did media start reporting favourably for her after that or was her come back was?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:05</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : No, you see they committed several follies. Starting cases against her, which didn't take her anywhere...arresting her and then releasing her. You're sending wrong messages. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">34:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> That paranoia that had set in, they didn't have sense of reasons and decency to structure things properly and put them into shape.</span>

<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>
|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Any other significant photo of RR published during the Emergency?</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Even photos had to be sent to the Censors.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--RR’s memory not very good.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On tension in the news room on the day of Emergency declaration.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--RR doesn’t remember much.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On manifestation of fear in everyday conversations.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--very very cautious.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On the reportage of Maruti Factory.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Doesn’t remember much but everyone knew it was Sanjay’s baby.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On witnessing a meeting between Vinoba Bahve and Indira.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Indira Gandhi got played by a lot of people while Opposition gathered strength.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---But Indira returned like princess.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Reasons for her comeback.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Lack of coherence among the Opposition government now in power.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">Interview Part I Ends.</span>
| style="color:#2e74b5;" |
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
| style="color:#3482b1;" |
| style="color:#2e74b5;" |
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">Part II Interview Begins</span>
| style="color:#2e74b5;" |
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#262626;">[Note: The second recording is a continuation of the last response of RR.]</span>

| style="color:#2e74b5;" |
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">0:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">She became such an insecure woman even after Emergency. And then she came back to power. That was the beginning of the </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">0:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> politics of insecurity in the sense she will pick up people who are small, corrupt...she'll make them a Cm or a minister or anything. They knew she knows everything...she knew she can kick them out whenever she wants. So they were insecure, she was insecure and the politics of insecurity started and that hasn't ended till today. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : That's true.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : And that is the worst thing she's given to this country...the politics of insecurity when you're rulers are insecure how can they give you a sense of security?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Sir you were speaking of the paranoia that set in within politics and within media ... at that time ...How did they change journalism post-Emergency? How did...?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Then it polarised some of the press.... </span><span style="color:#262626;">[FY : As in?] -----....</span><span style="color:#262626;"> who's with us and who's not. ----- [FY : Okay.] yeah.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Can you please elaborate upon that ?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : No you see because people took clear steps...some thought they praise Sanjay Gandhi...some of his things were working out very well, you know...because this nation has never seen any discipline in any tight noose you know. So in some places things were working better, you know...functioning of the railways or government things and various other things. So they talked about that. Some people </span><span style="color:#262626;">went against everything that Indira Gandhi had done. So there was more polarisation and the press, they started taking sides. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Hmm so there was a clear Janta side and like a Congress side and a non-Congress side is what you're saying?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Yea...yea but then that those sides keep shifting..their goals...their posts...every time the Government shifts.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So who you're...who at that point of time was on the Congress side and who was anti-Congress?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : I don't ...can't tell you.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : You cannot remember. Okay so also since you were capturing the nation's so greatly and you were also talking about how Sanjay Gandhi...some of his things were working very well... a lot of discipline had come into the nation. Did it change, you know, what was represented because I...since you were saying also that are a lot of photographs were censored...What was represented in the paper visually and before the Emergency and after the Emergency and during the Emergency...how did that change? Did they...how did they nation project itself through media?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : I also remember, you know, when Janta Dal came to power George Verghese was President of some...Freedom of the Press...something...something. And he rang me up one day. He says, 'Raghu we are sending a memorandum to our new Prime Minister or …or Ministry or whatever that they will not take away our freedom.' I said, 'I will never sign that. Why you giving them ideas that we are available here? And please </span><span style="color:#262626;">''humse chheena mat''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.' I said, 'this is no way of...you know living as a free strong minded...journalists you know... you don't ask the Governments - </span><span style="color:#262626;">''ke aap lekhe dedo ki aap muje.. humen freedom hamari rakho ge. Aiesa thori hota hai''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.' We did ...I did sign many other letter but I never wrote...sign this kind of rubbish letter that...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FB] What sort of letters were these?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : That they will not take away the freedom of the press. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : No, you were saying there were other letters that you signed.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:05</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Yea...so many times and so many occasions we've written letters. You know like even in Modi's time, you know, when the journalists and the writers were resigning and things, you know...we stood by them, you know. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">4:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Sir also </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> were the two received you know stalwarts of the people who resisted Emergency. What about the other papers?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : No, you see like ...like </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> were Birlas...Birlas were very close to Congress. So you can't think of that, you know. Statesman was a British, you know, editors used to be Britishers who believed in the freedom of the press and they were very forthright. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">4:55</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And even that, you know, even in '70s that spirit was there in </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. As far as </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> is concerned Goenka had personal this thing with the government and Indira Gandhi. So he took a stand and then </span><span style="color:#262626;">''National''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Herald''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was almost sarkari paper and then the ..the...the...the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was here and there. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Dilly Dallying. But what about smaller newspapers...independent newspapers newspapers?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : We didn't bother. They don't matter really. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : There were also, I believe, </span><span style="color:#262626;">people </span><span style="color:#262626;">who said you know...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Dekho Larah? aesi baate ..aesi baate humse mat pucho...chhoti moti details aur chhote mote incidents aur yeh baate jo hain na...I never went into those and in any case, as I told you, my memory is not very good. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And I don't also ...I don't when anything happens I don't become a political creature and start looking into things. I am a creative person, I </span><span style="color:#262626;">respond instinctively as things touch me or they come to me. </span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Indira’s return to power beginning of politics of insecurity</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">leading to bringing in of people who could be chucked out at will.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---If rulers are insecure then the public will be too.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On paranoia in the Press.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Polarisation of Press ---some lauded the discipline brought in as none had seen such a degree of order.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Some anti-Indira steps </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> Press simply polarised. </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---people also kept shifting their alliances.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On how the country was represented visually in the newspapers in pre-during-post Emergency periods.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---RR vehement against signing a petition mean for the new Janta Government to give press assurance that freedom of press will not be taken away.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---What other kind of letters sent?</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Gives example of a letter sent to Narendra Modi when many journalists were resigning when he came to power.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On other papers rising against the Government.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Hindustan Times was Birlas and the latter close to Congress.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Express’ Goenka had personal reasons to be anti-Cong.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On role of independent newspapers.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--They didn’t matter!</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---RR not a political person but a creative one </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">who responds instinctively. </span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">6:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Sir so in that respect same question...How did ...how the nation...nation projected itself through newspapers in photos?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Was strong enough. ..was strong enough but.... ----- [FY : through photographs?</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ] ----.... but Mrs Gandhi's ...Mrs Gandhi to get the message. But I will not...sorry...I will not say that through photographs...sorry.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : No, I'm just trying to say- if you were to look at papers from pre-1975 through photographs, and post...and through 1975 and post...how did that change? Was the look of... (RR starts speaking).</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : No, the only thing was that you couldn't publish any... even social situations where it..it was poverty or something bad about the country...leave alone political situation. But otherwise photographically, I don't think we made any big difference. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Did the country look cleaner and more organised in your newspaper?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Nah...nah (phone rings) </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:12</span><span style="color:#262626;">[FY] : Sir you were even at that time a very renowned photographer, did the government never ask you to work for them or photograph for them?  </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : No, you see like Sharda Prasad...Sharda Prasad was a very sensitive bright man who was the Press Secretary to Indira Gandhi. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">7:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">7:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I must say when I was doing my last book on Indira Gandhi, </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">7:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ten years ago or something like that </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">7:51</span><span style="color:#262626;">  and I went to him. I wanted him to write the </span><span style="color:#262626;">Introduction. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">7:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> He was so amazing and he was living in a DDA two-bedroom small flat...like ordinary clerks live. </span><span style="color:#262626;">Why? Because he was an honest man and a committed Indian. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">8:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And he never played that game for anybody. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">8:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So he said, 'Raghu, I can't write.' I said, 'why not?' He said, 'Raghu nobody will by your book if I write.' I said, 'No, that's not the criteria.' I said, 'you've been the closest to Indira Gandhi and you are a very honest, forthright person...we've respected you all the way. And if you write, we'll have many insights.' He said, 'sure…many insights but I have promised.' I said, 'promised whom?' He said, 'to myself that I will never write.' He didn't write. But the stories...we spent half-a-day...the stories that he shared with us were unbelievable...beautiful stories not Emergency but in general -she as a person and everything. But he said, ' I have promised myself.' So a man - Indira Gandhi's Press Secretary for so many long years...I mean living like a ordinary person in a DDA flat, you know, says quite a lot about the person. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So she had some great guys, you know, and ..and they held back a lots of these things but then they never misbehaved with us. But they showed, you know, they could have asked anybody else you know or send the inspector with two policemen, you know, to come to your house and say- what are you upto? Isn't that enough. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY: So what happened when....?]  In...in the middle of the night if any...you should speak to Virendra Kapoor. Have you spoken to Virendra Kapoor? </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">10:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY : No, I have ...we've already interviewed Coomi Kapoor, so] </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">10:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Yea, you have. She's written a book.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Yea, she's written...I have read the book.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : They have a lot more and I ...as I said I don't remember, I have these few things that I've shared. </span>

|| <div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---The nation projected strong under Indira Gandhi but not through photographs.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On not being able to publish anything that might hint slur of country.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On RR ever being asked to work for the Government.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--RR recounts asking Sharad Prasad, Indira Press Secretary to write an Introduction to a photobook on Indira. SP refused due to a personal promise---spent a day just talking.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Advices to meet Coomi and Virendra Kapoor.</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">10:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : They have a lot more and I ...as I said I don't remember, I have these few things that I've shared. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : No...no...no, there are valuable insights because </span><span style="color:#262626;">they're various perspectives of what happened during the Emergency. In fact, people I have talked to on another project which were from common people ...from common people the Emergency was the greatest thing that happened because everything was organised, everything went on time...for them it was good thing!</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : No after organised …was better. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Haan according to them it was organised.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : But of course this is what the nation needs even today. Modi said, 'Forget about ache din.' I say, 'forget about any other thing. you know </span><span style="color:#262626;">swachh bharat is a great idea but even the corporations in respective cities, they haven't got a clear strong message that perform your duties well and start cleaning up the areas you're assigned to do.</span><span style="color:#262626;">' </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Aare saar ke saar wase ki wase nalayak hai''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...nobody is doing their respective jobs. Kise aur ko </span><span style="color:#262626;">swachh bharat to aap kya beche ge? </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And this country certainly needs, you know, tightening up of this kind of but not taking away your freedom to speak. This is wrong.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So sir if I were to ask you - what according to you personally for you are the most important images of the Emergency? Images that represent the Emergency to you not to the people at large but to you.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:08</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : No, I don't ...I told you I don't have any great images. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : I'm not talking about great images but images that speak to you. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : No, you see in the sense that ...no..no..no, the feeling was not...then, you know, then I felt 'how long am I going to work for a newspaper? '</span><span style="color:#262626;">  Is a big question . Do I need to? Over all, it's, you know, a feeling of experiencing...Emergency was - Do I still need to work for a newspaper anymore? </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">12:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> No.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FF] Was that also affected when Kuldip Nayar got arrested. He got arrested somewhere mid-way through the Emergency. ----- [RR: Yea] ---What happened when you discovered or when...?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : No! We felt very sad and we felt very stupid that we can't do anything.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Were you expecting that he would be arrested?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : No, one knew that anything can happen. Sure.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Were you expecting something like that for yourself?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : No, not me personally because there were two things against me. One was that I was doing a book on Jayprakash Narayan's Movement. What they did was they took away the printed sheets. They didn't question me. That was over. Second thing was one or two pictures that I could do, which didn't have very strong element to challenge their authority, you know. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">13:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Or let me tell you the visual understanding...or the visual language is not so simple and easy, you know. I remember once we published a picture of Indira Gandhi sitting and </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">13:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">Siddhartha Shankar Ray presenting her some paper and he's laughing like a sycophant. And I thought he was </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">13:38</span><span style="color:#262626;">  and educated, very learned man and even he's like this. So we published a Page 1 picture. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">13:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And next day I don't know whether his wife came or he came to my office to take that picture. He says, 'Raghu this is such a wonderful picture.' (FY and RR laugh). </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">13:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''meri kisne aisi tasveer chapi hoti mein sharam se mar gaya hota! (''</span><span style="color:#262626;">trans. : Had anyone every printed a picture of me like that I would have died of shame!</span><span style="color:#262626;">'') ''</span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On people’s reaction to Emergency…a lot of them very happy with </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">the efficiency.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On Modi’s promise of </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">swachh bharat but not practical because people don’t know their duties.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---People of India need to be controlled but not have their freedom of speech taken away.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--RR doesn’t remember any other great image of the Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--RR often questioned whether there was any need to work at the newspaper.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On arrest of Kuldip Nayar.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---RR didn’t expect to get arrested and was not.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On RR’s understanding of photography and its purpose, with an example.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>* <div style="margin-left:0cm;margin-right:0cm;"><span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- A picture of </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Siddhartha Shankar Ray</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> with Indira Gandhi where the former looks like a boot-licker</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">RR is </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">appalled when Ray’s wife asks for a copy.</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> </span></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">14:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : There's also a picture you've taken when Indira Gandhi is hitting at the table, her bag and there's </span><span style="color:#262626;">several people standing around.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Yea, that was in </span><span style="color:#262626;">''A Day in the Life of Indira Gandhi''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. In one day I had some memorable pictures. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Oh! So this was pre-Emergency.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Haan, pre-Emergency.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So during the Emergency what other pictures did you take?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : (almost whispers) Don't remember. Baaki to demonstrations jab chote mote huai. They arrested anybody and everybody who came in their way. The police but not of great consequences.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Not of great consequences. I'm not talking about consequences but I was just talking about how this spoke to you?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Nah..nah..nah, nobody bothered.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : No how they spoke to you in the sense that how the photographs spoke to you? Your own photographs...how they spoke to you?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:49</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : I told you I'm not ...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : What about the picture on the front of Coomi Kapoor's book where Sanjay Gandhi and Indira Gandhi and ...where is that from? What was happening at that time?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : This is during the political rally in '77 before elections. This was in somewhere in Amethi or UP somewhere.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">15:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Okay last question sir. From pre-'75 to the elections and immediately post-elections to when Indira Gandhi was elected again. How do you think journalism transformed in that period? In that about... (inaudible).</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">15:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : No, I must say ...but there were very few individuals who took very clean clear stand and who became even sharper </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">15:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> about who they are and where they stand. But most others were criss-crossing, you know and anything </span><span style="color:#262626;">was possible. Now you see one of my friends whom I admired a great deal, Rajinder Puri, cartoonist. The best cartoonist I'll see. Sometimes he didn't even write a line. His drawing will say what he wants to say. This is what I call a great picture where it need...doesn't need a line or a great cartoon where you don't have to explain. You look at the cartoon and you'll get the message...just the drawing.  He had become so much anti-Indira Gandhi...I don't know whether he was arrested or not and he ... it became a poison. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Indira Gandhi was his poison. Let me tell you that poison ate him up. Kya faida hai? (trans.: What is the use?) Even that is wrong. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Do you remember a particular cartoon of his that was particularly offensive to Indira Gandhi?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : He's done many such cartoons. You must see his books of, whenever even Virendra Kapoor...they were friends so he'll be able to tell you but as I told you my memory is not so good. But he was one guy but his cartoon were ….by god yaar! </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">17:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Kya baat thi uski or uski punch line bhi jab hoti thi to it used to amaze us. But usko Indira Gandhi ka zahr hua that. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">17:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And that poison ate him up, which is also wrong.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Was this...was that also true of other journalists or other media people also?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Well, I don't think so...hardly anybody. </span>
|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On other pictures taken by RR.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On transformation of journalism.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----Some took clear stance while many criss-</nowiki></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">crossed.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Example of Rajinder Puri the cartoonist…The Emergency poisoned his soul in RR’s opinion.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Rajinder Puri and Virendra Kapoor friends—advices to interview VK.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">17:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Right, sir is there anything about Emergency that I have not asked you and you want to say about the Emergency?</span>

<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Yaar, ek to meri memory achi nahi hai...dusra I don't live in the past. I don't have any such fascinations with these things.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : But what would you have to say for us given that this is an archive for ..of the political...we're talking about </span><span style="color:#262626;">Emergency memories and how people remember the Emergency?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : I think you should speak to other people also who loved it. --- [FY : Of course!] ---- ...who loved it for whatever reasons. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Did you love it or did you hate it?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:55</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : No...I...I...I ...I...I...definitely I hated it in the sense not on day-to-day basis but this is quite a something that I have shared with you that - Do I still need work for a newspaper? Is big enough thing for me. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : When did you stop working for a newspaper?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : After...you know I was ...'77 I left Statesman. I was there with them for ten years. And then I worked with Sunday Magazine for three-four years, then Aroon Purie came along, he said, 'why don't we work together?' I worked with India Today for ten years. 1990 I left India Today. And the off and on I did some political stories. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">18:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Very rarely of national importance. The last time I visited was Anna Hazare's Movement...that was very precious to me. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">18:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And surprisingly after fifteen-eighteen years, you know, I had....earlier I used to go to, you know, Congress sessions because those sessions used to be very revealing in terms of getting visual experience and photographing these guys in context to the other</span><span style="color:#262626;"> movement (</span><span style="color:#262626;">'''not Sure'''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">19:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But after Indira Gandhi, I did ...did attend one session with </span><span style="color:#262626;">Narasimha Rao (Ref.: P. V. Narasimha Rao) when he was the Prime Minister but none at all when Rajiv took over because Bofors happened and  got disinterested. So last May-March (2015), February-March 2015, before the elections, there was going to be a big Congress session. So I said let me go and take a look. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">19:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And I went there after eighteen-twenty years to a Congress session. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">19:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And I was amazed you know that in..in.. Talkatora Stadium...huge stage...senior Congressmen </span><span style="color:#262626;">sitting on the stage ... </span><span style="color:#262626;">''chamchas''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> all around... Sonia Gandhi...Rahul Bhaiya...Sonia Gandhi...Rahul Bhaiya ...was going on! And then </span><span style="color:#262626;">comes Sonia Gandhi at about 10:10 ...10 O'Clock. She walks in followed by Manmohan Singh and then Rahul. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">20:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Everybody chanting ... Sonia Gandhi zindabad...Rahil Bhaiya yeh...Rahul Bhaiya woh! Nobody spoke about Manmohan Singh. I have seen Congress session where the Prime Minister is the main character...the hero of the show...nobody talked about him. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">20:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So Sonia Gandhi, being the President, she takes the centre-stage, she sits on the dais and Rahul sits next to her...all those senior Congressmen and ministers there and Manmohan Singh is eight-ten feet away from them and little ahead of everybody but isolated and alone. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">21:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> 10 O' Clock...11 O'clock ...11:30  ...12:30 ...1:30 ...2:30...3 O' Clock...He sat all by himself...nobody spoke to him...he didn't speak to anybody...nobody consulted him ...nobody looked at him. And he was sitting like a lungi man going through a nightmare. His expression was the same from 10 O' Clock to 3 O' Clock. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">21:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And it was shocking and sad for me that he was deserted and lonely even when he was the Prime Minister. Next day was the BJP session I went there so I could see Advani...very serious...very uneasy... and other BJP leaders...senior leaders very, you know, almost separated and paranoid and then Sushma Swaraj and Ravi Shankar Prasad and Arun Jaitley...little paranoid...little uneasy...little expecting...expectant. And then comes Modi and everybody...these leaders spoke and there was a huge portrait of a Va... ....----  </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">22:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY : Vajpayee?] ---.... Modi towering them, where they had to speak; I mean it was designed properly. So everybody speaking under the chatrachaya of Modi...whether it was Sushma Swaraj or Ravi Shankar Prasad or anybody else, and him sitting there. And then comes Modi and then he speaks and speaks and speaks and exerts and </span><span style="color:#262626;">everybody claps; and even ... even Advani did that. So I did a book in one day. Half-day there (Congress session?) ... half-day there (BJP session) - The Tale of Two Prime Ministers. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">23:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> This is the book I have done and one day shooting here and one day shooting there...just see the cover shot, which...the writing you see. And then I wrote, you see this is the general atmosphere of the Congress session first few pictures; and then they come...before they come...manipulations, and game going on and then they come and then he...you know they are garlanded...this is the only time when he smiled.</span>

<span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">24:12</span><span style="color:#262626;">[FY] : How the photos?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : hmm...then I put a time everywhere but you look at his expressions, you look at his expressions...seemed nightmarish expression at 11. ... ---- [FY : at 11...yea] ----...whatever the time. I have given time. Same expression...he's waving  nobody is ...he's not in touch with anybody and time. ..again...and again...and again...this was his condition.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Wow! He sat like that for five hours!</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [RR] : Five hours...look at his expressions. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">25:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> 3:11....</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">25:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> 3:25...and this is how the Congress session ended. And then comes Modi... and it was Modi ...Modi...Modi...all the way. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">25:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> See the arrogance. So this is the book I did in two days. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Okay, thank you so much sir. I am really really grateful.</span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Anything that RR may want to say about Emergency?</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--RR doesn’t like to live in the past.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---When did RR stop working for the </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">? --- 1977 ---joined Sunday Magazine </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> then joined India Today at Aroon Purie’s insistence.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On observations at Congress Sessions</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Rajiv Gandhi and Bofors--- RR got disenchanted.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---RR attended BJP and Congress Session in May-March 2015, and shares his insights.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---How Manmohan Singh was completely isolated while everyone chanted Sonia and Rahul’s names.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----RR’s comparison of BJP’s rally with that of Congress’.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--On the frenzy around Modi.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---This is documented by RR in his book.. </span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">'''Recording II Ends'''</span>
| style="color:#2e74b5;" |
|-
|}
<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>

<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>

<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>

.NjMx.NDk

2017-11-03T11:42:44Z

Bhanugs:

<div style="text-align:center;"><span style="color:#262626;">'''INTERVIEW </span>WITH <span style="background-color:#ffffff;">PAMELA PHILLIPOSE'''</span></div>

<u>'''INTERVIEWEE'''</u>* Name: Pamela Phillipose [PP]
* Occupation: Journalist, writer, activist
* Third participant: Achin Vanaik[AV] (mostly in the background)

<u>'''INTERVIEWER'''</u>* Kai Friese [Kai]
*

<u>'''Medium: Video + Audio recordings'''</u>* Format/ Type of File: Ogg Vorbis File (.ogg)
* Language: English
* Location of Interview: <span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#222222;">Residence, Panchsheel Park</span>
* Date of the interview: 22 January 2016

<u>'''Clip name/DURATION: '''</u>* Name: (1): kf_pphillipose_raw_220116_1.ogg

(2): kf_pphillipose_raw_220116_2.ogg

(3): kf_pphillipose_raw_220116_3.ogg

* Size: (1) 11.7 MB  Date modified 22 January 2016 (a) 13:02:55

(2) 1.94 MB  Date modified 22 January 2016 (b) 13:10:37

(3) 5.17 MB  Date modified 22 January 2016 (c) 13:27:15

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:16.081cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
| style="color:#3482b1;" |
|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">Keywords/phrases/issues</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">0:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Interview with Pamela Phillipose on the 22nd of January 2016 </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#222222;">Panchsheel </span><span style="color:#262626;">Park. Pamela start well with your... (PP starts before Kai could even state his question)</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : Okay...Okay...So I actually did my journalism at IIMC. It was at that point in South Extension. And so ---- [Kai: You were from Delhi?] ---- ...No, I was from Bangalore but I came here to do that course and after which I was recruited for the training scheme. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And this was where?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : In the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. This was 197....I think it was late '74...early '75. ---- [Kai : Okay!] ---- So ..so I joined. I was very </span><span style="color:#262626;">excited being a very young innocent because I did this and I was very excited joining the world of journalism.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But June had happened...Emergency had happened when you had finished?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : No...no...not yet. And...so you know one do…one thought of journalism in terms of words and not really in terms of what it does...the social, you know, roots of journalism, one didn't really consider. And it wasn't until one day when I came into...now you know...imagine the Bori...lady... old lady of Bori Bunder </span>''(Reference to: <span style="background-color:#ffffff;">The area where the TOI offices are located, used to be known as Bori Bunder before being known as VT which is now changed to CST.''</span><span style="color:#262626;">)...big grey building of ...very handsome looking building right opposite the VT station (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Ref: Victoria Terminus now </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;">Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) and it...it just struck you as an institution that would make a difference, and we're all part of that. In fact, when I was interviewed for this training scheme, people like Khushwant (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Khushwant Singh''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) and B. K. Karanjia, who was editing </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Film Fare''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> at that point and many others, you know. So they took this recruitment seriously and you felt that it was a very important process. I remember the person sitting next to me was Khalid Mohamed. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">1:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> You know, and he of course went on to write on films and he made films himself and so on. So a group of young interesting people came together as part of the training scheme. And we were trained typically by ... we had a sort of classes and then had to actually go to the various departments and serve there so...you went to various weekly...</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Femina''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : So this was something of an internship while you were doing your course in...or you had finished with the ....completed course?</span>* <div style="margin-left:0cm;margin-right:0cm;"><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : No, I'd finished my course so that helped me </span><span style="color:#262626;">get into this in a sense because I was one of the few who had a basic theoretical understanding of journalism in that sense. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So... so there was this wonderful </span><span style="color:#262626;">big room, you know, in the Times of India which was divided according to the publication. So there was </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Maharashtra Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> on one end and </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was </span><span style="color:#333333;">behemoth</span><span style="color:#262626;">. You know it had so many different publications and on the first floor, which was the most important floor was where they had </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Maharashtra Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> on one end, and </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Economic Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> on the other and then the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> desk and then the reporting desk, the evening news desk. So they were broken up like this. So but in a sense it was like a concourse and you could hear the teleprinter machines going tack tack tick tick tick tick...that was the pulse of the newspaper and you really felt news was coming to you by the minute in that sense. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">3:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So it was all very exciting for me. And so I was serving I think at that point in the evening news desk and I entered the room, I think it must have been 26th (June)...when was it declared- Emergency? ---- [Kai : June...] ---- 25</span><span style="color:#262626;"><sup>th</sup></span><span style="color:#262626;"> or 26</span><span style="color:#262626;"><sup>th</sup></span><span style="color:#262626;"> any way the day it was declared. I mean... I think it must have been declared at night...in the morning of the day (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''read as: the Emergency was''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) declared, I came in as usual to sit at the desk because we were processing copy at that point, the sub-editors and there was a silence...the entire thing...normally people are chatting and jabbering and you know consulting each other...there was actually a pall of silence, which you could perceive and hear the silence. And I kept, you know...slipped into my desk and asked the person, - why is everyone so quiet? </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">4:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> --- 'You don't know?-- Emergency has been declared.' It's like Shhhhh... Emergency has been declared. But what...because I had no idea what Emergency was you know! So at that point she probably didn't know either but she was like you know schooled- you were told to keep quiet so everyone kept quiet. And there was this...everyone going around very quietly to doing their work, you know. We really didn't </span><span style="color:#262626;">know what it entailed...what was Emergency all about, you know and that was the...All we know was there's this you know our constitutional, you know, rights had been suspended. Now whether we even understood what constitutional rights were because all these things were not taught in journalism school, you know. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And this was the first time that you became aware that...what's happening...I mean - how does this matter? I mean someone has declared something ...the Prime Minister has declared something in Delhi...How does it impact me as a journalist in Bombay? A lowly journalist ...lowliest of the lowly. And so a lot of questions buzzing around my head. And then of course one of the people later came up to me and gave me a, I think, a small piece of cyclostyled paper saying - Meeting at BUJ - Bombay Union of Journalists is going to take place and if you 'd like to come then come along. And it was Darryl who later of course played this very negative role but at that point he was something of a human rights person. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">6:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And so they had a meeting...public meeting at BUJ....almost I think on the day of the...the next day, you know, when the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> came out with its...actually the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> came its empty .... ---- [Kai : later.] ---- .... later. It came out I think in ...on the 27th (June) Edition...didn't carry the edits, which was of course the famous…they didn't carry the edits and the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> by mistake carried that wonderful ad, classified ad...</span></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Yeah! The famous…</span>

<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>
|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Background of PP</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">-->journalism course at IIMC, South Extension.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">-- Native of Bangalore.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Recruited at Times of India for a Training Scheme in late 1974 or </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">early 1975.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- PP joined before Emergency was declared.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- PP’s personal impressions of working in journalism.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---institution as making a difference.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- Khushwant Singh and B. K. Karanjia part of the interview panel and they took the Training Scheme selection seriously.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Khalid Mohamed.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">-</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> details of the Training Scheme.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- PP one of the few to have theoretical knowledge of journalism</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> gave her an edge.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">-</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> structural placement of different publications.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">-</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Ambiance of the office.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---PP working at the evening news desk when she was informed about the Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---description of the ambiance in office after Emergency was declared…people did not completely understand the implications.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Suspension of constitutional rights but people had very little idea of the true extent of constitutional rights.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--How was Emergency to affect someone really low in the professional ladder?</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Meeting at BUJ </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Darryl D’Monte</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Blank editorial of the </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> as protest.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---The infamous classified ad taken out by the Times that expounded the virtues of liberty at a time when liberty was being squashed.</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">6:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : Berty son of Liberty ....brother ..husband…that kind of thing. So that actually came out, you know...kind of veiled attempt to talk about that liberty is dead.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : So that was a big...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : Yeah...it became a kind of little bit of the  saying ...it had a ...like a meme, you know...in today's language</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:55</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : You know anything of the background of that story- was it done by an independent person or was it an in-house job? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : It was an actual classified ad...I don't know who put it in. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:05</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : So you think a private citizen placed it?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : Perhaps. I'm not sure. It's one of those, you know, stories that have no beginning, and middle and end. And maybe it surfaced in other situations in other countries ...god knows! But definitely this was the atmosphere and the so clearly articulating a view on this became important...at least we felt we needed to and there as young people who had no stake in the system, we felt we'd rather be on the side of the heroes who are trying to fight this than rather…than all these dour old men who, you know, kept quiet and went about their job. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:49</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [</span><span style="color:#262626;">''NOTE: The last line elicited laughter and spate of mumbled comments from Kai Achin Vanaik and PP''</span><span style="color:#262626;">]</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : No and so you felt you don't want to be a part of them who were...they were keeping quiet and pretending to .....  (PP laughs for a few seconds) go on and pretend things were okay. And I wanted to be on the side of the fighters...so that this thing was there. And Khushwant Singh came down...he, you know, typically the newspapers brought out by the people sitting on first floor...the second floor was it? ---- [AV pips in: the second floor] ---- second floor. ---- [AV clarifies: First floor was Maharashtrian...</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Maharashtra Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, at least when I was there. Economic Times was on the second floor] ---.... the management was also there...yea...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [AV] : Management was on the second ....  ---- [PP: First floor] ----- .... (AV disagrees with PP) ... floor...second floor also.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : Anyway whatever it was it was on a higher floor...</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Illustrated Weekly''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. He came down and he said- “We all </span><span style="color:#262626;">know what's happening,”...- he made an announcement and we all congregated around him and I think he stood on a chair or something... anyway... He told us that we will not...we will fight. We will fight this. We have to fight this because it is the question of our rights. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:05</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Khuswant Singh said?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : Khushwant Singh ...It is a question of our rights and I for one have taken the decision...so it showed the autonomy of that period where editors felt that they could decide unilaterally to suspend publications. So he said,  'I for one will not bring out the Illustrated Weekly for two weeks.' You know, and so we were all very thrilled ...slowly even the dour old men were stepping forward to you know take up this cause. So...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But did he (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Khushwant Singh''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) follow through in that because ....?  [PP speaks before Kai could finish]</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : No, he didn't. He did not. I mean very soon he succumbed. He didn't bring out one edition but soon enough he was very much part of the establishment and put Sanjay Gandhi on the cover and all that. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So he was completely co-opted within a very short time but he did...that initial thing he did say 'we have to fight it.' And that was very interesting. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">10:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So at that point...now it's a bit of personal history but some of my friends who...who were radical Maoist, you know, they felt that this is the time to strike as it were...we have to ...now, you know, because this is unacceptable and we have to do...so actually what...In fact I'd written about it in this book...not ...there's a chapter there but I have talked about how we were a small Maoist group...very tiny one and we used to bring out our own publication</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Cyclostyled or?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : Cyclostyled ...one of us would type it. You know about the cyclostyle paper in those days...in must have been before your time ... the technology but you had to first type it on </span><span style="color:#262626;">a cyclostyle sheet, the matter, and then it's like screen printing. That becomes your </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">10:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [</span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">CHECK</span><span style="color:#262626;">]  printed out. So we brought...it was very radical and...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Did it have a title the...?</span>

<span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : Spartacus...the first one was ...I forget now...Two very interesting titles ...but ..sorry (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note: something falls or shift and hence the apology''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) So yea, that was very interesting.</span>

|| <div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---source of the classified unknown…a kind of meme.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---The kind of people who attempted to carry out protest against the restrictions of the Emergency were young and those who had less to lose.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---general feelings of insecurity to voice real opinions about the Emergency.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---First attempt to defy Emergency was by Khushwant Singh -</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> did not publish one edition of </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Illustrated Weekly;''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> before acquiesce.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Khushwant Singh in fact went on to have Sanjay Gandhi on the front cover.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---PP’s engagement with Maoist groups and underground Cyclostyled pubcliations- </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''The Commune Art''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> and later </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Spartacus''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">. </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--mechanics of cyclostyling</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">11:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : You've got any old copies?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : I don't have it with me now but maybe I do somewhere tucked away but not ...I'll just take it out . But what's interesting is that we felt that we had some control over news. There was </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> writing all kinds of nonsense and pretending that life was going on and trains were running on time and the middle class was being the major beneficiaries of this you know that we get our rations and we...in those days rations meant even for the middle class it was very important. So what was at that point it seemed as if we had to have a alternative discourse, you know and that was ...that was why we felt ... okay so....yea....so it was </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Communard''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, the first one (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note: the name of the first cyclostyle''</span><span style="color:#262626;">)  (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note: An excerpt from PP's work follows next''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) "Before long I found myself a part of a tiny group who swore by Marx and Mao and vowed to fight the Emergency. It extolled its members to discard their bourgeois conditioning and values and </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">12:31</span><span style="color:#262626;">  </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">??</span><span style="color:#262626;"> themselves and work for the liberation of the toiling classes. The self-doubt and hesitation that had once plagued me suddenly vaporised. It was as if I could move into already well furnished intellectual space that provided both unassailable interpretation of the world and a comfortable sense of personal purpose." That's it ...You know, you felt that you were trying to make a difference and you could. </span><span style="color:#262626;">“We ...we were quickly convinced that all the truly great people of the world were on our side while on the other </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">13:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> were serried ranks of rogues and charlatans and profiteers and exploiters. To give ourselves a voice we began a thirty-page tract- </span><span style="color:#262626;">''The Communard''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, turned a bulletin for the front against fascism, which will later {</span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">CHECK</span><span style="color:#262626;">} immediately after the Emergency was lifted into a slightly bigger publication called </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Spartacus''</span><span style="color:#262626;">." So during the Emergency, it was The </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Communard''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. "So the first issue of our publication indicated that the main task was to hold a theoretical response to the ruling class. At a time when fundamental rights stood suspended. And the existing Left parties were letting down the revolutionary cause. When theory encrypts the masses becomes material force Marx had written. But nobody and certainly not a established ...established weak-kneed communist parties of the day had an adequate theoretical understanding of current politics. It fitted words like 'cannon balls' into the other..." I mean we really felt we were firing...And we felt we were also under surveillance so there's this feeling of, you know, we're the heroes of the underground. huh? </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">14:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So ...so... in fact Chasnala, the mine thing...the tragedy (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Dated: 27 December 1975''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) that happened at that point, you know, so it was so interesting that two discourses- how we saw Chasnala, which was a flooding of a mine; and how the newspapers reported it, you know. It was a...when a coal mine got flooded at Chasnala in December 1975, the Communard vented its ire against the term tragedy used to describe the disaster. Chasnala is not tragedy, it is murder." </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">14:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> The compradore bureaucratic bureaucrat landlord regime and its crazy greed for profits, it sacrificed 376 lives at the altar of capital." So this ...these things we used to circulate just by ...through....by, you know...  </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">15:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [</span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">AV and Kai</span><span style="color:#262626;"> start talking simultaneously and this drowns out PP's point] </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">15:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : So did you distribute it in the office?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">15:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : Ya…ya but to people we trusted so it was all very </span><span style="color:#262626;">quiet....but it was also scary because you didn't know at what point of time you would be exposed or whatever, you know. There were two or three of us who were all in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">15:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Okay...what fun? Were you bringing out monthly---weekly---what?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">15:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : I forget now. I think fortnightly...quite a bit actually. Quite...it's tough ...30-pages .... ---- [Kai : ????? ] ----.... I don't know if it is.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">15:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : I keep hearing of ..of .. ---- [PP: Of this kind of thing...?] ---.... of people bringing out their own newspapers and magazines on the side but no one keeps anything! [AV says something but he is too far]</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">15:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : Every time we ate a dish of chicken fried rice in a Colaba restaurant, we felt like a major class betrayal because it was two different things ...then there was neat unquestioned division along gender lines and so on. Basically the point was that was the period when we were too small to matter really, so we could take these positions but people who actually were the guardians of the paper, they buckled down very much so except for maybe a couple of people like ...yes...one or two were sent to jail.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : who were? ---- [AV : Sunder Rajan]</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : Sunder Rajan was the only person from the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times,''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I think....</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : What was his position?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : He was also the assistant editor. And I don't know why they threw him to jail but I think he must have been a socialist or ... </span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [AV] : He was sometimes a socialist that’s why </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">NOTE ---WHAT AV SAYS IS UNCLEAR</span><span style="color:#262626;"> so please cross check</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And the paper took no.... (Kai and PP speak at the same time and not audible).</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:49</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : no no...They did not say ...nothing...nothing....so that's the thing...that's why, you know, when it got over, </span><span style="color:#262626;">people....in fact Shyam Lal's response ...now Shyam Lal is a thinking person...he must have read enough of Marxist literature and all the rest so I'm sure it was disagreeable for him. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">17:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And ...but ...what....how he handled it was to write on esoteric subjects...he'd write on, you know....new thinking among the Left-bourgeois press whatever...in Paris. You know, he'd ...he’d think of other things to write about. And so in a sense it was a denial. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">17:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> It was a strong sense of denial and I think we all felt the burden of it. I think it would be unfair to say that they kind of brazened it out. I think they were sufficiently aware of what it meant but they felt required to do it as there were Censors who sifted, who cleared copy and these were the realities of the time, you know. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">17:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> They ...the censors would come in the evening and clear copy. So anything that is published would first have to go through the censor. So you can image how, and it was very draconian because if you defy the censor, you would definitely be reported in.</span>

|| <div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---The underground publication gave a sense that they were making some difference in spite of the dangers involved.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Excerpt from PP’s work on reflections on the Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---nature of reporting on the </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Chasnala tragedy in mainstream reportage and the underground one.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---published fortnightly.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---how eating in a better </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">restaurant felt like betrayal of ideological beliefs. </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---K. R. Sunder Rajan, the only person to raise voice against the Emergency in the Times and was arrested for his socialist stance.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Reflections on Shyam Lal’s vituperative edit after Emergency was lifted.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Shyam Lal in a state of denial during the Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- Functioning of the Censors.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">18:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And...what was your work? What were you doing at the...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : Ours was just... Mine was just a sub-editor's job...so all I had to do was to process copies so I didn't really have any stake in it or wanting to even change  what was being published because.....   ----- [</span><span style="color:#262626;">Kai : because you weren't writing or reporting. ] ----- ...</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I anyway had no power.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : Yea ...Yea...but I think what happened was there was a period of a... I mean 1977 came as a real</span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">???. (Muffled spot)...</span><span style="color:#262626;"> you were not there Achin at that point. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">18:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ---- [AV : I was in ...I came in ????] ---- But were you in India at that point? ----- [AV: yes..yes...I only left after you ????] ---- So that </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">18:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">(</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Pressure cooker's whistle goes off...lots of giggles''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">18:55</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So at that point it was an amazing feeling that there was a change for the better. I mean never ever go back to those days.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : When elections had been declared or ...?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : Yeah....'77 ... yeah...when they announced elections from then onwards there was this celebration. Of course then elections turned out the way they did ...there was a huge celebration. That was there...But you see the thing is it did, I think, Achin may not have been there because he was any way ...he was a ... a... a opinion maker rather than a reporter, so there was a ...there was a surge of writing that, you know, that kind of wanted to expose things that were going on. So there was a huge this thing that people like B. G. Verghese and others were very much on the forefront of this, and I don't know when the Kamla thing happened. When was the Kamla ...the buying of Kamla. ---- [Kai : the buying of Kamla] (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Reference to: Arun Shourie in 1981 asked a reporter to 'buy' a girl called Kamla to prove that laws were being broken every day by the illegal trafficking of women and children''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ).</span>

<span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">19:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [AV] : That Arun Shourie was there. I wasn't there.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : Yea, but that must have been the early ‘80s. But that kind of journalism that happened; and I would say that many of those things- Bhagalpur for instance was also a factor of this resurgence ...of that we should not go back to the days of the Emergency because that was when our voice was shut.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">20:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And interestingly there were people like </span><span style="color:#262626;">Anand Patwardhan...I remember Anand eating peanuts and walking around, you know. He did the...he was also gathering footage and so on.</span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">---PP’s work profile---sub-editor</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Lifting up of Emergency brought with it awareness of change </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">and charged people.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Surge in writing, especially investigative journalism post-Emergency to write on the excesses committed.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- B. G. Verghese at the forefront of the new expose journalism.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Arun Shourie’s expose of ‘buying’ Kamla to prove that law was broken every day.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Bhagalpur incident.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> Anand Patwardhan doing research work on his documentaries--- </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Prisoners of Conscience''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> on JP Movement.</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">20:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Haan he was filming the JP Movement ...</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Prisoners of Conscience''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : Yea...yea.. based on admissions Prisoners of </span><span style="color:#262626;">Conscience was his first. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">20:35</span><span style="color:#262626;">  (</span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">Completely mumbled cacophony</span><span style="color:#262626;">) </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">20:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Waves of Revolution''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was also there .... ---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">20:41</span><span style="color:#262626;">  [AV says something which is not comprehensible] ---- .... </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">20:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> yea but he was very much there in....now Bombay...it's very interesting, you see, that shift to Delhi...Delhi as the centre of journalism hadn't happened. At that point Bombay was very much because the editors were in fact located in Bombay. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">21:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So to that extent Bombay was central to the response...all that action that was happening was...the Kuldip Nayar and other stories...that was true...I mean that happened in Delhi. But Bombay was the ideological kind of space on which much of this played out, you know. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">21:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So there's this interesting shift that happened post-...post- Emergency when the shift to ...Delhi became the centre of journalism in that sense. And during that period a lot of journalism that was created in Delhi was very much....I...I definitely see a organic link between the sphere of silence and the </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">???.</span><span style="color:#262626;"> because there was so much activism; and I would only look at the Women's Movement of that time, you know. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">21:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> What happens see...post-70s...I mean post-'77 for instance you had the Mathura Rape Case (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Dated: 26 March 1972 but brought to trial in 1979''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) of 1979. Now what was that about? That was about this whole idea of defying the court interpretation of what consent is. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">22:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> When a woman consents to a sexual act, how do you define that consent, especially if it’s done by two policemen within the precincts of a police station. What is the... I mean those kind of questions, which we would never have asked, I think in an earlier period could be asked. People would understand because, you know, the police taped...was very much a reality. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">22:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> They had just got out of that. So ...so the...the response ... the public response I think was much sharper after that. So you felt that you could write something on these issues and get a kind of ... there was a resonance...public resonance, which would not have happened I think if emergency hadn't happened because it would all been </span><span style="color:#262626;">part of everyday reality. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">23:05</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So I think that was the difference and the women's movement actually took off at that period and it ...because you questioned....you questioned why don't you see rape as an important issue?  Why do you see it in terms of a ...like ...why do you equate it with pickpocket....a crime of pickpocketing. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">23:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> The first time, in fact we confronted the Khanna. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">23:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [AV] : Yea! In fact, K. C. Khanna said to me because I was...He said, 'This is die down ... this chaotic.' ...because there is a huge spurt after the Emergency...this thing here, and of course it never died down.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">23:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : Yea, he said .... 'what nonsense' and rape...issue like or a sexual autonomy of a woman, of course was not there. But at least the violation...there was Susan Brownmiller's</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Against Her Will''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">and so on. So there were enough ...so I mean there was enough kind of theoretical understanding of these are unacceptable things and everyone has rights...your rights bearing people. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">24:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> That articulation happened and became ever present feeling only after the Emergency. So ...thats'...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : I mean also it leads for a brief period this sense that the media</span><span style="color:#262626;"> as a watchdog …as the pillar of democracy </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">(PP and Kai are talking over each other and is not clear</span><span style="color:#262626;">--Check)</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : Ya…ya...very much so...very much so (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''...response to Kai's query''</span><span style="color:#262626;">). yes, of course and the 80s' also it went on into the '80s. I would see '80s as a reflection of the ...the '70s in that sense because in the '80s you have Bhagalpur for instance, you had major exposes when Union Carbide happened... much before it happened, you had this man actually writing about it...saying that this is a gas chamber.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [AV] : In fact we had journalist who went and marched to the </span><span style="color:#262626;">Union Carbide office in '84 in Bombay.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : So you see...you saw that activist phase of Indian media and journalism.  Those days only newspaper but you saw </span><span style="color:#262626;">that phase of it because of the...because of the Emergency...I'd definitely make that link between the two.</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Then of course by the '90s you had another shift...the paradigm shift and that is linked directly with the opening up of markets, which started from the mid-'80s onwards under Rajiv Gandhi. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">25:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And Mrs...in fact Indira Gandhi also I think...the IMF loan, I remember in 1984 or something.... ---- [AV : '82...'83 that was...I can't remember.]</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : Yea, whatever there was a </span><span style="color:#262626;">..... -----  [AV : perhaps first sort of a pro-liberal budget actually took place in 1977 I remember...1976 during the Emergency, I remember.]</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : Yeah, so I mean ...I mean it manifested itself at a larger level...it took much longer. But it was interesting that this shift…these very shifts were happening and of course the '91 liberalisation thing made a huge difference to the way media was seen, you know; and ... and the consumer of news from a...from a reader or viewer became a consumer of news so that shift </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">26:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Someone rings the bell and PP: Oh I have to pay him Achin---- [Achin: I'll pay him. It's all right] ] </span>

<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>
|| <div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Anand Patwardhan--- </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Waves of Revolution.''</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Bombay as the centre of journalism and being an ideological space.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Kuldip Nayar</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Delhi as the new centre of journalism, and the changes that such a shift brought in the nature of journalism.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Women’s Movement.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---importance of the re-opening of the Mathura Rape Case in 1979.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---It’s implication of consensual sex.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Post-Emergency a feeling that one could write on things that mattered.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---K. C. Khanna’s cynicism or stereotypical reaction to the furore of the Mathura Rape Case.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Theoretical arguments on rape in Susan Brownmiller’s book- </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Against Her Will''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Post-Emergency a sense that media was a guardian of democracy due to resurgence in writing after being supressed.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> Union Carbide</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Post-Emergency as </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">the activist phase of Indian journalism.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Discussion on various shifts in journalism.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--for example- 1980s under Rajiv Gandhi with the opening up of the markets.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---first pro-liberal budget in 1976.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Another paradigm shift in the 1990s.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">26:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Also if  </span><span style="color:#262626;"> (not clear) .... yourself identifying as a young Maoist during the ...when the Emergency was declared but to what extent did the ... this mix of ...of socialists and Jan Sanghis and what became the Janta Party...to an extent did you identify or sympathise with them?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : See I think...I...no ...the thing is we hadn't yet had  a view of the RSS but we ..we saw them as right-wing, you know, forces so. I mean they were already identified as the bad guys as far as we were concerned. The socialists were the pink course and they could be accepted, you know as part of this thing. Actually what's interesting about the women's movement was, you know, when the Forum Against Oppression of Women, </span><span style="color:#262626;">started off Forum Against Rape and then it became Forum Against Oppression of Women...what was different. I mean as a Maoist I mean I kind of moved away from my group and I found it was very much more democratic in its function and that appealed to me as a person and also the...what the vision ...whatever they were articulating was important to me. I'd written a little bit about this shift from Maoism to Feminism, and how, you know, the ...the capacity to raise questions, you know, which in a sense what the Maoist groups did was to create a similar kind of authoritarian structure within the group of control, of arguments and control of views. So you were trying to break ...you saw what was happening at, you know, the larger level but you saw that there were reflections of that...the control and the ability to speak out was being peppered constantly. So that change where the Feminists to me did was to allow me to be myself and you know at the same time use the frameworks of Left, you know...left ideology.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [AV and PP talks about something personal not related with the interview] </span>

<span style="color:#262626;">'''Interview Ends'''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. </span>

<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>
|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">---To what extent did PP sympathise with Jan Sanghis.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---RSS was kept at a distance.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Move towards Women’s Movement---</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> Forum Against Rape and then it became Forum </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Against Oppression of Women.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---how Maoist also followed almost similar restrictions as the Emergency did—so a step away from them towards feminism.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#262626;">'''Recording Two'''</span>

| style="color:#2e74b5;" |
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">0:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Meanwhile what was happening with your career?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : Yea, so I ...actually I stayed on in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> till the early '80s.And then ...and then I got married nah...1980 I got married to Achin so</span><span style="color:#262626;"> after that kids came and so on. So I wasn't a ...sort of...I took a sort of the side rail of the railway station, you know in the sense I joined the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Eve's Weekly''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> as a Features Editor or something. And then I joined the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Sunday Observer''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, which is also an interesting period because this is post-Vinod Mehta. And Rajiv...Rahul Singh (Khushwant’s son) was the </span><span style="color:#262626;">editor then and this was the time when the Ambanis tried to take over </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">Sydom Survey</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">0:49</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ??? So I was there then. And then I came to Delhi. We decided because Achin had to be with his parents so we came here and so after that we've been in Delhi since. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">1:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I joined the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> in the 1993 and have been...was with them till 2007 and then I joined </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Women's Feature Service''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. And now I'm doing research for ICSSR (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note: Indian Council for Social Science Research, Delhi''</span><span style="color:#262626;">). So that's my trajectory. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But you...before you left your </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">???</span><span style="color:#262626;"> you started writing and doing by-lined stories? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : Hmmmm...yes, of course because I was then located in the Sunday Magazine. So we had editors like Daro (Darryl?) and then Gautam Vohra and others were editors at that point. And at one point Muhammad Ali also came. I mean Ayesha Kagal and me we interviewed him together. It was fun. But what is interesting about the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was always the exemplar, you know, everyone looked up to the Times because it had the clout of it, you know. But it’s interesting how...how newspaper technology changes the relations of production within the paper and also relations of how people relate...how for instance journalists relate to the printers’ downstairs. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> In those days the printing activities ...they were linotype machines and they used to...and all the operations would take place in the basement, which is now of course converted into shop ...shop I think...shop space or commercial space. You know if you go to the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> building now you'll find that the basement is being used for other things. But in those days the presses were located there. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So this composite idea ...the Union as a composite entity was very much located...the spatial you know arrangements as well, you see. Now what has happened is the press is now Kandivali in Bombay, and similarly in here its moved to...... ---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">3:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : from Delhi to Noida. -----..... Yea Noida. So again there is that you know you don't identify with </span><span style="color:#262626;">the workers ...why? we as young sub-editors had to constantly ...because you had to pass pages and so on...so the nature of that was far more interactive with different processes of newspaper production and it was so wonderful...some of the men who were down there. We'd go down there and we had to pass the pages, we had to sign...this thing and all that. And there were people who could actually read the front page backwards...I mean because linotype was in reverse. And so sometimes a whole galley of linotype led would...you know...what were they called? They were bullet type things in each page...each line had a separate thing...and it used to fall down for instance just before the paper had to go. So someone had to put it together and read whether everything's okay. And these wonderful men...I still remember some of their names ...were there and we were like quite thick you know. We understood their problems and they understood us, you know but that relationship got broken and I think that was also one of the functions of bringing in new unions and so on, you know because to drive a wedge between journalists and the people who actually produce the paper. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">4:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So ... so when you look at a newspaper, it's an industry that has ..... </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">4:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Achin returns...] </span>

<span style="color:#262626;">'''Interview ends abruptly.'''</span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On PP’s career.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---PP stayed with the Times till 1980s.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--married Achin Vanaikin 1980---move to Delhi---joined </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Eve’s Weekly''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">---then </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Sunday Observer.''</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Post-Vinod Mehta </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">period.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Ambnis’ tried to buy </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#2e74b5;">something</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---joined Express in 1993 to 2007 then </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Women's Feature Service ''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">---now research for ICSSR.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Working at the Sunday Magazine with editors like Gautam Vohra.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Discussion on the nature of media, it’s challenges and changes in journalism from technology, cross-department relations, technology.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--how technological changes affected the relations---sort of a disenchantment.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Problems of </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">journalists not being able to connect with subjects.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Linotype and </span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">Its machinations</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#262626;">'''Recording 3'''</span>

| style="color:#2e74b5;" |
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">0:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Pamela but tell me little bit in retrospect and in terms of what had happened to the India as we know it? Today do you see the Emergency experiences as being particularly significant in transforming--not the immediate transformation and euphoria that happened then--but somehow being…led to perversely the weaknesses of...?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : Yea, I think what's happened is that journalism...journalists toady as a tribe have less are less secure </span><span style="color:#262626;">and are less sure of themselves because in a sense they exist at the wish of the management and that ... that worry is constant. The fact that you can lose your job, the fact that your contract may not be renewed is a major axe over your head so that tells you exactly how you should conduct yourself, you know. So there is that ....in the earlier days there was at least the understanding that the journalists had their own, you know, space; and they could bring in stories ...stories they thought were important and there would be at least a chance that it will make it into the public domain. But now certain stories just don't figure. For instance, when did we have a serious beat reporter covering labour in a consistent way? </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">1:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Even agriculture one of the reasons for agriculture being in this situation is because the eye of the media is completely removed from you know what's happening in rural India to an extent. I mean I'm saying agriculture is a sector, you know, how many people are taking it seriously although...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But you don't see the seeds of this downfall in that time at all, I mean if you broke it down? If I understand you right, I think you're seeing the current predicament as an outcome of early liberalisation in the 1990s but you are then seeing the immediate or the extended post-Emergency period as a golden age where everything was right?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : I think the post-Emergency period was an important seed bed...you could call it a seed-bed of activist journalism. It was allowed, it was seen as important, you know. And papers actually sold on some of their reportage that they did at that point, so it was even commercially a successful model.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And journalists ...I mean at least many journalists had become well not brand names but household names...people have become famous…reputations...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : Yea, yea, yea...absolutely..Arun Shourie forget everything else, he is still remembered for Antulay (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Reference: </span><span style="color:#262626;">expose on Maharashtra's Chief Minister, A. R. Antulay's collection of funds''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) although it’s not his completely (his) story. He made use of the hard work of many reporters on the ground. But he's associated with that cement exposure and likewise I mean this Ashwin Sarin... no one knew of him...he was just a nondescript reporter on the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> desk. He goes and buys this woman to show how trade in, you know, in trafficking takes place and he becomes a household name. So it was this thing, you know, some of these people were very important and they figured as heroes and icons, you know. Today we still have the iconisation of many people. We see ...we see many reporters writing wonderful stuff but it's not something that everyone can aspire to; therefore there is a, you know, there is a lack of engagements with some of the issues that are beyond the comfort level of the management wants covered. So I think the space has narrowed. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">4:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> There is no doubt about it. The 'We the People' of the earlier, you know, editorial imagination has now come down…pared down to, you know, 'We the Consumer' of middle class India. So there is that transition is major and it has implications for what is put up. Of course if you bring in social media and all that, I would say that spaces have opened up precisely because mass communication now you have now what...Manuel Castell [</span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">Please Check....Manuel Castell is a theoretician and it does sounds like this</span><span style="color:#262626;">] calls as self-communication. People are able to put out their own information. So for instance the response to this Dalit boy's assault ... assault on him and his subsequent suicide (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Reference: Case of Rohith Vemula at University of Hyderabad, c. January 2016''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) can become a major story and force the establishment to rework and re-look at what they are doing. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Or at least try and see good in this. So all this, and its holding power ...it's ...it has that capacity to, you know, hold ...turn a light onto power in that sense; so I think in a sense I would argue that social media ...some of it in tandem with mainstream media can make a </span><span style="color:#262626;">difference; because in a sense many of the people who are using social media are outside the system...control of managements and so on. And they are helping to push the main stream media to take cognisance of some of these issues which may be otherwise would not have been possible.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So we are seeing a...many interesting trends and I wouldn't sort of look back and say- only that period was the great period. I think the experience of that period, I would say, is very important because that was when the country as a whole realised what it meant not to have a functioning credible media, you know. So I think that was a lesson from the Emergency which was very important, and which was kind of internalising the post-Emergency period.</span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Discussion on the impact of Emergency on journalism and its attached transformations.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Journalists now less secure of their jobs---which leads to report-</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">safe work ethic unlike the willingness to take risks right after the Emergency was lifted.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---disconnect in reportage in agriculture sector because of this play safe mode of working.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---was post-Emergency period a golden era of journalism?</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Post-Emergency era was important---seed-bed of activism.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Journalists as household names.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---For example Arun </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Shouire and Antulay’s expose on cement scam or Ashwin Sarin’s stint for human trafficking.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- But now there is lack of engagement with some issues that are beyond the comfort level of the management --- this is where social media steps in.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Discussion on the nature of social media.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Manuel Castell and idea of self-communication.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">For example, Rohith Vemula case</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---how social media is pushing to take up issues that they (mainstream media) is uncomfortable with.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">6:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : I was going to say...are we back in a country where we don't have a functioning credible media or one that is less credible than ...than it used to be?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : No, I'm saying that...No, I'm saying that....I would say the '90s, if you look at the '90s, you see the increasing marketisation of the media but I think what you're seeing now is another shift in the narrative with, you know, social media coming....</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : You feel very positive about the social media?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : I feel social media has helped...helped a lot. I think many of these issues would not have come to the table if it wasn't for social media. So while I know the problems of social media and I'm not saying that social media by itself can change the things around, I think social media and mainstream media together is a power that a...that is in fact not completely explored but would be able to actually put issues that were not earlier, you know, articulated...at least not in the '90s...back on the table you know. And also the fact that self-communication means that anyone who has a grievance of some kind or who has gone through an experience of a kind can actually put it in a public domain. That's amazing, you know, thing to be able to do.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Sure but that's completely double edged…meaning...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : It is completely double edged but I'm talking of the good side of it...the bad side of it...there's a huge problems with the social media and also the fact that it has no fact checker ...and any information can make it to the public media is a wild thing. It can...but the point is that's why I think the mainstream and ...is an interesting thing because if you can have fact-checking and editorial you know control the point is that it can bring themes that the mainstream would not have considered. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">8:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> It's been forced to do it, you know. Look at for instance how I...I... looked at it a little closely those whole leaderless, you know, movement...I don't like to use the word movement so loosely but you know this whole Anti-Delhi Gang Rape, you know, mobilisation is amazing. How it became an issue and it was, and how the mainstream had to scramble to get onto that story, you know. So here you're seeing something happening, you know which is interesting. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So I think the future is too complex to hazard a guess but I think media as an institution has both strengthened ...mainstream media as a institution, both strengthened and undermined by social media and how it will play out one can’t say but I think it's a very important...important resource that we have...social media. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And yeah I'm not talking about just of Facebook and Twitter and all that; I'm talking also of the communication new technologies that have come. The fact that you can sms your information...tell them to check it 'but this is what I've heard' you know. The very fact that information gathering has got a larger space is a major change I think.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But meanwhile you would agree that obviously corporate interference .... ----- [PP : ..is very much...yea yea...] ---- .... the interference of the owners and </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">???</span><span style="color:#262626;"> is much higher than it was earlier but and you also see a return, by a different route, of political interference or government intervention or whether it's at the Central or the state level</span><span style="color:#262626;"> in </span><span style="color:#262626;">media autonomy?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : I feel that ...I feel ...I feel...that's why I brought in social media because I think in a sense it does act as a check-in...it does introduce an element of check on the unbridled power of ...let's not, you know, discount the fact that it's corporate-management working together. Now what did Sameer Jain in one of his most interesting things was that medianet move, you know, where he ...he said - what did he say? He said - he's going to put information on...in the public domain...Advertising information which he saw as ...as credible as important as any other information. So in a sense he was breaking down the differences and the barriers between the news and ...and corporate, you know, information </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So it…it's all ...it's all information that we are going to give the credibility by doing...by packaging it and bringing it to you. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Content system..</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [PP] : Yea, content. So...so that's ...that what happened in the '90s and if you went well into the first decade of the twenty-first century but you had a </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Tehelka''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> again...communication's technology again...recordings, you know, video-graphy ...we saw the new ...news aids of the early twenty-first century, which was used by the media. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And so we got...I mean I don't this is a static space at all. But if you were to re-visit that technology change now from linotype, you go to photogravure. The shifts in the processes itself means that you sort of gentrify even the people who produce the information. So the workers who actually put the linotype and kept the linotype, it was horrible you know...lead fumes and </span><span style="color:#262626;">all of it...it was all lead and you're inhaling of ...and the noise of it was just a beast, you know; but it became much more gentrified...you had...then of course everything was projected onto the computers and, you know. So everything...even the production systems changed so much.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Absolutely </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">'''Interview Ends Abruptly'''</span>
|| <div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--on increasing marketization of media.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- More on the nature of social media.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Social media as both positive and negative.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---bad side of social media---no fact checker ---anyone can put up the information.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Social media as a bridge for main stream…for example Anti-Delhi Gang Rape mobilisation</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---technology and reportage.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- On the nature of interference by owners and corporates.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---social media as a check on corporate-management nexus.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Role of Sameer Jain in putting information in public domain.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Another paradigm shift in journalism in the first decade of twenty-first century---</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Tehelka''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> -</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> use of new technology.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- gentrification within the relations of production in journalism.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|-
|}
<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>

<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>

<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>

.NjM1.NDU

2017-11-03T11:41:23Z

Bhanugs:

<div style="text-align:center;"><span style="color:#262626;">'''INTERVIEW </span>WITH <span style="background-color:#ffffff;">SURENDRA</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;">NIHAL SINGH'''</span></div>

<u>'''INTERVIEWEE'''</u>* Name: <span style="background-color:#ffffff;">Surendra</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;">Nihal Singh</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;"> [SNS]</span>
* Occupation: Journalist and writer

<u>'''INTERVIEWER'''</u>* Kai Friese [Kai]
*

<u>'''Medium: Video + Audio recordings'''</u>* Format: Audio .wav
* Language: English with a few Hindi exclamations
* Location of Interview: <span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#222222;">India International Centre, Delhi</span>
* Date of the interview: 08 February 2016 12:58:18

<u>'''Clip name/DURATION: '''</u>* SNihalSingh.WAV
* Length 00:45:40
* Bit rate: 1411kbps
* Size: 461 MB
* Date modified: 08/02/2016

<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>

<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:17.244cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
| style="color:#3482b1;" |
|| <span style="color:#1f4e79;">Keywords/Phrases/Topics</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">Interview Starts</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Interview with S. Nihal Singh on the 8th of February 2016 at the IIC in Delhi. So Mr Nihal Singh if you could start by telling me a little bit about where you come from and how you got into journalism.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] Actually, strangely enough when I was in school I thought I wanted to be a doctor. But I forgot about that later on. No I was chewing</span><span style="color:#262626;"> up English literature. I did Honours in English literature. I was also fascinated by language and the use of it and the abuse of it. So journalism was in a way a natural tendency in a sense of </span><span style="background-color:#ff0000;color:#262626;">debatable rights</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and so on. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">0:55</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I was fascinated by language to begin with, and the idea </span><span style="color:#262626;">was to go to London and do a course in journalism but as it turned out as I started.... waiting for London.... I started with being an apprentice sub-editor in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Where in Bombay --- [SNS: in Delhi] ---- in Delhi? ---- [SNS: They had moved rather] --- were they already on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg then or ... ? --- [SNS: Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg].</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : So that's how it ... ---- [Kai: And what did that job involve ...where...where?] ---- sub-editing, basically. I was sub-editing.... </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">1:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ff0000;color:#262626;">unknown...unknown paper</span><span style="color:#262626;"> for three months and then I got a pittance. Of course in those days ---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">1:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">[Kai: You could get by] --- rupee ---- [Kai: went a long way] --- went a long way.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And who was the editor of the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;">?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : Mankekar.... (corrected himself) Shyam Lal was the editor. --- [Kai: Oh! he was...] ---...before he went to Bombay and then Mankekar. And then I got fed-up because, you know, it was 160 Rupees or something a month although I was living with my parents so that's how I could afford it. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And then I did a stint in the Red Cross as a Assistant Publicity Officer, which was interregnum before looking for another journalist (job).  And then I joined the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> as a Staff Reporter, Delhi -</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai: In Delhi?] ---- Yes ---- [Kai: That was what year? I know it's probably down in...] ---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Yeah, that was well '54. I started as the Sub-Editor...roughly three years later...roughly. ---- [Kai: what....'57...'58...] ---- And then of course that was, you know, the great days of the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. Unlike what was to become of it. So I did a lot of writing...write a column six-days a week. It was quite tough...called 'Yesterday in Delhi,' which was basically to interview somebody of interest.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">3:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Often a visitor either from abroad or from other parts country. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But not a particularly political column?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : No! I mean it could be political but basically it was not. And the ...I did interviews with the poets, writers… Mulk Raj Anand for instance people like him. And just stray visitors. So that was a tough </span><span style="color:#262626;">assignment but good assignment in terms of visibility, of course in those days we didn't have any personal by-lines. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">3:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So it was just a Staff Reporter. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">4:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And then it went on from there. You see the progression to Special Rep Correspondent or we call him/it </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Special Representative, which is political reporter. Basically we were attached to certain parties, political parties like (the) Congress Party (which) I was attached to.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : You were attached to the ...the United Congress Party ... at that stage it was still...before the split.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : And the...from there then I went to </span><span style="color:#262626;"> Parliament, I was the Parliamentary  Correspondent. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">4:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And then ---- [Kai: This is still in the late '50s...early '60s? So Nehru's around] ---- Yes, yes, Nehru was very much there. He was a hero to me because in those day....</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Did you interact with Indira also at all or not in those days?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : Oh! Yes, yes. I used to interact regularly with Indira when I was a Political Correspondent. But if you want a chronological thing then after that I went to Singapore. ---</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai: For the Statesman as ...] --- for the Statesman as the South East Asia Correspondent. I was out on the road most of the time. This was in the '60s.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Covering South East Asia okay.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : South East Asia. So this was Vietnam War days ---- [Kai in the background: Vietnam War], Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation. So I was on the road half the time if not more. So it was fascinating area and fascinating time. My area was up to Japan. ---- [Kai: Wow!] ---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And I covered the coup Burma, having covered... I went to Burma, Ragoon, after the coup. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Interview interrupted by the coming in of the waiter offering to serve Masala dish...---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:51</span><span style="color:#262626;">[SNS] : what what...what about you? Try some. ---- [Kai: I'll...I'll have a bite, sure] </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:55</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai: I can pause it any time]</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : You covered the coup in Burma?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : Well, just after the coup. I was the first correspondent to </span><span style="color:#262626;">land there to meet with the military chaps. ---- [Kai: Ne Win.] ----- Later on of course (they) wouldn't allow me in.  But it was a fascinating. Sukarno in Indonesia and </span><span style="background-color:#f9f9f9;color:#000000;">Macapagal in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">Philippines, met all these characters, you know. So it was a very interesting time.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">6:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So after five years, I told the paper...I said... 'look, you know, while I...long time and also I enjoyed it...it's not that... so...and then the idea was that I....I, you know....I studied Russian, so I was interested in going to Moscow as a correspondent for the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. Never had a correspondent in Moscow. So in between they applied to Pakistan because there was no Indian correspondent...this was after '65 war...and there was a PTI person but you know PTI range is very limited. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">7:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So then the idea was...they said, yes, you can go to Moscow....open a bureau there.' Statesman was a very good employer in those days. In the meantime the Pakistanis came back and said, 'No...no...for Nihal Singh...we are ready.' I just pulled (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Muffled spot''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) kind of stuff. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">7:44</span><span style="color:#262626;">  So I said, 'I’ll go there but for six months'. So I went there for six months.</span>

|| <div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---About the background of SNS</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---wanted to be a doctor while in school --- fascinated with the use and abuse of language--- did B.A. (Hons.): English----- was to go to London to do a course in </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">journalism ---but started as apprentice sub-editorship at the </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">, Delhi, in 1954.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>---- Details of time at </nowiki></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> ---Shyam Lal as the Editor, office at Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg --- got pittance of Rs.160/month</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>----Left the </nowiki></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Times''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> to join Red Cross as </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Assistant Publicity Officer </span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>----Joined </nowiki></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> as Staff Reporter, c. 1957-58.---work at Statesman---wrote a column 6-days a week called ‘Yesterday in Delhi’ on interest stories of visitors to Delhi.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>---- ‘Yesterday in Delhi’ not a political column but interview of poets and writers-- </nowiki></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Mulk Raj Anand</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---no by-lines in the 1950s</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---progression to </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> Special Representative, a political reporter attached to specific political party. SNS attached to Congress.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---SNS as </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Parliamentary Correspondent in the 1950s…saw Nehruvian era---interacted with Indira.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---SNS’s chronological timeline</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Statesman as South East Asia Correspondent ---spent lot of time on road.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--covered Indonesia- Malaysia confrontation + Coup d’état in Burma (first to meet the military: Ne Win) ---oversaw upto Japan.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Sukarno in Indonesia and Macapagal in the Philippines. </span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- Change in assignment and region after 5 years-</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Sent to Pakistan as Indian Correspondent for 6 months (PTI had one but limited range)</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">7:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Islamabad only or did...were you allowed to travel freely in Pakistan?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:55</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : Well, I was living Rawalpindi but to capture that mood (the capital) was in the process of moving to Islamabad...so I used to, had to commute to Islamabad. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">8:05</span><span style="color:#262626;"> This was the </span><span style="color:#252525;">Ayub Era (</span><span style="color:#252525;">''Note: Field Marshal Ayub Khan). ''</span><span style="color:#252525;">And then I went to Moscow. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">8:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''muffled spot''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">8:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And I was there for about...I mean the whole idea was opening a bureau was that I'll be there at least five years, you know because no Indian paper had a bureau there except for the pro-Communist</span><span style="color:#252525;">, you know the Communist lot who were living in subsidised housing including PTI was living in subsidised housing. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai: </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Aacha (Right)''</span><span style="color:#262626;">! So Patriot also had someone or they did not exist at that point?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">8:39</span><span style="color:#262626;">[SNS] : Yes, yes, Patriot had one (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''muffled spot- NAME)??? </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">Krishnan</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">who later became General Manager of PTI. And then of </span><span style="color:#262626;">course there was a commotion in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> in the meantime because Pran Chopra had a fallout with C. R. Irani who had taken over increasingly. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I was a casualty in a sense…I think they thought it was very expensive to maintain a bureau because I was paying the western rates, you know, of rent and living that kind of thing without any subsidy. And then there was another commotion in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">when </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">Brahmachari</span><span style="color:#262626;"> who was the Editor temporarily for six months. He had a quarrel with the Political Correspondent and he called the Chief of Bureau in Delhi. ---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai: Okay! Who was who?] ---- Mukherjee. ---- [Kai: And about what? What was the nature of it?] ----- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I don't...I don't really know the details but I think, one of the reasons I heard later because I was sitting in Moscow...was that he was stringing for a hell of a lot of other news agencies (</span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">CHECK</span><span style="color:#262626;">) including Economist, Canadian Papers…so they felt... I think they reasoned that he was giving less attention to his real job and more to earning money because you know </span><span style="background-color:#ff0000;color:#262626;">journalists pay very well</span><span style="color:#262626;">. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">10:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So Brahmachari had earlier written to me that you know we find this very expensive...your Moscow posting...what would you like?  Would you like to come to Delhi or would you like some other...? I think the London post was vacant ... was going to be vacant at that time. So I said.... My wife was Dutch...So I said, since my wife is Dutch, so it would be nice for her to live close to home'. Later...few days later they said, 'no no...sorry...you have to come to Delhi and take over as Political Correspondent' ----- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">10:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai: ...because of this...]  ----- discord. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So that's how...that is one phase of it.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : I'll just pause this.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : So we got brought to Delhi or coming back to Delhi. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : So that was of course the most interesting time in newspaper terms. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : So this is now...we've come to what year? This is...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : '69...just before the (Congress) split (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note: In 1969 it split into Congress (O) and Congress (R))...''</span><span style="color:#262626;">the split in the Congress (Kai in the background says 'the split in the Congress' at the same time). And I </span><span style="color:#262626;">was went to Bangalore for that famous session...Congress Committee Session. And before the Emergency I used to interact with Indira Gandhi quite a bit...met her as a Prime Minister. And as Political Correspondent, you know, I had certain, what shall I say, status, quote-unquote in terms of political reporting and so on. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But I'm sorry to cut back a little bit. Did you feel repercussions of what had happened in the Statesman with Irani and Pran Chopra? Was it a different environment?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] No, no...Pran Chopra was a different era. He didn't come into the Emergency period.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : No..No I mean in this period when you were back in Delhi as Political Correspondent did you feel that the equation in the paper had changed significantly?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : It was changing...hadn't quite changed yet. I mean Irani was obviously exerting his....he wanted to own the paper basically...it was a trust and so on. Then he wanted to be the big boss that kind of thing. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : So more of an individual thing not ...not...not an issue of ...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : Well, he was in the process of taking over the paper basically. So it was more than an individual, he was destroying an institution. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Yes! No, I only meant it to mean it wasn't so much a matter of ... of...of the Tatas meddling in ....</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:05</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : No...no.. Tatas were not meddling. Actually when they thought of the idea of trust taking over the paper from the British owners, it was a corporation of British owners, was the of the Tatas not to get involved in </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> because their business was suffering, you know, because </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> used to be, of course, be an independent newspaper; and it was often very critical of Mrs Gandhi's actions, as...as so was I. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">13:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And they felt that it was washing off that's why there was no interest really. So that is what Irani exploited and that led to ultimate downfall of the paper, which meant that overtime he had too many of his cronies as trustees and so on except for one chap, a </span><span style="color:#262626;">professor who finally resigned and... </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">14:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Now as far as Emergency is concerned I was the Resident Editor. I think you must have heard it, yeah, so I don't want to repeat what you already know. As Resident Editor I was in the firing line. And of course you must have read about my </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">certain situation</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Shukla.</span>

|| <div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Stayed in Rawalpindi---Ayub era-</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> move to Moscow to open a bureau there---stay on for 5 years--- did not stay in subsidised housing unlike PTI representative and a few others.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---About commotions at </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">the </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> (a) with Pran Chopra & C. R. Irani + (b) Brahmachari the temporary editor’s tiff with the Political Correspondent.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---writing for different agencies (</span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#1f4e79;">NOT CLEAR WHO WROTE</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">)</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---SNS staying in Moscow too expensive--- asked to suggest a new venue---wanted to go to London as wife was Dutch--- but SNS asked to move to Delhi to take over as </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Political Correspondent.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>----SNS back to Delhi before 1969 split in the United Congress.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>---- SNS present at the Congress Committee Session of 1969 when the split took place…Interacted with Indira Gandhi quite a bit.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>---- Did SNS suffer because of Pran Chopra and Irani rift?---No</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---But any changes in the paper because of the rift?</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- very minimal as this was the beginning of Irani transforming it---details of the transformations under Irani.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Role of the Tatas.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Tatas wary as their business was suffering since Statesman was critical of Mrs Indira Gandhi.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Tatas did not have any real interest-</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">boost to Irani’s ambitions ---- SNS was </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Resident Editor during the Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- Problems with Shukla during the Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">14:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : you can ...you can repeat that...yeah.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : So..yeah...which I got....I thought looking back situation very funny. The way he ...tried not only to ...to censor the paper but also to tell me what to print and how to print it. And again it was because, my instructions to begin with to leave blank space which was not allowed the next day. And then I told the desk to concentrate on foreign news for the front page. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">15:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And there was this particular occasion when Rajya Sabha passed a...one of those subservient bill, you know, basically destroying the freedom of press, which I had it on front page at the bottom with insight. And it was all about Egypt, and you know, various international stories on the whole front page to which he objected. He said, 'what is this Rajya Sabha passing an important bill and you don't...you just take a little bit in the bottom and you ...'</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So then  I told him, I said, look I thought censorship meant what you couldn't print but if you want us to print what to print and how to print it, then you have to pass some more legislation,' </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> which I get it but he didn't expect it from me, from a journalist. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And these kinds of meetings were summons...you'd be called to his office or...?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : Yea, yes...Office and he had all prepared himself for it because he had the previous day's paper with the PA who brought it once I was there. And he put it before me and said, 'what is this?' </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And then </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> you know Nanporia (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note: J.N. Nanporia) ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">was the Editor, Chief-Editor that time in Calcutta and he was </span><span style="color:#262626;">a bit of a ...very talented man but not a fighter in any sense. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Petit bourgeois v</span><span style="color:#222222;">acillator</span><span style="color:#262626;"> .</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : Yes, you know. He looked at it as bread and butter, you know. So Irani offered me Chief-Editorship. This was during the Emergency because he knew me, you know, that I would stand for ...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] But so oddly I mean Irani despite the damage he did to the paper in the long run, at this point he shows some spine and principle. No?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : Yes, yes that he did. And particularly because when the Government realised, Shukla realised, that I was going to take over as Chief- Editor, he did his damnest to prevent me from taking over as Chief-Editorship. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">17:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So Irani at a certain point went incommunicado from his Calcutta residence to avoid that pressure. So you know, he persevered. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">18:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> There was that side of Irani too apart from his very large ego. (long pause)</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And Nanproia then left or ...?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : Yes, he retired. He still wrote for the paper. …a column, but otherwise he left.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And so then for the remaining part of the Emergency you were in Calcutta?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : I was in Calcutta...till I resigned I was in Calcutta.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Was it more comfortable in terms of censorship or more difficult given that </span><span style="color:#262626;">Siddhartha Shankar Ray was ...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : Well no. It was more comfortable because Calcutta is, you know Calcutta, I mean Emergency or no Emergency...there were enough people to defy it in various ways.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">18:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So ...And you were not in the front-line in terms dealing with the Government of India- the Central Government. And it was a relaxed atmosphere. You know, and Statesman as you know it was a great institution in Calcutta...I mean people had tremendous respect for it and they went out of the way to have it. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">19:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So yes, it was more comfortable.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Can I ask...? I remember myself that the Statesman and the Express were the two papers that one associated with...you </span><span style="color:#262626;">know...holding out and ... and...showing some independence in that period. But what could you really get away with ... what forms did resistance ...defiance...independence take--other than the blank editorial which was quickly stopped.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : no, in two ways. One was in the third edit. You know The Light Leader as it was called. Our standard of English was far superior to that of the censors, so we got away with murder. I mean, you know, in ironical terms and so on. And the second was we had a...every Sunday...section quotes...famous quotes...So we brought in defiance through these quotes. There again they were too dim to catch on to it. So these were the two ways we tried to fight the censors. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Was there much of a culture, I mean, I've heard a lot of this in Delhi and even Bombay of ... of people producing cyclostyle magazines, basically underground publications but home-made ones. Was that going on a lot in Calcutta?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">21:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS]</span><span style="color:#262626;"> : Some of it but not too much. I think there was a, I would say, in more literary terms. You know every Bengali is a poet, you could say. So they used to write poetry or a certain song, so it was defiance in that sense greater than handing out cyclostyle sheets...some of them yes. I think it's very noisy.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">21:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Yea, we can...shall we move a bit?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">21:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : You can pull up that chair for the recorder.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">21:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Yea, I'll do that. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">21:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Continuing your time in Cal (Read as 'Calcutta') hmmm also did you have much interaction with...with journalists in other papers....with the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> or </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;">?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">22:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : Yes...yes, we met..we met at the Press Club for instance and actually yeah the day the Emergency ended, I went back to office at night to write the Edit and edit. ---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">22:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai: In Calcutta?] ---- In Calcutta. And then after that we all adjourned to the Press Club to drink to the end of the Emergency.---- [Kai: Turned into a party I guess.] ----Well that was great.</span>

|| <div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---the working of the censors ---blank editorial as a sign of protest against censorship---not allowed to repeat.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>----Passing of another subservient bill by Rajya Sabha---SNS gave it very small space---objection by Shukla---reprimand by SNS.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---The manner in which interactions with Shukla took place --- SNS was called to the office--- Shukla planned for them.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>----SNS takes over as Chief-Editor of </nowiki></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Statesman from J. N. Nanporia.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Irani showing spine and principle against the censorship.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Shukla trying to hinder SNS’s promotion --- Irani going incommunicado to avoid censors.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>----SNS in Calcutta during remaining years of the Emergency.</nowiki></span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Calcutta during Emergency---more defiant---protest through poems and songs.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- Statesman defied through better language skills---through quotations.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Any cyclostyled underground activity in Calcutta.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>----Not too much.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Any interaction with other journalists while in Calcutta?</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Yes. SNS writing the Edit when election results were declared. </span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">22:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : You're talking about the...after the elections results or when she declared...?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">22:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : Yes, yes ------ [Kai: Haan!] ---- After the election results. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">22:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Yes, I remember that day myself. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">22:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But you had no interaction with Indira herself in this period?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">22:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : No, because... I wrote about it in my book that aaa immediately after the Emergency (was) imposed I had a meeting with her, and ...normally I used have meeting every few weeks or so. And on this particular occasion, which was the last time she saw me, she said she had some house-guests from Britain or something like that. And they were praising the order that the Emergency had brought, and so being undiplomatic as I was, I said, 'well, what do you expect your house-guest to say?' She never called me after that.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">23:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Good for you.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">23:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And after...the election results after '77 was over, did you resume any contact with her or senior figures in Congress?---- [SNS: No] --- now you were on a different role.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">23:49</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : no...no.. (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note: to the resuming contacts).... ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">Yes... (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Note: to being in a different/role). ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">Then I did. Of course I was away for quite a bit. You now, I ...Well, after I resigned from the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> which was the end of the '70s...right in the end, then I did some freelancing...I think some column writing.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But do tell that story as well...about what brought you to resign?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : I told it in the book. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Ah! Okay, you don't want to go there.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : Yes, and then one of the people I met was over lunch at the American Embassy, the Consul I think. I was still as....Then of </span><span style="color:#262626;">course I was offered the Editorship...I was offered two editorships. One was The </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Illustrated Weekly of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> at Bombay and before I had the final meeting I was offered that by the owner.... just before that Mulgaonkar rang me up, who was the Chief-Editor of </span><span style="color:#262626;">''The Indian Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. And he said that, 'I don't want to be beating about the bush but will you take over from me as Chief Editor?' So it all just happened and of course I ... I </span><span style="background-color:#ff0000;color:#262626;">scraped that basically</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I was not a magazine man in a sense. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">25:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Although I was willing to learn. So I took over as the Chief Editor of the ---- [Kai in the background : Express] ---- </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. And then Goenka was a genius in his own way, Ramnath Goenka but a very disorganised one. And he was leaning to the Hindu-right, and ----- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">25:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai enquires : Leaning or those connections were quite firm?] ---- Yes with Nanaji Deshmukh and so on but he sent me an edit from Madras where he was at that time. You know there was this incident of the Dalits conversioning (read as 'converting') </span><span style="color:#262626;">''en masse ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">to Islam to get rid of their status in the society; and he sent me an edit which was poisonous. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">26:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Written by himself or...?</span>

<span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">26:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : No ...no...his stooge Gurumurthy (Read: </span>S. Gurumurthy<span style="color:#262626;">) or what was his name …. which I am sorry to say I threw into the waste paper basket because I should have preserved it. ----- [Kai: yes!] ---- But I was very angry. Anyway just to illustrate one of those things and he was very disorganised because ... The </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was very disorganised when I joined it. There was Arun Shourie who ran his own empire. He had his own connections...political connections so on, and all weaving around Goenka because he wanted to please Goenka. And then the ...it was not fully...well staffed. There was no method. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">27:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ff0000;color:#262626;">And then I came to the conclusion</span><span style="color:#262626;">, and of course Arun Shourie was very unhappy with me because, you know, his habit was that there were no rules for him. I mean, you know, he...edit...main edit page article has a certain length ... any newspaper has that...and he came up with twice that length. So I spiked it!</span>

|| <div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Did SNS interact with Mrs Gandhi in course of the Emergency?</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---No longer unlike before. SNS’s last meeting with Mrs Indira Gandhi.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Nature of SNS’s relations with Mrs Gandhi and other Congress’ seniors post-election.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--Resignation from Statesman in late 1970s.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Being offered two Editorships-</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">'' Illustrated Weekly of India''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> at Bombay and </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''The Indian Express''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">, Delhi.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---On time at the Indian Express---Ramnath Goenka and his inclinations towards the right-wing --- Nanaji Deshmukh----SNS rejecting an article that vilified Dalits </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''en masses''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> conversion to Islam, written with the aid of S. Gurumurthy.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Express as being disorganised---Arun Shourie’s role and web around Goenka.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Confrontation between Shoruie and SNS.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">27:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : He thought he'd take the whole page or what!</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : So after that of course I mean (laughs) ---- [Kai : had an enemy?] ---- I knew he would spread poison with great </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">???</span><span style="color:#262626;"> He would go to breakfast at Goenka's flat, you know, in Delhi, Sunder Nagar he used to have a flat that kind of thing.  And I didn't believe in that kind of aaa slavery, shall we say, though for other purposes. So finally I came to the conclusion that I want to leave...just won't work out because I don't want to spend half the time fighting the establishment in the paper. I mean one can fight the government establishment not the establishment within. So he tried to prevent me </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">28:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> in that he... and I said finally 'no'. And then it happened there was a lunch...I was still the Chief Editor of course but nobody knew about it. He (Ramnath Goenka) said don't tell anybody until I ...I appoint a successor.  So I said, 'fair enough.' And this lunch at the Council I think Press Council (</span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">CHECK</span><span style="color:#262626;">) he was hosting a lunch for the President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in New York and Washington...at that time they had two offices...now they have only in Washington D.C.. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">28:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And ..so I asked to see him privately the next morning at his hotel. And I told him, 'look I couldn't tell you then because it is supposed to be a secret because I've resigned and I have been working on Indo-Soviet relations for a long time trying to specialise in them and so on.' So give me a brief note which I did. So I said I want two years because to shift everything and you know...just for a year, it wouldn't be worth it. So he came up with the offer. And I could choose Washington D.C. or New York. At that time New York was also...there was an office. And they...while I was there after one year, they cut down the New York office to save expenses. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">29:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But then I couldn't. </span><span style="background-color:#ff0000;color:#262626;">They hired a place in Asia Society for me</span><span style="color:#262626;">..the remaining one year because there was no point in moving for one year to Washington D.C. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">30:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So that was it and before I was leaving New York after I...for two years. There was Twentieth Century Fund...whose title has been changed now with the </span><span style="color:#262626;">transition. And I knew the Director </span><span style="background-color:#ff0000;color:#262626;">Ross-Ham</span><span style="color:#262626;"> who unfortunately died later, who had invited </span><span style="color:#262626;">me as Editorial </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> to be a member of India International Panel, which they had hosted, the Twentieth Century Fund. So he invited me for lunch. He knew I was leaving and then he said, 'would you like to spend a couple of years in Paris?' </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">30:55</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So they had a project of...you know there was this antagonism between the US Government and UNESCO...of doing a book on UNESCO. So there...I went to Paris for nearly not quite two years nearly one and a half years. The project itself which came out in a book form but independently. It didn't work out with them. So and then before I was leaving Paris for India, Vijaypat Singhania who's the owner, you know, the Singhania family, he said if I could drop in and see him in London...he was visiting. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">31:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And he ... he started a new newspaper. And he said, 'can you be the founding editor?' So instead of Delhi I went to Bombay. And that didn't work out either. Although I think what we produced...I was there only...I mean took one year to ...to ... </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">32:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai interjects: get it set-up] ---- Yeah! Set it up. And then I was there for </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">32:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> barely for three or four months after ... that after publication because he called me one day and he said....you know, thinking that a newspaper is like a bar of soap, you know...this is up-market...please make it down-market. So I said,' please find a new editor.' </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">32:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So...he says, 'suggest me names.' So I said, 'yes...Vinod Mehta, if you want down-market.</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So that's how it is. And then the...after that I had a friend in Bombay who had connections in the Gulf and he offered me the ...he said, 'are you interested in this?' I said, 'I'll try it out.' This was </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Khaleej Times ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">in Dubai. Excuse me. (There's probably a break in the recording before continuing)</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">33:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So I was invited on a visit to UAE anyway and then I saw the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Khaleej Times ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">bosses and that was it. So I...And I was there for nearly seven years as Editor but the great thing was thanks to it I can still live a reasonable life because I hadn't saved anything, you know. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">33:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : In the Indian career?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">33:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : In the India career. So this was tax free with bonus and you know in Indian terms a lot of money. And of course what I enjoyed most was getting around the world. So I went to South Korea from there...South Africa...and, you know, all over the region. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But it must be odd to now be running  a newspaper that in a sense was devoid of local politics since people say there is no politics in the Gulf...?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : Yea, no politics but there were two pages ...two or three India pages...two or three Pakistan pages...so on…so it was an expatriate kind of a thing. ---- [Kai : That's true] ----</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:31</span><span style="color:#262626;">  And then they wanted me to stay on and on, and I said ,no, thank you.' </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : You did stay for quite a while ...not?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : Nearly seven years. ---- [Kai : That's a long time.] ---- because every time the renewal came every three years or so and they said, 'no no you stay on a bit.' So finally I said, 'no, I have to go.' I had nothing...no job to go to but I just want...I thought I'd better get home and not stay in this artificial environment, you know, these are expatriate cities basically in terms of living...very comfortable and all that but after a time you get bored. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">35:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Yes! I don't know how you did it for seven years.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">35:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : Oh! Because I was travelling. </span>

|| <div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Shourie and sycophancy.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---SNS resigns—attends lunch for President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) in New York. and Washington--- SNS starts a two year stint at the New York office--- But the New York office shuts down after a year though SNS stays on.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---SNS invited by A. Ross-Ham of the Twentieth Century Fund after the two years period with the CEIP to be on the </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">India </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">International Panel.—Ross-Ham offered SNS a job for a book on UNESCO--- left Paris after one-half years.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---SNS’s meeting with Vijaypat Singhania---SNS as the founding editor of the new newspaper---Description of problems with the newspaper----SNS resigns.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---SNS unhappy with Vijaypat Singhania’s way of working.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Vinod Mehta.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---SNS joined </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Khaleej Times''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">, Dubai, for seven years.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- Time at </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Khaleej Times''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> help SNS save money---tax free---travelled a lot.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Nature of publication of </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Khaleej Times.''</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">''<nowiki>----</nowiki>''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">SNS leaves </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Khaleej Times''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">.</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">35:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] But a...for a bit of perspective ...in retrospect the story of Indian newspapers if you like, do you see it essentially as a narrative of decline or of growth and decline or ...?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">35:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : Well they are brighter than they were... ---- [Kai : You mean glossier?] ---- yes, glossier, lot more pictures and of course colour and so on. But the standard has certainly fallen...steeply. (a.) Standard in English language is shocking in English language newspapers. I mean some of what...it is illiterate...what they print. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">36:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So sub-editing standards have fallen sharply...mainly because of people who are sub-editors ...their knowledge of English is not very good to begin with. Secondly I think there is a perhaps more, with exceptions. </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I would say is pretty good these days...is the best paper in view today. ---- [Kai: Mine too] ---- Generally people seem more afraid apart from sensationalising like </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Time of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> does, which in many respects is </span><span style="color:#262626;">illiterate.  It's a yuppie paper, I call it because of the kind of editorial page articles they have and their whole slant is yuppie culture, you know. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">36:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And...for instance today's lead was this- Lead Story was the chap who murdered his girlfriend and married a woman his parent's wanted the next day. To have it as a lead story for a serious newspaper, I mean...I think it's scandalous. Okay you have a bottom spread if you like or side story...so that shows you... I mean I ...I take the Times...I get only two papers now...used to get a dozen. </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> is my main paper which is think the best. </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindu''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I gave up long ago because it is motherhood and apple pie. ---- [Kai : Very dull] ----  very dull </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">37:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And you know its not with it...with the times; and I wrote a very caustic letter to them once because François Hollande came, not on this visit but previous visit when I was reading...subscribing to the Hindu and they changed him into a woman...lead...second lead...twice...two days running. </span><span style="color:#262626;">François</span><span style="color:#262626;">e Hollande!...Where do you go if a paper like Hindu does not doesn't know the difference between male and female in French, and its not an esoteric language. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">38:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Of course, I...I've lived in France and I've studied French but even an ordinary person...ordinary literate person should know. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">38:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Yes, </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindu''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> used to have some standards in...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">38:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : Yea, so they published my corrections but without my ---- [Kai: caustic remarks] ---- yes. Why have you transformed the gender? French President! So I think generally speaking, I would say the standard has fallen. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">38:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But you also ...you also spoke of fear..</span><span style="color:#262626;"> in what way... you need to fear the government or fear of the bosses or fear of the owners...?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">38:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : No, now the editorship is a ... in one of the interviews I've said... I don't know whether you saw the Youtube ---- [Kai : No, I didn't.] ---- There's a ...just after this was published- my memoir- I had a long interview with ....... (Note: possibly with Sunil Sethi, NDTV) on the... which is on Youtube. If you... ---- [Kai : I'll look for it] --- look for it, you'll get it, where I said that I couldn't be an editor any longer </span><span style="color:#262626;">because editor is supposed to be in the pocket of the proprietor. And in my time in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and even the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, it was quite different. I mean they treated the editors with respect, including by the owners. Now they don't care. In </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''of''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> of course evolved into something that there's no editor..no real editor because the proprietor is the editor. So...it's crazy and it shows. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">40:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> For instance, I'm talking of print now ...of television channels after Ambanis bought CNN-IBN, which is a good channel in a way; and anyway Ambani </span><span style="background-color:#ff0000;color:#262626;">speaks you'll have his own idiot box (CHECK if it’s ''Idiot box).</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">40:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So...but talking about the papers I think it's certainly standard has declined very much. In terms of the language, certainly. And in terms of display of stories and so on. </span>

|| <span style="color:#1f4e79;">---ON SNS’s view of the quality of Indian newspapers.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--Quality has declined---lower standards---less command of language skills—Express still being the exception.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- Example of low standards</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> Times of India and its story on a man murdering his girlfriend a day before </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">marrying his parent’s approved girl being the Lead.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---On quality of </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Hindu''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">dull</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---example of Times low quality---incident of misspelling François Hollande</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">SNS wrote a caustic letter pointing the error. </span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---On fear of the government---of the bosses or owners.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---SNS refers to his youtube interview—</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Editors are now pushed around unlike in his time when they were respected.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---One Ambanis’ buying CNN-ABN.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">40:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Could you ..you lay that primarily at the owners' doors?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">40:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : Certainly, the owners should take the responsibility...great responsibility but also on the low morale and low proficiency of the most sub-editors...new people who become sub-editors. I mean most of them can't write English it seems. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">41:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Yes, that role has declined. But do you feel to cut back to the Emergency that ...that it an enduring scar or was it actually in some ways good for...for journalism?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">41:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : No..no, I think it obviously left a scar ..a deep scar because, I mean here we were touted as the greatest...largest democracy in the world where there's a free media, free press and here we are two national newspapers and a few periodicals excepted, everybody fell in line.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">41:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But what....what else could they have done? I mean, you think in case of Times of India for example, the bad reputation is deserved? ... that they were particularly ... ---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">42:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS: Supine,</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and the worst of it was and I wrote it, I don't know whether you got that far, </span><span style="color:#262626;">that they were the most obedient people as far as the censorship was concerned. They wouldn't take the risk of putting half a foot out, you know. They were that careful And the day the Emergency ended] ---- Shyam Lal wrote a very famous --- [</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">42:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> SNS: Shyam Lal wrote this ..all the way...the whole two columns...normally they have till three edits...the whole editorial column] ---- I have to read that. So that was seen as an excessive gesture!? ---- [</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">42:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> SNS : No! Taking all his bile out of eighteen- month long Emergency, which I thought was extraordinary. Okay... you had to submit for various reasons I suppose...keep your job whatever but then you behave with a little dignity, I mean...You criticise the government...fine ... for what they did but very first occasion to take your bile out and two column length...I don't know whether ...it...anybody's written that kind of ... that long an editorial in </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> history.</span><span style="color:#262626;">] </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">43:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : I must find that. So this is again the day after the election results or after the Emergency was ...they declared that it would be suspended.</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ----- [SNS in the background : No no (Note: to day after election results)... yes yes ( Note: to after the suspension of Emergency) ] (Both Kai and SNS speak simultaneously)</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">43:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : yea yea I hear also that he basically he felt his...he was under threat of being removed.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">43:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : Yea...okay</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'' </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">???</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (CHECK)  ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">want to save his job. But what really got my goat was this and I wrote an edit on, also of course on the same day naturally after the...And I said, 'she's done some good.' You know...despite all my criticism, I said, 'she has done the country some good. I must acknowledge it.' I mean outside the Emergency. </span>

<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">44:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Haan ... but </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">44:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> the scar remains for the country and country's politics certainly but ...but...you don't think journalism was also transformed in a good way by being tested...by this...because many people see the immediate post-Emergency period as a kind of golden age where journalists were very motivated and you know a certain kind of crusading (long pause) zeal ..an energy entered into...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">44:55</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : Yea, fair enough after a point that's true but for me the ... the biggest lesson was how pliable we Indians are given the real test. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">45:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And that remains ... ---- [SNS : That's right]</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">45:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [SNS] : You know, all right there are circumstances where you have no option and you need a job...but the manner in which we did that -! ---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">45:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai : Perhaps...perhaps the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''maliks''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> noticed that if the government could push the journalists around then they could as well...could be] (long silence)</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">45:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Okay...good.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">Interview Ends </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> </span>

<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>
|| <span style="color:#1f4e79;">---to what degree are the owners responsible for the newspaper?</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---a lot in terms of hiring and running.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---On impact of Emergency on journalism.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---it left a deep scar---made a mockery out of the largest democracy.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---On what newspapers could have done?</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---could have taken more chances rather than cower down…example of the </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Times''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">—the day after the end of Emergency, Shyam Lal vented his ire in a long edit—SNS snubs it personally.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---SNS feels that venting post-Emergency by S. Lal was undignified.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- SNS acknowledges that apart from Emergency Mrs Gandhi did some good for India.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---On golden age of journalism post-Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---SNS agrees but it brought home the pliancy of Indians as a rule.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>
|-
|}

.NjI3.NTQ

2017-11-03T11:40:21Z

Bhanugs:

<div style="text-align:center;"><span style="color:#262626;">'''INTERVIEW </span>WITH <span style="background-color:#ffffff;">NANDANI MEHTA'''</span></div>

<u>'''INTERVIEWEE'''</u>* Name: Nandini Mehta [NM]
* Occupation: Journalist, Editor

<u>'''INTERVIEWER'''</u>* Kai Friese [Kai]

<u>'''Medium: Audio recordings'''</u>* Format/ Type of File: .WAV
* Language: English with phrases in Hindi
* Location of Interview: <span style="color:#262626;">Sujan Singh Park, New Delhi</span>
* Date of the interview: 21 December 2015

<u>'''Clip name/DURATION: '''</u>* Name: (1): kf_nmehta_raw_211215_1.WAV
* Size: (1) 308 MB  Date modified :21 December 2015 10:48:46
* Length 00:30:35

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:16.185cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| Interview Starts
|| <span style="color:#1f4e79;">Keywords/Phrases/Points</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">0:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Interview with Nandini Mehta on the 21st of December (2015) in Sujan Singh Park. So Nandini can you start by ...by telling me essentially where you came from and how you got into journalism when you started.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : So I came back from America in 1969 with an MA in Political Science</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and absolutely clear that what I wanted to do was to work in a daily newspaper. S</span><span style="color:#262626;">ort of being in the thick of things. And I came back, I went for an interview to the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : In Delhi?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : In Delhi, which was then a leading Delhi paper, which it's no longer is. And they hired me as an apprentice at 200 Rs. a month and put me on the news desk.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : This is in the year?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : 1969. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And who was the Editor? Whom did you speak to?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : The Editor, the Resident Editor than was Kuldip Nayar. And I started on the news desk. I was there for six months. And then they moved me to the reporting section and gave me the New Delhi Municipal Corporation beat. Plus, I had to do night duty also. So, you know, crime and stuff like that, which was then fun. And I was the first woman to be hired by the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : My god!</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : And one of the things that I found was there was no toilet for women. There were only urinals. Of course the Editor had a attached bathroom so I was given permission to use the Editor's bathroom.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : This sounds familiar....sounds a bit like </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Outlook''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : And the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was an old fashioned kind of place so it still kind of colonial...had a lunch room where for 1 rupee we got a three-course meal, which consisted of dishes like hanging </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">gilassy</span><span style="color:#262626;">, otherwise Hungarian goulash and on Wednesdays we went native and we had ball curry what they called which was kofta curry. And we used to get a Christmas pudding at Christmas with an eight anna coin inside it. Everyone used to scramble to get that piece. So that was my early days.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And the next on tell me a little bit more about that what other characters were with you.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : Well there were lots of interesting characters in the newsroom. I remember on the news desk when I was ...when I first started there was...there were all these rather grumpy old men, and one of them at 11:30 at night used to crack a raw egg against his glass and then knock it back in and one day he got a bad egg and it went down. Then you know at that time The </span><span style="color:#262626;">''London Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> correspondent Peter Hazlehurst used to share...used to work out of the reporters' room in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. And I have to say he was a South African and he had come from the one of the Johannesburg papers, and then left South Africa, </span><span style="color:#262626;">and being someone quite strongly anti-Apartheid I learnt a lot of my reporting from Peter Hazlehurst. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">3:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> He was a very good guide and he would tell an angle for a story or what to go after, ideas and that was a great learning experience. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But you...did you ..were you on a political beat at all now or was Municipality as far as it got?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : What I did for the first political beat was the 19...was it '71 elections ... yes...I covered Indira Gandhi during a Delhi and Haryana, together with the Staff Reporter who then was the famous Raghu Rai. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:57</span><span style="color:#262626;">[Kai] : Staff Reporter? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : Staff Photographer. ---- [Kai : Photographer, right?] ---- Staff Photographer. So we used to go off and cover her election tours. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:05</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And did you get to interact with her personally or any other aides?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : No. I remember I always wondered how she could manage to hold up without going to the loo ever! You know for hours on end we would start off at 6 in the morning and 8 at night she'd still be going. And I remember` once somewhere in the environs of Qutub Minar which was then all agricultural land, I said to Raghu, I said, 'Raghu I simply have to go, you know, so let's go into those sugarcane fields or mustard fields or whatever was there.' And I went ...as soon as I went in was ..about to squat a whole bunch of security people popped up from there. Another time we arrived ahead of her and I could dusty and this was somewhere in Haryana, and I had my dark glasses on and my head covered. I wore a saree always in those days. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : So you were looking similar to ....</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : And yes they all thought...Raghu Rai was Rajiv Gandhi or Sanjay Gandhi and I was Indira and we kind of stole </span><span style="color:#262626;">their show because the crowds came and threw garlands and mob dust and so forth. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Political story of the day.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : Then I left journalism from about the end of '71 until 1978 because my husband went abroad and I went with him. I was kind of cut off from it.</span>

|| <span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Background of NM</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Came to India from US after finishing MA in Political Science in 1969.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---NM joined the Statesman as an apprentice at Rs 200/month in 1969 –News Desk.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Kuldip Nayar as the Editor in the </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> --- NM started at the News Desk and then moved to Reporting section after 6 months- New Delhi Municipal Corporation beat—night duty</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---First woman to be hired by </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Statesman.''</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---no toilets for women—had permission to use Editor’s exclusive bathroom.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---No women’s bathroom at </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Outlook''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> either.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- On ambiance of Statesman---continuation of colonial styles.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--On co-workers</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- many grumpy old men---one would crack raw egg and knock it back at 11:30 prompt.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Peter Hazlehurst, the London Times </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">correspondent sit at </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">.—NM learnt a lot from him.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---his advice</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---NM covered Indira Gandhi during 1971 election with Raghu Rai in Delhi and Haryana.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- NM did not interact with Indira Gandhi personally. </span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--two funny anecdotes from the field.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- NM left journalism in 1971 as her husband was posted in </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Czechoslovakia.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">5:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Your husband was in the diplomatic service?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : Yes…yes... we went to Czechoslovakia and then from there to Bhutan.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And was this also I mean ...an impediment to your ...I mean apart from being out of the country was it a constraint that it was difficult for you to be a journalist because your husband was a government servant?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : Yes, because you know the Ministry of External Affairs had a rule that while wives were allowed to do certain kinds of jobs like teaching, this was conflict of interest and we were not allowed to work as journalists. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">6:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So I did not work as a journalist in all those years.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But now in '78 though you were still married so how was it that you ...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : Once when you're abroad you couldn't. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : I see.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : That was the thing. Then when I came back in '78 I joined ...it was one of Delhi's or India's first features magazine. It was called </span><span style="color:#262626;">''New Delhi''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> run by the ABP group (</span>''Ref.: Ananda Bazar Patrika Group'') <span style="color:#262626;">And Khuswant Singh was the Editor. And </span><span style="color:#262626;">I worked there for a year and a half and then Khuswant moved to the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and he took me with him. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But tell me a little more about... about the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''New Delhi''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> magazine</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : </span><span style="color:#262626;">''New Delhi''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> magazine it was kind of long form journalism...a little ahead of its time. For we did do a political stories, we did culture, we did international affairs </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And by now Khuswant Singh was not in with the Gandhis’ anymore? or was he?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:09</span><span style="color:#262626;">[NM] : No, he still was in fact in with the Gandhis because Gandhi came back to power in 1980, and he became a Rajya Sabha Member. I think it was in 1979 or 1980 that he was very much because he had stayed loyal to them through the Emergency and this was his little reward but he still remained a hands-on editor in that he would come back to the office every night at 9 O' Clock and wrap up the issue and look at all the pages. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">7:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Scan {</span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">CHECK the FIRST WORD</span><span style="color:#262626;">} copy of the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> space. It was really a kind of an interlude. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And what kind of stories were you doing at </span><span style="color:#262626;">''New Delhi''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Magazine or were you on the Desk or what?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : Well, I remember doing stuff on Iran Revolution which happened then, which nobody was ever terribly interested but I was. I did a story on people who had collaborated with the Brits in the 40s, and it included some...a lot of RSS (</span>''Ref.: ''<span style="background-color:#ffffff;">Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a right-wing Hindu group</span><span style="color:#262626;">) people who had been informers. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">8:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I remember that one. Otherwise there were kind of softer features. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And ...and in HT ?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : In </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I headed their weekend sections- Saturday and Sunday. And again we had I would say there was no real hard political stories that I did myself but I did assign my team to them. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But did you feel you were being streamed in a particular direction because you were a woman as well or?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : Yes, I think in that ...the hard political stuff never came my way...I was put into that features kind of softer stuff at </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and certainly at the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> except for the crime beat which I did cover, because there was nobody else on night duty that night....otherwise it was very much a softer stuff...cultural profiles, interviews with famous people `that kind of stuff.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But not politicians so much?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : No, I think I did do a couple of politicians like when the congress spilt happened or was it the Congress split or I did do a couple of Congress leaders. There was not much of an Opposition, you know at the end of 6s..1969-70.   It didn't really count for very much. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But by now in this phase in ..in '79-80, you must have encountered other women</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ...women journalists.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : I did an interview I remember of quite a exclusive interview with Maneka Gandhi for a Hindustan Times....just about the time she split with her mother-in-law. ----[Kai : okay] ----I assigned one of my reporters to travel with Rajiv Gandhi who had just come into politics after his brother died. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">10:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> We did do some politics but not very hard stuff.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And you didn't focus on building your own network of contacts in ...in the political world?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : In the sense that I would ...I would commission stuff to be written and there were MPs and so on my radars to write. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Did you hire other women since?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : Yea, I did ...I didn't hire consciously women or men or whoever I thought was right for the job. For example, at the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> one of the people whom I hired as an intern </span><span style="color:#262626;">Navtej Sarna, who's now the High Commissioner in London. He was bright young kid who wanted to learn journalism. Then I took another longish break ..went off to Paris....husband.</span>

|| <div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- move to Bhutan</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- Rule of Ministry of External Affairs---wives allowed employment in certain sectors like teaching.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>---- NM joined journalism once back in India in 1978 ---joined New Delhi of ABP Group ---</nowiki></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> Khuswant </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Singh as editor---- when Khuswant Singh moved to HT, he took NM too with him.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---More on </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''New Delhi''</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--Ahead of its time- mix of political, culture, international affairs</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> Khuswant Singh still in Gandhi’s good book—made Rajya Sabha Member as a reward for his support to them during Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- Khuswant Singh still hands-on at HT.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Profile of NM at </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''New Delhi''</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">''''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">---NM did a story on Indian collaborators with Brit in 40s. esp. RSS.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---NM at </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''HT''</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---NM did the weekend sections ---assigned tasks to her team.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---On being cornered because of her gender.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--yes, because no hard political work came her way…mostly features.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---NM did interview a few politicians as there was no Opposition as such.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">-Any encounter with women journalists in 79-80?</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---NM did an exclusive interview with Maneka Gandhi after her quarrel with Indira Gandhi.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---NM assigned one to follow Rajiv Gandhi as he entered politics.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---NM had a list of MPs she wanted to or to be pursued. </span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---was unbiased in hiring </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">people---competent.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--hired Navtej Sarna.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---NM left journalism as her husband posted to Paris in 1982.</span>

|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">11:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : This was when?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] ; This was ...1982 but from there I wrote a monthly letter from Paris. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : For? The </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;">?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : For the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"><nowiki>----- [Kai : I see. ] ---- Again it was softer kind of cultural lifestyle stuff from Paris. But that's all that I was allowed to do.</nowiki></span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I couldn't remain on the  [</span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">FEW WORDS</span><span style="color:#262626;"> inaudible {TOO MUCH BACKGROUND DISTURBANCE] Well it was an interesting experience in that...this was the time when all those cultural festivals of India were happening. And then I got a job which I applied for as the </span>Press Attaché of <span style="color:#262626;">the Festival of India in France. So that got me in touch with a lot of French journalists...cultural figures like Peter Brook, </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NAME UNCLEAR] and so many others, and then when I came back, one of the people I met in Paris as Press Attaché was Vinod Mehta who had started the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Sunday Observer''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> in Bombay and was planning to then open a Delhi edition. So I think a week before I left Paris, come back to India, he phoned me...in those days these transatlantic calls were very rare, and he said, 'will you join my paper in Delhi?' And I said, 'yes.' He said, 'when are you back?'  I said, '5th of May.' He said, 'join from the 6th.' </span><span style="color:#262626;"> I said, 'okay'. And I did. and it was, you know ...there was a real baptism by fire because we were a shoe string budget, tiny staff and trying to bring out well ..it was the first Sunday paper in Delhi. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And what was your role?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : I was a New Editor, which meant again commissioning and writing stuff on my own and production too...the whole lot. So I would never go home before 2 O’clock at night. And brought out a good paper but I did found that I couldn't keep up with the hours. And I applied to the Indian Express who was looking for somebody...they were moving their ..again their weekend sections from Bombay to Delhi. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">13:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So I applied, I was interviewed by Suman Dubey who then Editor- and Chief, and given the job. And again joined straightaway. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Again for the weekend section you said?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : Yes, the weekend section was fairly political. In that way always had a news and review kind of political cover story. I did also handle the Wednesday Edit page-midweek. But these went to all editions of the Express. The weekend and the Wednesday Edit Page. And the Bofors scandal was at its height. And </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was deeply involved with that and it was a very political place. Then they, I think they also had lot of run-ins with the Rajiv Gandhi's government which had come up by then. This was 1986.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : At this time the management .... the ownership of the Express was committed to.... ------ [NM interjects Ramnath Goenka was the Editor] ----  ... pursing the...(left incomplete)</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : Ramnath Goenka was the Editor and the owner...not the editor. He was the owner, but a very hands-on owner. And among the things that happened then was a lock-out that was organised we think, it was clear with the connivance with the Government of the day to shut down the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">14:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So at that point they shut down the Delhi Edition. I used to fly to.... (interrupted by Kai's query)</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : So that was called by the trade union?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">15:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : Yes, but they had their...their...captive trade union </span><span style="color:#262626;">people who worked with the Congress at that time. So I used to fly to Bombay every weekend and bring out the weekend Supplement from there. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">15:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> It was quite exciting.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">15:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And did you interact with Goenka yourself at all?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">15:19</span><span style="color:#262626;">  [NM] : Very much so. During the lock-out, he used to have a house in Sunder Nagar, and I used to go and work out of there when I was in Delhi and eat that very extremely frugal fair that used to be provided in the Goenka household because usually some watery vegetable and a couple of chapattis, and that was it. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">15:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And he would be running and saying -Give me the despatch, I'm going to the telex machine and he revelled in all of this. Arun Shourie then took over from Suman Dubey. And ...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">15:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Suman Dubey was in-charge while the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was going after the government for Bofors or? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">15:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : No, Suman Dubey did not quit over this ...whole Bofors...enquiring that the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> launch.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:05</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : He wasn't comfortable with it personally or he though it was wrong or?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : I think he was such a close friend of Rajiv Gandhi that he found it untenable and he then subsequently joined as Rajiv's Information Advisor I think or something he joined to Government...Suman Dubey...and his brother-in-law Arun Shourie took over.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Fascinating. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : So those were exciting times. I remember the day when we tried to break the lock-out. And the Delhi Police came in its van and put us...took us all into their ...their lock-up in Daryaganj Police Station where we fed on Tandoori chicken, </span><span style="color:#262626;">''chole''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Ref: Chickpea''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) and stuff and let off. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:49</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But we did get locked up for day. And then eventually we broke the lockout the whole bunch of us. Then there was another ...another period after the Emergency...after the Bofor sting was over and ...I'm trying to remember the sequence...</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">17:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Yes, we went on strike...at the </span><span style="color:#262626;">Express ... the whole bunch...all the journalists.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : I see...on what issue?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : Because this was the...there was a wage board for journalists...forget whether it was Pannikar or was some other. Now during this whole Bofors' period where the Express had gone through difficult times, we all agreed that we will not take salary raises and we will take salary cuts because the paper was...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] :...struggling ...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : ....struggling . </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : I see...so I mean it impacted the advertising?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : Yes, completely. The government absolutely cracked down and there had been that long lock out and all of this. And so when I think it was the V.P. Singh government that came back into power. Came into power, I think that was '89 was it? When the government lost the vote of confidence in Parliament....I'm not sure ---- [Kai : Yeah] ----</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : I've forgotten the year myself. It's okay</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : but the V. P. Singh Government came and Mandal and all that stuff. Anyway we thought that now we can implement the wage board, which is an act of Parliament so you are bound to it really to do it. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">18:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And Ramnath Goenka said- No, I'm not going to do it. So then we said well...we'll go on strike. And it was a strike. And that was long strike.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : How long?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : I think it was six months. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : WOW!</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : Yea! Eventually we went to the Supreme Court - us journalists. And we won.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : So the paper shut down for six months or they came out? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : Lot of people broke the strike....some of us held out. I was one of them. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Remember some names  of who ...who were the scabs ...?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : One of them was ...don't want to say this...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : All right, it'll be a matter of record so...okay.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : But we walked back in triumphantly and ...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And were given your raises?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : Yes, we got our raises and... </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai]</span><span style="color:#262626;"> : Did Goenka speak ...address you all personally or..?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : No, he did not. He didn't come to Delhi during that time but then the Mandal agitation ratcheted it up and he sacked Arun Shourie over night by a message on telex saying that - You are removed as an Editor. (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Dtd. c.1990''</span><span style="color:#262626;">). And I think after that Prabhu Chawla came from </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> to the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. I didn't get on with him. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">19:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And I quit.</span>

|| <div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--NM wrote a monthly letter to HT on cultural stuff.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Acted as a </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Press A</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">ttaché</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''' '''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">of the Festival of India in France –met Peter Brook, ______ and other figures.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>----On return to India, NM joined Delhi edition of </nowiki></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Sunday Observer.''</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Trials at Delhi edition- shoe string budget, scanty staff</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> so a challenge. </span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--On NM’s role here.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---writing, commissioning, production.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---found the hours taxing so resigned.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---joined Indian Express’ weekend section which they were moving to Delhi---Interviewed by Suman Dubey (Editor and Chief)</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>----fairly political—also handled Wednesday edit-page.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--Time of Bofors scandal.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--Express had run-ins with Rajiv Gandhi’s Government. –Time 1986.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Ramnath Goenka, the owner---had a personal bone to pick with Gandhis---his business interests suffered.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--incident of a lock-out in cahoots with Rajiv Gandhi’s Government-</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> Delhi office of Express shut down—NM </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">used to fly to Bombay for work.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Lock out</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> led by trade union in cahoots with Congress.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- Interactions with Goenka</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> he personally suffered—had to sell his wife’s jewels.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Arun Shourie joined Express after Suman Dubey.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Suman Dubey was a friend of Rajiv Gandhi and left because he was uncomfortable and joined as Rajiv’s Information Advisor.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---more on the lock out and attempts to break it.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- day out in Daryaganj jail.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---breaking of the lockout post Bofors.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---strike by Express journalists.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---over revoking their willing agreement to accept pay cut during Emergency in face of Express’ financial troubles. </span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Cracked on Express and advertisements. </span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Once V. P. Singh’s government came to power thing stabilised </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> sought to implement the wage board---Goenka’s refusal met with a 6 months strike.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Journalists went to Supreme Court and won.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Express continued to be in print as some journalists broke up from strike.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">-</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Mandal Commission</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> Goenka sacked Arun Shourie.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Shourie replaced with Prabhu Chawla of </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''India Today.''</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">19:49</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Any anecdote of confrontation with him or you just found unpleasant working with him?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : Yea, there were many. He was always trying to say- insert such and such thing into the story. He had his little scores to settle, which he was always trying to do, which I found (inaudible)..</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But you felt he was clearly politically affiliated or...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : Yes, he was politically ...he wanted to settle (a) personal scores, he had a massive chips on his shoulder, he was altogether a thoroughly unscrupulous, unethical person. I didn't want to work with him.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But did you feel he was allied with a particular party or...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM]</span><span style="color:#262626;"> :Whereas let's say I mean Arun Shourie had political views that I did not agree with  but one could respect the man in other ways. He didn't try to do this sort of thing. So then I left the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. This was I think in '92 perhaps. And then my husband got posted to Central Asia and I went off.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:49</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Okay, so now the break?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : And then I only came back in 1999.And I looked to get back in journalism but there was nothing happening. I didn't anything. Well I was called to the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and offered a job there- </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Delhi Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Editor. And I said - no, I'm the wrong person for Page 3 and all these, ...those things so I didn't take that job.</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">And then three or four years later, I get a call from Vinod Mehta one day saying- what are doing? you belong in journalism, come back. So I did. I went to </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Outlook''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. I was there for five years. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">21:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Yes, I remember you from there. Where you were features editor from the beginning?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">21:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : Features Editor from the first year and then Managing Editor. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">21:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So it meant the whole {CHECK ONE WORD] boom....very much writing myself but I did commission. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">21:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And ...and that was your last journalistic stint?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">21:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : Yes, and Vinod kind of stepped down , I left </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Outlook''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, you know.</span>

|| <div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---NM quit as Prabhu Chawla did not work fair…settled personal scores through news stories.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---One could respect Arun Shourie.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>----NM moves to Central Asia.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---NM returned to India in 1999--- but could not enter the journalism again.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Offered a job at </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Delhi Times''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> as editor but refused as not her cup of tea.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Call from Vinod Mehta to join Outlook as Features Editor</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> there for five years ---met Kai too.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---worked s Features Editor and Managing Editor.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>----last journalistic stint---stepped down </nowiki></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">when Vinod Mehta left.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">22:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Tell me it’s going back a bit but you were talking earlier about the other women journalists who you knew and when there weren't too many of you around. Who were they and how well did you know them?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">22:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : Well when I started in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> had two women journalists. One was Prabha Dutt, the other was Usha Rai. And </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> had Razia Ismail. So there were really just four of us. Then towards the end of my stint at the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, Madhu Jain joined. And I think right after that Tavleen Singh. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">22:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : okay</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">22:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : One of the things I did </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was start a column by ..start ..you know I could commission ...so I can claim to have given Shashi Tharoor his first column, Tavleen Singh her first column, Ram Guha's first published piece in the press, Mukul Keshvan...some of these </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">23:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : I also want... I mean some sense from you about the trajectory of ...of the Indian print media in your own career. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">23:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Do you think things have changed substantially in ...in terms of the independence of ...of ..of a print media.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">23:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : I think the print media was much more independent. Well say those early days there was no really Opposition. The Congress was in power. I wasn't here during the Emergency years but before that it was fairly tame. And there were, you know, your political correspondents were all very thick with the politicians and they're so called scoops were always just little shared leaks where the government brought out the line that it wanted to bring out. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">24:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> By the time joined the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> in the mid-80s, it was a much more politicised world. We had...let's say Ramnath Goenka was an unusual newspaper editor in that he was willing to take on the Government at a huge </span><span style="color:#262626;">cost to his...to his business interests...at really tremendous cost, I know that he sold his wife's jewellery and did all sorts of things. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">24:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So it was a very heady time to be in journalism and I did a lot of actual political reporting at that time apart from other things I covered all the elections for the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and planned their coverage...election coverage. And nobody ever censored a story or told me - don't write this or write that. For example, I did predict that Rajiv Gandhi was going to loose</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and those stories were forth and he did lose.</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">I think again </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Outlook''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was again a very independent editor whose owners, whose proprietors gave him a fairly freehand. It didn't feel particularly any interference but I think today it’s a much more </span>corporatized <span style="color:#262626;">world the print...the print media and certainly television too. But I think the kind of people who came into journalism in my later years were far better than when I started out. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">25:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I mean they were people with a real vocation at least the men were. Otherwise the men who tended to go into journalism were either losers or people who wanted proximity to power and to hob-nob with the politicians and then get their things done; and that I mean journalists were forever taking favours from the government and things which today would not happen.</span>

|| <span style="color:#1f4e79;">---On NM’s encounters with other women journalists.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--Prabha Dutt, Usha Rai, Razia Ismail and later Madhu Jain and Talveen Singh.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--Under NM, many prominent figures did their firsts prints in paper- Shashi Tharoor, Talveen Singh, Ram Guha, Mukul Keshvan.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---On changes in Print Media.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Print media was difficult earlier lack of technology---narration of it.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---on kind of people who joined as journalists.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--Ramnath Goenka of a </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">different mould.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---NM predicted Rajiv Gandhi’s defeat in elections.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---now media has become corporatized </span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---on types of journalists who entered.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--on links between the government and journalists.</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">26:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Do you think it doesn't happen today and to the same degree?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">26:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : Maybe it does. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">26:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : But are you saying that in some sense you </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">26:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> see that the ...the ...that the media grew a spine after the Emergency and then lost it again?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">26:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : Yes, for a ....and then lost it again, I think because ...because of big business houses, which had other business interests investing more and more in television and print. Then the independence definitely, I think, though I personally did not experience it because I was lucky enough to </span><span style="color:#262626;">work with Ramnath Goenka. He was a one of a kind. And then Vinod Mehta. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Any particular story or assignment that you ...you treasure as a moment?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Or a low point?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Essential I am asking a high point or a low point?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : Well see the high point was covering elections </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">27:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> in Bihar. You get a real feel of how distant Delhi is. And what the concerns of people far away from Delhi are, which are, in the drawing room will tell you somebody don't get that sense. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">27:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> It was a time when we worked under you know actually the mechanics of journalism were much more complicated and difficult in that there were no computers. At the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> for example under Labour Law because it was hot metal printing we had to be given a glass of milk and a bitter moong dal every day to counteract lead poisoning. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : My goodness!</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : So those things are became </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">28:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> {</span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">WORD</span><span style="color:#262626;"> in audible} almost but that's what it was then page make-up, I mean used to be done manually you know where you would print out and then paste up columns and all of that. Or when you were on an assignment reporting, you had to go to some telex office in the middle of nowhere and I...if there wasn't one then got on the telephone, and it took hours and hours to just dictate your story or two find that telex office and get that telex operator to send out your story to reach in time for...in a daily newspaper, those deadlines were important. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">29:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] </span><span style="color:#262626;">: I know you were not around during the Emergency and you weren't working but did you keep in touch with ...with journalists. Can you tell me a little about what...what....</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">29:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : No, I actually didn't because (a) for much of that time I was in Czechoslovakia where we were completely cut-off because during the time it was part of the Soviet Bloc, and behind the Iron curtain. We didn't even get Indian newspapers. And or they would arrive every two weeks in a huge big bundle. So I was cut-off. I didn't really get a sense of what was happening. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">29:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So I didn't really</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">29:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : And in Czechoslovakia</span><span style="color:#262626;"> you wouldn't have faced any embarrassment about the Emergency?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">29:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : No I'm sure there fully behind Indira Gandhi. Similarly in Bhutan, I mean this was a time when Bhu...Bhutan was not connected by air. It took you three full days to reach there. So again you didn't get post, you didn't newspapers, there was no television. You got some radio news, and that was about it. So one really did feel quite cut-of. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Lovely!</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : I have nothing very interesting to tell you. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : Aree, it's a good story.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [NM] : No, it's not.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] : laughs.</span>
|| <div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- on media growing spine post-Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- yes media did grow spine but has lost it again because of business owner as investors in media.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---NM’s personal high point in career</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> covering elections and understanding ground realities of people living away from Delhi.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Time of different mechanics of journalism—ex Labour Law required printers to be given milk and bitter moong dal to counter poisonous lead printing processes.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- on how newspaper was brought together sans computers.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---On any experience of Emergency by NM.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---None as NM completely cut-off being on </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Czechoslovakia.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---cut-off while in Bhutan too.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---NM admits that her story isn’t really exciting or has details.</span>

|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| Interview Ends
| style="color:#1f4e79;" |
|-
|}

.NjUy.MzA

2017-11-03T11:39:21Z

Bhanugs:

<div style="text-align:center;"><u>'''INterview of M. J. Akbar'''</u></div>

<u>'''interviewEE'''</u>* Name: <span style="background-color:#ffffff;">Mobashar Jawad "M.J." Akbar</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;"> [MJA]</span>
* Occupation: Journalist

<u>'''INTERVIEWER'''</u>* Farah Yameen [FY]

<u>'''Medium: Audio recordings'''</u>* Format: Wav
* Language: English with smatterings of Hindi expressions
* Location of Interview: ???
* Date of the interview: 7 June 2016 02:18:15

<u>'''Clip name/DURATION: '''</u>* fy_mjakbar_raw_070616.wav
* Length : 00:28:29
* Bit rate: 1536 bps
* Size: 312 MB
* Date modified: 7 May 2016

[Farah There is a date discrepancy …please check 7 May against what is visible in the ‘Properties.’]

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| <span style="color:#1f4e79;">Keywords/Phrases/Points</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">0:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Today is the 7th of May, am interviewing M. J Akbar for the Archives of the Political. So sir I'll start like I'll start always these interviews is how you got into journalism?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : Oh that's a ...how I got into journalism was...I just started writing early perhaps fascination of writing. From a small town if you come with ...where it was thirty miles from Calcutta but, you know, thirty miles was equivalent to three hundred miles and psychologically. So we you know, I was in school and I think one of my classmates called me after many </span><span style="color:#262626;">years and said that, you know, 'I got a letter to the editor published in </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> or something.' And when I was in school I got published in the edit page of the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> so...pretty big and not only that I quite stunningly I got a cheque for Rs.50/-. Don't laugh at it because it was a huge amount of money.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : For being published as..</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : On the Edit Page ...yea, and fifty bucks is a hell lot of money in </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">???</span><span style="color:#262626;"> '66 or something...yeah '66 maybe...'65. So I suppose you know didn't think twice about what precisely I wanted to do. I remember even when I went to college- Presidency College- '67 and those were years of huge turmoil and Naxalite violence...very little by way of formal class and we used to have this system of Tutorials and my tutor was Professor Arun Kumar Dasgupta.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ...very very fine gentleman...one of the ...absolutely in the classic tradition of what academician should be...soft, modest, very...very unassuming, totally content with limited salary and you know had no other focus in life except being a </span><span style="color:#262626;">''bhadra''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> academic and I didn't go to two or three of his tutorials and he got very upset. I think he complained to my father who normally you know didn't consider me a vagabond by habit but father got very upset, took me to see him and then of course I went to his tutorial. And so he asked me very candidly, he said, you know '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''tumi asho na keno''</span><span style="color:#262626;">?' I said 'Sir, academics...literature was my course...bores the hell out of me. I liked reading.' So he said, </span>'ki karatē cāna?<span style="color:#262626;">' I said, 'I want to write.'</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">3:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And then he actually taught me how to write. And I think it was absolutely brilliant. He says, 'if you want to write in the English language then I'm giving you maybe a month or something and you will come back after having red at least one of these three texts,' which I eventually had to read. He says, 'you will first read King James English </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Bible''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> because without that you cannot understand English.' He says, 'I won't mention Shakespeare since my </span><span style="color:#262626;">senior, the Head of the Department, is going to teach you Shakespeare so you know I wouldn't even dare and enter into that territory but in any case you will learn </span><span style="color:#262626;">Shakespeare from.</span><span style="color:#262626;">' Second he said, '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Paradise Lost''</span><span style="color:#262626;">... book two.' </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">4:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I asked, 'why?' He says...and this has remained with me throughout my writing...he says that 'when you read something something you're not only seeing it and reading it. You're also internally hearing it. So all prose in that sense is poetry because you hear the prose. And if the prose doesn't have an internal rhythm ...a cadence...it will be just standard stuff. It will never rise. And I recommend Paradise Lost Book Two because this is the book of satan, and you will find the hiss of satan all through the book. It's an internal hiss..never comes out in open (?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">4:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">) so there is a magnificent use of - S as a sound. So the use of sound in prose. And then he said, 'for clarity of course you have to read Addison and Steale.' And that was the best education I ever got. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And then when I left college, I left college....the way you finished your degree...you finished your exam...I never went to collect my degree till twenty years later or something ...there was too much violence  and I think in the beginning ...I actually got a very good job...as a Senior Management Training in DCM. It had a phenomenal salary in those days. Shiv Nadar and Company were maybe a year senior ... two years senior to me...would have been. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And I joined DCM  and I think I lasted for one day or something. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : How come?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA : The chap...I met the guy..the ...their HRD Director who took the introductory class of this new prop. And many...his name is Paul I think...yes...many...many years later and he asked me the question...the same question that you're asking 'why?'And the answer, well I suppose the facetious answer was - I'd gone in a shirt or something...I don't know, and he says, 'why aren't you wearing a tie?'. I said, 'I haven come here to work not to wear a tie.' He says, 'tomorrow you </span><span style="color:#262626;">will come to work in a tie or you will not come to work at all.' So I didn't go to work. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">6:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And that was that until thank god I got that Trainee's job in </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> for the magnificent sum of 275Rupees. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">6:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> DCM used to pay 1,300 or something at that time. So there we are.</span>

|| <span style="color:#1f4e79;">---On MJA’s background.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- MJA started writing early on in school.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- Publication of a </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Letter to the Editor in </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> while still in school and got an award of Rs.50/-.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---MJA on his years in Presidency College and initially not inspired. </span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Persistence of one tutor- </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Professor Arun Kumar Dasgupta, paid off in encouraging MJA. MJA recounts a conversation with him.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>----Three must-reads recommended- King James </nowiki></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Bible''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">, </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Paradise Lost''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> (Book Two), and </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Addison and Steale to help MJA understand the nuances of the language for writing.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---MJA got a job as a Senior Management Training in DCM but didn’t join on first day as asked to wear a tie.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- MJA got a Trainee’s job in </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> for Rs. 275/- month.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">6:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Sir you joined </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">and left it quite like very soon too?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : Well, I did work, you know...I joined </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...went into after training was posted into the desk or something....main paper and then I must say Fatima Zakaria who was the Assistant Editor of </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Illustrated Weekly''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> at the time, and Khushwant... ---- [FY : Khushwant Singh] ---.... they sort of changed the rules. I mean they did something quite I think unusual...they asked me to join the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Illustrated Weekly''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...probably they thought I'd grope it sort of. And I even then ...I all of twenty-one years old I think...yeah...I joined </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> in '71 so I was twenty....and joined </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Illustrated Weekly ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">soon...yielded...</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">7:55</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I did a lot of cover stories...I think over twenty...twenty-two...cover mentions. I think in my collection </span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''A Mirror to Power''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (Pub.: </span><span style="color:#252525;">HarperCollins India, 2015</span><span style="color:#262626;">), I don't know if you've got it or not... ----- [FY : No, I haven't.] ---- ....I've given you a nice story about my first cover story.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : When you say </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Illustrated Weekly ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">was changing the rules. What do you mean?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : Means once you'd been taken, you know, about the batch that used to be hired by the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was then distributed to various departments. So it was very unusual for somebody who had posted to </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> main desk, to be </span><span style="color:#262626;">then shifted in a couple of months to some other publication, because once you entered the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India...''</span><span style="color:#262626;">and that's it. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : You wanted the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;">?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : It was very </span><span style="color:#262626;">bureaucratic. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : And ...so the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Illustrated Weekly''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ... I mean as we all know like...</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">Khushwant Singh was supporting the Emergency later....</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : That is ....---- [FY : That was much later...] ---- .... That is '75. ... ---- [FY : At this point...].... ---- I left Illus....</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Illustrated ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...I left in'74. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : At this point if I were to ask you to comment on the what was being written in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Illustrated Weekly''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, what would you say? I mean how...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : No, before Khushwant joined, the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Illustrated Weekly''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was a kind of very boring form of </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Tattler ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">in the sense </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Tattler ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">without the Omph or maybe the like the illustrated papers of London where very heavily into middle class family...you got ...if you got married you got your picture printed...apparently that was the most popular part of the circulation base....people getting their newly wed pictures...standard passport sized pictures...printed free. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But Khushwant came in and revolutionised it by introducing a newsy element to the cover story, taking up social issues, politics is very much a part of it. So he gave it a kind of a quasi-news feel. It wasn't a political magazine but included politics so and it included essays, included....of course he strengthened the fiction part of it and so on. So it was a very much of a medley of themes but since politics was one of his themes that he wanted and we ...we introduced reporting, right...so that </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">10:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">??</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span>magazine reportage as such I think our generation did but reportage ...just field reportage not a armchair analysis. And that the...because I would insist on...sometimes I would insist...I would tell the boss....the boss would happily agree because Khushwant himself was very dynamic himself. He'd say, 'haan haan, of course...ghar mein baith ke thori reporting hoti hai.'

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:57</span><span style="color:#262626;">[FY] : And you left </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Illustrated Weekly''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> soon after too?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:01</span><span style="color:#262626;">[MJA] : Quite right because the Free Press Journal was quite a .... ---- [FY : Yeah from Bombay...] ---- .... they offered me an opportunity of editing a magazine. They had a very glossy socialite magazine called </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Onlooker''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and I turned that into a political publication and I also began to edit their Sunday paper- </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Bharat Jyoti; ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">and it was in </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Bharat Jyoti ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">and not at </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Onlooker ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">first began reporting the build-up to the Emergency.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> The George Fernandes railway movement strike (c. 1974), the JP's anti-corruption movement which began in Bihar and so on.... ---- [FY : Gujarat...] ---- .... Gujarat....Bihar Movement was a parallel movement- Nav Nirman I think.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Nav Nirman Movement.... Sir at this point were you based out of Bombay?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : Bombay. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:55</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Okay, so what were you reporting....and a lot of ...so most of the people I've interviewed so far...actually all the people we've interviewed so far have been based out of Delhi. So...also so therefore closer to the power circles and, you know, all the shenanigans within that. What was the effect of the Central Government on how you were reporting at...in Bombay?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : Well the effect ... you know, you must never forget that the Congress was not the power only in Delhi. Congress was the power in every part of the country.  I mean...no sorry by that time, it had weakened.... ---- [FY : Gujarat...there was not Congress]---- ...that is not but it was in power in Maharashtra. And ... ---- [FY : Yea, it was] ---- .... and it seemed permanently embedded in Maharashtra so...Gujarat it had weakened...north it had weakened but </span><span style="color:#262626;">Maharashtra was very much a Congress stronghold base. I think V. P. Naik may have been keeping the </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">12:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">???</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (torch?). So what happened in Delhi was mirrored in Bombay in terms of the Government's long intrusive fingers. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">13:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I had a very interesting experience in '75. I got a job offer from ...after </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Onlooker''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ...by Nari Hira who had started </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Stardust''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and become a huge financial success and wanted to bring out a publication really for overseas Indians...glossy news magazine, which I think called </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Peninsula''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. And so with the dummy was ready and I was hired as an Editor. We had a good team...quite a few people...I think </span><span style="color:#262626;">Chaitanya Kalevar was among that batch. And the first cover story I did and this was scheduled for June 1975 publication- first issue - was Indira Gandhi. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">14:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And Indira Gandhi looking very very angry. And the headline was some around - 'The End is Near'. And you know this was before the events because we used to have long deadlines. And very reflective of the mood of the country…that this woman is over. And then of course the Allahabad High Court judgement came and so on</span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">???</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">14:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Magazine cover became far more and more relevant with each passing day. And then the Emergency came and I remember I had just got my passport and was off on my first trip abroad - New York or something. Bought my first suits because I'd also decided that since I'd got the suits, life seemed to be...might as well get married...and all that together and then after Emergency was launched, people first we didn't realise what censorship was all about. Then of course Nari came with the bad news that the Government...with the bad news ... that the Government was quite delighted with the idea of a magazine for overseas Indians but could we tweak or change the colour and make it a smiling Indira Gandhi and say that a new era of hope had launched and you know...they would be delighted and life would be very rosy...on should; and of course like </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">15:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> like a cantankerous chap I am I said, 'no!' But it was very good I must say of Nari. He didn't...I mean </span><span style="color:#262626;">he could have said 'no'. He gave me a salary for six more months for doing nothing and then rather than create a pro-Government publication, which he could easily </span><span style="color:#262626;">have done...I mean...look the ...there were no </span><span style="color:#262626;">heroes...too or not too many of them, and nobody was ...he didn't...he didn't start the publication, which I thought was very brave of him...of Nari. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But six months later it became...I had left and I was without a job also. </span>

|| <span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Why MJA quit the </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">?</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- MJA left </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''TOI''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> because Fatima Zakaria and </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Khushwant Singh were changing the rules of operation which MJA did not personally approve of.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---MJA did a lot of cover stories which are also mentioned in his book </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''A Mirror to Power''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---On what was changing at the </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Illustrated Weekly''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">?</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- It was unusual once assigned to a Desk to be shifted to another publication as done for MJA from </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> to </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Illustrated Weekly.''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> </span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>----MJA left </nowiki></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Illustrated Weekly''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> in 1974.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---On the content of </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Illustrated Weekly.''</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Before Khushwant Singh joined Illustrated Weekly it was boring---comparisons with the illustrated papers of London meant for middle class.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>----On Khushwant revolutionising the Weekly by giving it a quasi-news feel.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>---- Mix of field reportage was insisted by MJA.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---On leaving the </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Illustrated Weekly''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---MJA offered a job by the Free Press Journal as Editor of Onlooker, which he transformed and edited their Sunday paper- </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Bharat Jyoti.''</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">''---''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">In </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Bharat Jyoti, ''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">MJA reported build-up to the Emergency</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">reporting George Fernandes Railway Strike, JP’s anti-corruption movement starting in Bihar, Gujarat, </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Nav Nirman''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> Movement.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>----On the effect of the Central Government on the reportage in Bombay.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Congress was in power even in Maharashtra so the censorship in Bombay was stringent too.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---V.P. Naik.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---MJA’s personal narrative of getting a job offer from Nari Hira as an Editor for </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Peninsula''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Chaitanya Kalevar was on the team.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---MJA’s recount of the first issue due for June 1975 publication, which featured the headline- ‘The End is Near’ with a focus on Indira Gandhi.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- Onset of Emergency---MJA plan to go to US---nobody realised the implications of Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Nari was asked by the Government to tweak the magazine in favour of Government for the overseas’ Indians.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>----MJA refused and continued on the pay roll for another six months.</nowiki></span>

|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">16:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So were you at this point editing the Sunday or not editing the Sunday?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : No...no, then I went back to Free Press. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Okay.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : To Eric (or Edit) then I think mid-'76 I got job offer from </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Anandabazar''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> to come and start Sunday.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So during the period from where 12th June I believe - 25th June when the Emergency was declared, from that point of time to '76, were you reporting...were you writing?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : Yea, I was but, you know, there was censorship atmosphere so I couldn't be...I wasn't writing very much. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Who were you writing for? For</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] No, for the Sunday Free Press Journal.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : For the Free Press Journal...And so a lot of people talk about you know how pre-censorship notices were issued to them while they were called also </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">17:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [</span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">CHECK</span><span style="color:#262626;"> the last few words]</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : </span>So but by the time, I think we I went to Sunday...I think we began to reflect the anger on the ground. And I remember very clearly the ...1977 elections, I and 1977 elections, I and Martin Woollacott, who was then the ''Guardian'' correspondent, perhaps were among the first to go to Raebareli''' '''<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and report that Mrs Gandhi was losing the elections. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">18:05</span><span style="color:#262626;">.. of course shock for everybody...</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">18:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (muffled spot) whatever happens she can't lose. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Yeah, there was a ...in fact some people say because she had imposed such stringent censorship, she had no feedback in terms of whether she was going to win or not.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : Perhaps ...perhaps not. Most people build up screens around them. And I remember taking a risk which could have been a pretty...I mean... another life threatening or profession threatening one. We used to have a huge deadline. I mean I had to send my cover stories some six weeks or four weeks in advance so, you know, four weeks before the election results of '77 to actually believe that the Congress was going to be wiped out is a bit thick. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">19:05</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And I'd sent a cover story with Raj Narayan on the cover...the man who defeated her...nobody knew </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">19:12</span><span style="color:#262626;">(after 'nobody' is </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">a</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">muffled</span><span style="color:#262626;"> spot) .. and saying victory. And I sent it and the owner of </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Anandabazar''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was very supportive. I mean ...say, 'what a weak </span><span style="color:#262626;">''sarkar''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.' Of course, I remember the night before the results were due and results weren't instant. It was a long process. And the cover came and he looked at me and he got ....kind of looked at me (this part is said laughingly)  and he called me, I think, he said, 'well, you know, we'll have to, you'll have to junk the </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">19:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">???(</span><span style="color:#262626;"> unclear after 'junk the')', if it doesn't go right!' And then he can always take my job. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : But then you published it with Raj Narayan?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : Yea, it came out. I mean the moment the results were ...the next night everybody knew the trend, and I think the price...the black market price of that issue within 10 rupees or 20 rupees. </span>

|| <span style="color:#1f4e79;">---On MJA work engagement at this time.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---MK+JA returned to the Free Press.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---In 1976 MJA got an offer from </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Anandabazar Patrika''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---On what MJA was writing in the years of Emergency?</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>----Not much because of censorship.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---On the mood once elections were declared. </span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---MJA and </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">M</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">artin </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">Woollacott of Guardian were among the first to predict the Mrs Indira Gandhi was going to lose the elections after visiting Raebareli.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>----On Mrs Gandhi getting no feedback on the mood of the people because of the censorship.</nowiki></span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---MJA is unsure if Mrs Gandhi was unaware to that degree of the mood of the people but believes that people usually tend to build screens around them.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Gives the example of his prediction four weeks before the election that Congress was not going to win. </span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Once the results were </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">out, the edition was highly priced in the black market.</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">20:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY]  : Sir we also know a lot about you know what journalists circles in Delhi were talking about. What we do not know so far is what was happening in Bombay and Calcutta which is ....???</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : No the...the people who stood up against it, there were lot of brave young </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">20:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">???</span><span style="color:#262626;"> CHECK...the younger people....they....they reflected the mood of the country. It is the editors who were living in a cocoon...most of them....not all of them. And of course the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was doing a heroic job....thanks to Ramnath Goenka.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">20:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And ...but we shouldn't discount, you know, the contributions of owners like </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Anandabazar Patrika''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Exactly...so one question was -who were the ....(FY is interrupted by MJA)</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">21:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : .... I mean the glamour went to the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> but a lot of people from all over the country...Marathi journalism, Hindi journalism, you know....the glamour quotient may have been low but the contribution to saving the country's...for democracy was huge...huge...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">21:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Do you remember whom was writing in languages other than Marathi or Hindi, and do you remember instances of reportage?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">21:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : No..no, people were ....I mean in Bengali journalism and so on. Gour Kishore Ghosh.... ---- [FY : Sorry who?] ---- .... Gour Kishore Ghosh, absolute legend, writer...in Bengal...in Calcutta...you should actually do the people who were sent to jail. Barun Sengupta ...they all passed away unfortunately. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">21:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Is there anybody alive from that period of time who was...?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">21:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : </span>Barun's sister runs the paper<span style="color:#262626;"> </span>''Bartaman'', she's around. They went to jail too. 

<span style="color:#3482b1;">21:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : And what about Hindi?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">21:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : And they've been forgotten...very very sad. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">22:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Yeah, even so far how our interviews have been going is largely English language papers, which I understand the Express was at the heart of Delhi and like..</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">22:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : Yeah, because it was at the heart of Delhi...it got.... ---- [FY : It got the ...it took all the fame but I'm sure that there were a lot of people in ...writing in various things  in the country...at least in the North....I believe the South was largely unaffected by the Emergency.] </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">22:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ...but the Calcutta was certainly. </span>
|| <span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>----What conversations were taking place in journalistic circles in Calcutta and Bomaby?</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>----The younger people stood up against the Emergency. Editors were living in a cocoon.</nowiki></span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Indian Express''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> and </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Anandabazar Patrika''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> stood anti-Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---MJA of the opinion that while stand of the Express was highlighted, there were vernacular journals which were vanguards against censorship too.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Example of vanguards </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> Gour Kishore Ghosh and Barun Sengupta.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--- Sengupta’s sister runs </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Bartaman''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">---went to jail too.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---On Delhi taking the glory as vanguards against the Emergency rather limited and sad.</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">22:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : And of course </span><span style="color:#262626;">Siddhartha Shankar Ray was out of Calcutta. What was happening in Calcutta in that respect because one of the supposed engineers of the Emergency was.... ----  </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">22:35</span><span style="color:#262626;">[MJA] : No...no...no not supposed. </span><span style="color:#262626;">Siddhartha Shankar Ray was one of people who planted the idea.</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">22:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ---- [FY : was the engineer of ..]</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">22:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So what were the conversations happening in the Calcutta journalistic circle about Siddhartha Shankar Ray?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">22:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : Calcutta was a ..Calcutta was always a ....no ...no Calcutta was very anti-...and as the results of the '77 proved. It was huge. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">22:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : And there was also this talk informers and people who are pro-the Emergency and the rest.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">22:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : Yeah yeah...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">22:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] :</span><span style="color:#262626;">do you remember that atmosphere? Could you comment on it?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">23:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">[MJA] : Well, I mean it was there but, you know, maybe in hindsight you ...look in Delhi maybe, you know, some of these things became hard but in the rest of the country, you can keep Indians under fear only for some time. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">23:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> You know </span><span style="color:#262626;">as a people we are not, you know...we don't...we had tasted democracy. We were not going to let it go in a hurry. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">23:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Right, so you were talking about the Raj...Raj Narayan issue of the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Anandabazar Patrika''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">23:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA]: (corrects FY) : Sunday. ---- [FY : Sunday, sorry.] </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">23:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Anandabazar''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was separate. It is a daily newspaper. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">23:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So, after the Emergency, you started also working with the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Telegraph''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, which is...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">23:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : Not in ...</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Telegraph''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was '82. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">23:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Much later... but that is supposed to be when the ....</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">23:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : ...the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Sunday''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was the principal product of the '70s. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">23:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So post the Emergency, how was....how were you able to change the content of the paper?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : no, with the...</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Sunday''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was the first totally political publication. It was the first newsweekly in that sense. And then </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> came out as a fortnightly. </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> came out during the Emergency as a pro...pro-Government publication....pro-Indira Gandhi publication. Yeah, it had its first editor as Uma Vasudev. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So how long did ....you continued with </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Sunday''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> until 1982?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : And even later...because </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Telegraph''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> came from the same stable. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : And if I were to say how...how...how the publication of...what you were able to write in the Sunday change from during the Emergency period to the post the Emergency period.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : No, we created political content for magazines </span><span style="color:#262626;">which was not considered I mean...magazines were not really the vehicle for political reportage; so we gave that thrust. We created that space. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : And you're saying a post that ...so a lot of people that I've talked to say that journalism pre-the Emergency was actually boring was actually boring journalism. It actually gained vigour post-the Emergency.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : Yeah, maybe politics before 1975 was boring. No, it wasn't....'67 on politics did become interesting. So yeah, but it takes time....this is a new generation of people. And that new generation which is '17s...'70s generation, we took over...we took over very fast. The reason why we took over very fast not because we  took away as editors from the previous generations but because we created new products. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">25:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So Sunday, India Today, other publications. And other publications eventually had to respond to what we were doing. So they either change or they created new things. What Telegraph did was change the character of newspaper journalism.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">26:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : in what manner?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">26:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : In terms of total approach...freshness...quality of reportage, right. The reportage...I mean the Edit Pages were always good...always, you know. But there was no concept of an op-ed page. Also the concept of you know ...there was correspondent reporting but there was no field reporting, if you know ..if you understand the difference. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">26:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Yeah...If I say ...when you ..... (MJA continues) ...sorry.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">26:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : Also, we trusted young people to go out and report. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">26:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ...(</span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">Check</span><span style="color:#262626;"> the first work) I was doing...you know, I was an Editor by young age. So people we hired were young. So in that sense the Sub-Edit, there was not much of an age difference between the trainee and the Editor. So it was fun.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : And was this not true of your own time. Were...when you would....you started editing. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : No, that's what I said...when we started hiring... (FY interrupts to rephrase the question).</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : When you were trainee is…was there a huge difference between you and the Editor?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : Of course, Editors were not only in their sixties...fifties but also they refused to see you. You know, the eye contact was considered opprobrium. So that was the Shyam Lal, Girilal Jain approach to....I mean I'm not taking these names in order to be accusatory but that was the culture of the times. And Assistant Editors were only guys who were got a place in some box bridge here ...some rubbish ... foreign university....only then you could become assistant editor.</span>

|| <span style="color:#1f4e79;">---</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> Siddhartha Shankar Ray</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>---- Siddhartha Shankar Ray as one of the engineers of Emergency. </nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Calcutta as being anti-Emergency as the results of 1977 proved.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---On the ambiance of the time.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>----Can keep Indians under fear for a limited time only.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;"><nowiki>----On Raj Narayan issue of </nowiki></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Anandabazar''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">corrected as being published in </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Sunday''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---MJA worked at </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Telegraph''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> in 1982.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---On the content and changes in the paper.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Sunday became the first totally political publication.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">'' India Today''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> as being pro-Indira Gandhi because of Uma Vasudev as the Editor.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---On the changes in the content of the Sunday in before and after Emergency years.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Post-Emergency </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">period, they created political content for the magazines.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---On journalism gaining a vigour post-Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Before the Emergency, reportage was boring but post-it, newer products were created- </span><span style="color:#1f4e79;">''Sunday, India Today''</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> etc, and others had to rise to the challenge of lose out.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Post Emergency, the quality of reportage improved</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> concept of op-ed brought in</span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"></span><span style="color:#1f4e79;"> emphasis on field reporting.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Younger people were hired who had fire in them unlike before when there was a rigid hierarchy and distance between Editors and trainees.</span>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---Generation of Shyam Lal, Girilal Jain represented the older trend.</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">27:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : How did you become an editor?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : Because I never became an assistant editor....that's how.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So okay I see that you're getting....(muffled spot.)</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:05</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : I see that you're either....the great thing in life which I comment to you heartedly (read as heartily)...is either sit on the last bench or the front....don't waste time in the middle. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So I'll just ask this one last question.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [MJA] : No, we'll do it again... --- [FY : one last question] ---.... </span><span style="color:#262626;">''phir se karenga''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> --- ... [FY : </span>{{anchor|GoBack}} <span style="color:#262626;">''acha thik hai''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.] ----.... because I know, I've got something to complete. ---- .... </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">28:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY : Right]--- ...And I just got a call that I......</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">  </span><span style="color:#262626;">  </span>

|| <div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<div style="color:#1f4e79;"></div>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">--MJA never became an assistant editor but editor directly so he advanced faster.</span>

<span style="color:#1f4e79;">---An advice from MJA to Farah.</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#262626;">Interview Ends Abruptly</span>

| style="color:#1f4e79;" |
|-
|}

.NjI1.NTY

2017-11-03T11:38:13Z

Bhanugs:

<u>'''INTERVIEWEE'''</u>* Name: Kuldip Nayar

<u>'''INTERVIEWER'''</u>* Kai Friese

<u>'''Medium: Audio recordings'''</u>* Format: Audio .wav
* Language: English/ Hindi
* Date of the interview: 30/01/2016

<u>'''Clip name/DURATION: '''</u>* KNayar1.wav/ 01:05:56
* KNayar2.wav/00:20:19

<u>AUDIO 1</u>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:16.445cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <u>'''TimeCode'''</u>
|| <u>'''Transcription'''</u>
|| <u>'''Remarks'''</u>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 00:00:00
|| KF: … '''Interview with Kuldip Naayar at his home in Vasant Vihar on the Thirtieth of January, Two Thousand Sixteen. Mr Naayar, I know you’ve-you’ve… '''
|| Constant feedback in the recording.
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| KN: ''Uhh… ''Pronounciation is Nai-yurr. Because it's Naa-yar is South
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''Nai-yurr, sorry.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Because it is, Naayar is
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- is South Indian, are Nairs.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - is an Arabic word.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''-Yeah.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| And ''uhh…'' it’s a- it’s a… North, background is that.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 00:37
|| '''''Theek hai.'' ''Uhm…'' Yeah. If you could start with – with a little bit about how you started in – in – in journalism which I believe was in an Urdu daily…'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

05:07

|| See... I did Law from Lahore. So I’m BA Honours, LLB. ''Uhh…'' And I did Honours in History. And ''uhh…''So I was ''uhh… ''hoping to… settle down in my hometown, Sialkot City. And then, start practice. We had some property and people knew so that my plan. But… … just soon after partition... the partition took place and ''uhh…'' I had already in the exam I knew I would pass. So now I, when I … came to India. I mean from Sialkot city. Migrated. When I crossed the border, I had nothing – no money. After you had lost everything. One had left Sialkot at that time just before ''uhh…'' I would say... around partition – this thing you will settle down you will go back. But there was no going back. One had never imagined ''ki'' it could happen that way. So as I told when I crossed the border… I had no money. So … my maternal aunt was in Delhi. So I came and ''uhh…'' lived with her for a while But ''uh… ''her husband was also poor – head clerk – so it, they didn’t have that kind of money or house that kind of thing. So I had to look for a job. So near Daryaganj is Jama Masjid. So I used to eat at Jama Masjid because I was very fond of non-vegetarian food and it was cheap. So one gentleman used to see me. And after a couple of days he said ''ki''… you don’t work? I said there’s no job. He said what are your qualifications, I said I have done honours in History BA Honours and I am also LLB. He said surely you can get a job. I said yes but I don’t want to be a clerk. ''Uhh…'' and, so… so he said ''uhh…'' Do you know Urdu? I said yes. Persian, Urdu I have graduated in Persian, Urdu also. All of these kinds of languages were from Punjab so I… So he said here is a… newspaper. Muslim-owned newspaper. Very h- well-circulated. They’re looking for a Hindu who knew Urdu… English, Urdu and… They have a job. So I went there. So that man… I still remember, the name of the owner was Yaseem. And ''uhh...'' so I asked… I’m looking for a job. He said you- yes, we know, we are looking for a person. Do you know Urdu? So I wrote down I said yes sir. Yes, you sit down at the desk and that’s how started the job. Now… I could not go back- I thought ''ki'' I would practice one day. But ''uhh,'' that has a gestation period, and all these books and other – so, ''ki'' now I have to come to journalism. So, there was a very famous poet in... living in that area. Hasrat Mohani. And when I heard… so I went to him and ''uhh… ''He said, Urdu has no future in India. So you switch over to English. Now how do you get a job? So what I did was that I said alright- or I shall become a journalist. So let me go to… America and get a degree. Journalism degree. I had no money. And we couldn’t afford so I went to USIS.
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">LAHORE/PARTITION</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 06:23
|| - '''Mandi House'''.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - ''Huh?''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''Mandi House'''.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Haan,'' used to be in- Not – At that time it wasn’t Mandi House, it used to be at Pa- Kasturba Gandhi road. So there I went and ''uhm…'' I said I would like to go. To America. They said we can give you travel grant provided you have an admission. Somewhere. So I sat there and found out which university. So North Western University they said. Yes yes, Medill School of Journalism. So I wrote to the dean... yes, admitted. And ''uhh'' I had asked for some scholarship so he gave me first- first masters scholarship and that’s how I went there. There it was hard because you had no money and couldn’t get it from home. So you had to do work – all kind of work; raking lawn, washing windows, waiting on tables. All these things you had to do. And ''uhh''... So I got ''uhh…'' … twenty hour… ... twenty hour per… week or something like that. So I got the degree in three semesters.
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">USA EDUCATION</span>

<span style="color:#ff0000;">NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 08:16
|| '''This was- you finished in which year? In the fifties this is still... ''na''?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Yes… it would be it… … fifty… two or fifty three. Something like that. And I came to return to India.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 08:42
|| - '''You were keen to return…?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Yes. See, there were- I must say ''ki'' there were jobs at that time. They – as soon as you pass they offered – some provincial newspaper. So I said no I don’t want to settle down here so I must go back home. And here, those days… five year plan had been launched. And they were looking for feature writers. So I had this degree… so the fact that I had a degree, I hadn’t written much. SO they hired me. Later on I qualified in UPSC so et cetera. So that’s why –
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 09:40
|| '''You were hired by the Press Information Bureau.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - ''Haan'', Press Information Bureau. And ''uhh'', as a feature writer. So I used to travel in the country and do features and I got, I would say, those days, newspapers even Times of India used to publish whatever came from PIB so I had my feature printed in lots of papers after that, And I used to travel long and produce something. Because see these newspapers could never – I mean could afford but they never sent anybody out so I used to go. Not in Daheli, somewhere outside. Some Bhakra dam or some don’s house – somewhere. So PIB used to pay for that. But there I used to appear.
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">PIB</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 10:43
|| '''Reporting on the great developmental projects.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Ah yes. Some projects, some… ''uhh…'' I still remember I stayed with this... then this village level worker used to be very big thing. So, I produced that and... that type. Now… qualified also for UPSC so I … As I said started… But, after …. Ten years in PIB… I found ''ki'', yes those days PIB used to – ''woh jo ''feature writers, information officers, used to have good pay – seven hundred and fifty rupees.
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">REPORTING ON DEVELOPMENT</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''And perks. Car-''var''?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - ''Huh?''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''Car also? House?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| -''Nahi nahi nahi''. Car nahi. House was just like any government so… So I was working with … first as feature writer then they said ''ki'' why don’t you come regular – to the regular side of PIB… so I said yes. So they attached me to Pant.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 12:08
|| - '''G. B. Pant.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - So I… he was very particular that his information officer would travel wherever he goes. He was very fond of publicity. Not that I could do anything but he had that idea that if information officer with there so his publicity would be taken care of.
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">GB PANT (HOME MINISTER)LB SHASTRI</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''He was Home Minister? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Home Minister. At that time… Newspaper would cover him obviously Home Minister. But anyway, so I went around with him … I would see everything. Then when he died. Shastri had been in some other ministry but he was seeing all the time, that... one eye was with him and second thing that lot’s of publicity we have – oh Govind Ballabh Pant – he got it because of Home Minister but anyway... So when he, Shastri became Home Minister, so he retained certain staff et cetera. So he was very particular to retain me that I would work with him. And then... I must say, I stayed with him until he was the Prime Minister... After that I came to the private sector and ''uhh…''
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">LB SHASTRI </span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| -''' To UNI?'''
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">UNI</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - UNI that… had founded it and since I had lot of contact with in the ministry et cetera so I did also news stories. And it appeared o lot... UNI. Became self-sufficient also. UNI became a competitive news agency for PTI. And… during… when I was in… Urdu paper I covered the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi at that time nd it appeared in.. Then in UNI, I started doing some stories which were unusual; so that it would appear and it did appear. For example I still remember Indian government was talking to the Naga Leaders. And… everyday news would appear ''ki'' they talked cordially and all kinds of things. So I went to this Naga leaders. So I said ''ki'' what everyday you are talking. What are you talking about? He said we’re telling the government of India that we want independence. So I came and reported. Oh my god it was such a furore that the Information Minister rang up ...'' ''How do you run these kinds of stories. All India Radio used to buy UNI so they reduced our (?) because of that. Anyway... But ''uhh''… since I was doing my unusual story I remember PTI when … was little... rattled so I was approached by PTI ''ki'' look here. Why don't we come to some kind of -
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 16:32
|| - '''arrangement.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - arrangement et cetera and... You have certain other field, we have certain other field. So, but anyway, that wasn't… both agencies was owned by the newspaper so it was upon the owners really to decide. So they decided ''nahi'', they should keep them we together, separate et cetera. So… there… ''woh… ''when I working in UNI... I had done lots of stories. So...
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 17:12
|| - '''But in UNI, if I can interrupt for a second, there, although there were calls like this from... from ministers when they object to stories but the... ''uhh ''newspapers – the owners never ''uhhh... ''interfered at all?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - No. As I said, the owner owned the paper
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''- '''Hmm.'' '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

18:05
|| See, both PTI and UNI were owned by big newspapers. Now they could have kept one but they wanted two so that ''ki ''there could be competition and so that – that was the only … we used to – UNI used to land up ''uhh''... I would have very ''uhh...'' Small and takes(?) and story would be more than five hundred because I didn't PTI- sheafs and sheafs so I ''toh'' UNI then started appearing a lot et cetera. And... The biggest scoop I had when Shastri died at Tashkent so I... was working with UNI still and I went to his room because I knew Shastri, I had been working with him. And there was a hotline so I picked up. The operator said which number. Because from his room. So I UNI number I – so, she gave me that number... And there I told person who was working. Dhingra I still remember that... write down that – send a flash: Shastri dead. So he said, I am doing a banquet speech. I said ''bhayi...'' (laughs)
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''Story had lapsed.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| So we were – the scoops little bit et cetera. Statesman... picked me up as resident editor. Daheli. And from then onwards
|| STATESMAN
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 19:24
|| - '''But this was already – this was in Pran Chopra's time.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Pran Chopra was... yes but almost -
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''On the way out.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Then Pran Chopra episode took place. So he left but I was there but I had just joined it when he was the – he was the editor. And I was the resident editor. Very few months together though I... - And then, of course, Irani came …
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 19:54
|| '''But that must have been your first taste of interference, both well, particularly from the corporates, from the Tatas... ''uhh''...?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - ''Nahi'', I must give him credit he ''uhh...'' Once JRD called me to Bombay. And asked, he said ''ki'' look here, what do I do? I have only twelve and a half percent share. And this paper, Statesman is known by Tata, my newspaper. There are so many, Moffat Lal is there, many others are there. So... he said ''ki'' see, I have business with Iran. And you people have go on-go on publishing certain things and this has – this has created a problem for me.
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">INFORMAL PRESSSURE:</span>

<span style="color:#ff0000;">JJRD TATA </span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''Criticising the Shah.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - ''Haan, haan.'' In fact he once... he rang me up also. He said ''ki'' this cartoonist you have, he all the time depicts Indira Gandhi as some kind of dog or something, barking dog or something.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 21:18
|| - '''It's – this is Rajinder Puri. '''
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">RAJINDER PURI </span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Haan''. So you do something about it.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''- '''Hmm.'' '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| So... I said ''ki'' he's on the staff. I said you can't fire a working journalist. So what happened was that Calcutta... stopped publishing his cartoons. But I was publishing his work. And Daheli was the only place where he was appearing. So Rajinder was a good cartoon and a good writer also. And then as I said ''ki'' from Statesman, I said ''ki'' this ''uhh''... Now from UNI, Statesman I came and once Statesman then... When Irani came... He made my life miserable because he had, you know wanted to control everything and he did et cetera. So then I left for Express.
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">IRANI</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 22:26
|| '''But there must have been a lot of talk then cause he was seen as a – a management person, ''na''? Coming in, again from the owners.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| … In fact Palkhivala, who brought him, I complained to him. I knew Palkhivala and ''uhh''... So he said ''uhh..'' Maybe I made a mistake. But nothing he could do, now that Irani... So Irani... <u>'''Nag Bhuliya</u> '''was the editor then, he was a good... very good journ- writer, at least... he didn't know the background of anything, he wrote well. And so, you... suppose he's writing on something on Congress or et cetera so he would talk to me. I'd brie- get briefing and then wrote very well. And argued well et cetera. So that... And... Irani, now when he came he started interfering... So... and he... first asked me ''uhh...'' To tell certain things against <u>'''Nag Boriya'''</u> to... Palkhivala. I said I have nothing against him but he wanted to use, then he turned against me also. But <u>'''Nand Bolya'''</u> … Palkhivala then did smell but was just too late. So both <u>'''Nand Boriya'''</u> had left I left and Irani... this... paper ''uhh''... from Calcutta – Telegraph. So Akbar used to be its first editor. We knew very well because he had started Sunday and ''uhh''... ''toh'' he was very particular I would do cover page story – first cover page story of Sunday. I did on Bhutto.
||

(Unknown name. Apologies.)
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 24:32
|| - '''Okay. This – but this is much later, na?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Much. ''Nai nai. ''Earlier. And later I came to as I said ''ki – ''ah! Yes-yes, later, no doubt about it. Because Akbar came late in the – in journalism. But ''uhh''... I would say ''ki''... person who really destroyed Statesman was Irani.
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">TELEGRAPH</span>

<span style="color:#ff0000;">MJ AKBAR</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''Irani. ''Hmm.'' '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Because he just – he tried to... interfere everywhere and his own idea of what was news and what should be said. But I remember once... ''uhh''... … Gujral was used to be I and B Minister and... he rang me up . I knew him also. He said ''ki'' Kuldip... your reporter all the time is not correct et cetera. So, I told Irani, I said ''ki'', he said he should-why doesn't he ring me up? I said, well, I know him. So I... anyway I said ''ki bhayi,'' I left for Express. And I... there I started feild work also. And ''uhh''... those were times when Emergency was imposed.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 26:00
|| '''You joined in '75 only, na? In the same year.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''So I … was detained ''uhh''... and... I used to be a corres for the Times, London. This-anybody who was resident editor of Statesman used to have that. So I was there. I styed with them almost twenty-five yeas as their correspondent. Of course they would have their own man. But whenever did not I was sending et cetera. And... so there... I … and … see, then... Ramnath Goenka no doubt stood by me during the emergency whatever – whatever I wrote everything et cetera. But when Mrs Gandhi returned came back in 1980 I still remember. Ramnath Goenka said ''ki'', Kuldip, I want to make up with her.
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">RAMNATH GOENKA: RECONCILIATION WITH INDIRA GANDHI</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''He told you frankly? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Haan.'' … I said, so? He said for that I will have to sacrifice some of my people. So I wrote my resignation and handed over to him. After that, I didn't get any job in any newspaper. Equivalent job... So I started my own column, Between the Lines, which I used to... and syndicated it. Then, till today I'm doing that. Then I had at one time, almost 70-80 newspapers, today I have roughly 30 papers. But I am now writing so that some outlet and my mental exercise. But I have written in books some, books that I took some time, wrote some books, In fact that in, nobody really wrote any book, I remember the first book. Between the lines became very popular. As many as now, I would say, twelve-fourteen books I wrote. Today, in fact all of my still do, it does appear in Pakistan Bangladesh. Because they know by this time I'm know. And secondly, I know their politics.
||

<span style="color:#ff0000;">BETWEEN THE LINES</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''But to return as bit to the emergency. By, the time that happened, you were a very well-connected journalist. You – you knew people across the board, in in- in politics also, in government. Was it still a sh- a shock for you when it actually happened on the Twenty Fifth of June? Or did you... pretty much guess it? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| See, I... I, see I could see and I wrote also. Mrs Gandhi used to be very god friend. After all those days... Since I was with Shastri working. She was ''uhh...'' Nehru had constituted a committee after the debacle...
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| -''''62'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Nineteen Sixty-Two. Yes. And so she presided over that people committee. Shastri was its member. And so I .. so I the how I came to know each other. I... She used to ring me up also. I used to ring her up... But when she- now I was writing for the Express, as I said. But when she became more and more undemocratic, I... didn't like it. SO I started criticising her. And ''uhh''... then she went on and on and I went... So she does- did say later to somebody ''ki'' one person who destroyed my reputation was this Kuldip Nayyar. Because I used to write in the column every week against her. It must be said to the credit as I said to Ramnath Goenka, he never interfered. He interfered only when she came back and he said ''ki'' and all that...
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 31:04
|| '''But at that time, did you get- just before emergency, did you get the sense that she or anyone else in government would call and complain to Ramnath Goenka. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''- Nahi nahi. ''I was …
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''- '''''No?''''' ''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''- ''No.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''''- ''No one complained directly to you? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| After all, I joined the profession only short while before Emergency. Earlier I was in the government. So that... only then they started ''ki bhayi... … ''and, of course... I was warned. Nikhil Chakravarty used be a good friend of mine. He said, they are very much against you. Ramnath Goenka also came and he said ''ki'' he went around and if at all they want to do something about a person and that is you, because you... Of course it happened that once... the Emergency was imposed, Nikhil in fact told me, Nikhil Chakravarty, ''ki ''they are going to search your house. So whatever papers I had I gave to my son. In fact they never came back those papers, maybe they would have been valuable. Because I was in the Home Ministry so I was collecting certain reports et cetera. So on...
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">NIKHIL CHAKRAVARTY</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 32:28
|| '''- Your son has lost them? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''''Huh?''''' '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- Your son has lost them.. or?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| No. Oh ''haan,'' they never came back. Son never gave it to some other boy. Because they were... certain reports of the roits. Certain reports about political reports. So they interesting reports. And.. One report I remember about land reform. Lojunski(?) was the person and... But that ''uhh''... briefly I was In the planning commission. SO at that time I .. leaked out that report becaue it was very critical of India and and reforms... so Nehru had appointed him and Nehru... so when I, Planning Coming I just clicked up So I still remember the deputy chairman. Turvedi(?) was there. SO was there he called me. He said it’s a fact that you leaked out that report? I said yes. He said why? I said so that public should know that how we government hasn't done anything and there are no land reforms et cetera. He said but then you can't stay in the government. So he just sent me back t the Home Ministry, from where anyway after a while I resigned. Emergency... parti- coming back to the emergency, so as I said ''ki bhayi,'' I never thought that they would arrest me. And ''uhh''... when he Nikhil told me ''ki'' look here, clean up your house they will come. So when they came, I said you can search the house, he said no, we haven't come for that, we've come to arrest you.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 34:31
|| '''Where was the house? Was it this house or...?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| No no no no, that ''uhh''... I think we were living at rented house at Malcha Marg – Malcha Marg there was. We were living in that house so. And ''uhh... ''so when... I still remember that government – police jeep wouldn't move.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- Start.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| So I had to push also (laughs).''' '''So anyway. SO when I landed in jail... ''ab...'' suddenly you from air condition room … you come to jail. Suddenly with food well-prepared et cetera well served, you are in. So... first experience mine was of course the Superintendent of jail was a great admirer of mine – of my writing – so he when... he when in his room he gave me tea, biscuits et cetera. So then he took me in , after all I had to be locked. So they- that was the lunchtime. Lunchtime and ''uhh''.... there were too many flies I had never seen so many flies.
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">EMERGENCY IMPRISONMENT</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 36:09
|| '''This was July, ''na, ''when you... when... ?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Haan. ''When they … the.. So, when the food came, food was prepared by some... prisoners because prisoner who were given life imprisonment, they would be the cook. So ''daal'' was there and ''roti''. Nothing else. But ''daal'' there were flies in the ''daal'' so I couldn't. So there was a person sitting next to me. I still remember, he said... there's nothing else or you will go hungry. I said but I can’t take it. He said I can give you this lemon pickle. Pickle – lime. So that would help you. So then I got so used to used to it that whenever I should... fly I would put them out and then start, you know because you get used to it... Similarly, ''uhh''... in the barrack, we were eighty- twenty-eight people at that barrack.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 37:28
|| '''Mostly political prisoners?''''' ''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Haan''. Only. And … this... ''uhh...'' those days, Jan Sangh... people were also being arrested. So with me there were only Jan Sangh were there.''' '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 37:41
|| '''''Achha,'' who Vajpayee was there...'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Later on some socialists came... but I must say ''ki'' they... respected me a lot and... ''toh'' they would say, that there's only fan so people around so we shall give you also so that is... but it was still hard... to put... but I think... human nature is very adaptable so I adapted everything. I was there for three months.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 38:27
|| '''And was it an interesting community? Many of the senior Jan Sangh leaders or...? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| No no no. ''Nahi'', there was only one... ex-mayor was there. But nobody, they would... talk generally but they wouldn't talk to me because they knew I had been writing against the Jan Sangh for such a long time, and so
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 38:45
|| '''''Par, kaun the yeh, ''was Vajpayee with you or Advani with you - ''woh sab yahan nahi the.'''''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Nahi-nahi yeh – uss waq- yeh the... ''Mayor ''tha yahan ka...'' ''Dilli ka. Nahi. Yeh jo Bajpayee wagerah the woh saare who ab... ''Ambala jail ''mey gaye. ''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 39:00
|| '''Oh. And you were in Tihar. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Haan, ''I was in Tihar. And... ''uhh...'' my wife had filed a habbis corpus- habbis corpis petition. Rangarajan, I still remember. So he... Gave judgement that- here is a person who's nothing to do with political, his job his profession, so he writes his own, what is wrong. So he released me. And gave a very good judgement. Still it’s being quoted on the freedom of press et cetera. But he punished. He was taken from ''Daheli'' to Guwahati. Was transferred to Guwahati.
|| Habeas Corpus?
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 39:55
|| '''And what had – was there, I mean a warrant, a charge as such when they arrested you... What exactly was the charge... sedition or...?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

40:12

41:15
|| … it was a detention without trial, ''na''. But later I wanted when I, when emergency was lifted I wanted to see what was the chargesheet... At least the police had to give something. So they had given given ki ''likhe-'' he was fomenting trouble among Muslims and had gone to propagate Jama Masjid. All concocted but still... And ''uhh...'' I'm saying... there, I... Now when I was to be released because Habbis Corpus and... All these now inmates they said ''ki'' ''bhayi ''you didn't be able to write. I said yes I shall write between the lines something but... They said why don't you go to Srinagar and Sheikh Abdullah is the person who can speak out something. So I.came, I went to Srinagar and spoke to Sheikh ''sahab, ki ''issue some statement''. ''
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">SheiKH ABDULLAH</span> <span style="color:#ff0000;">and STATEMENT AGAINST THE EMERGENCY</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 41:17
|| '''And this was the Jan Sangh ''wallahs'', encouraging you to do this and...?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

42:15

43:01
|| ''Haan, haan.'' So, all these... so... some of them even sent a ''uhh...'' Their regret and apology to the government. Otherwise, talk about, very big but, they apologised. Some were released also, on that point. So I went to Sheikh ''sahab. ''Sheikh ''sahab...'' I was surprised ''ki'' … he said ''ki'', Kuldip, you don't know her. She will arrest me also. So I said, Sheikh ''sahab, ''everybody' eyes are really fixed on you. So... so he... his... ''mmm...'' lieutenant was Shamim, I still remember. He used to be parliament ember also so I knew him little because I was in (?). So Shamim came to the airport, I still remember, to receive me, And so I told Shamim that Sheikh ''sahab ''he said you go and talk to him. He's not Sheikh ''sahab'' now, that kind of thing. He's very reluctant to speak. I said, ''achha''. So I went to the hotel and sent to him... So, I must ''ki...'' That very afternoon he came. And he embraced me and said, ''ab tum bhi Haji ho gaye. Khuda, tum bhi Haj gaye, maine kaha. Maine kaha, ''Sheikh ''sahab, sab loge apki taraf dekh rahein hain, toh. Kehta, haan, baat karenge, baat karenge. ''So, I was there for a week. He wouldn't talk, he wouldn't see me or anything but. So this Shamim, as I told you, he was MP and so he was very... he was also, I said, tell him. He said I have told him but he doesn’t want to issue a statement,. So Shamim and I drafted a statement on behalf of Sheikh ''sahab.'' Sheikh ''sahab'', wouldn't sign it. We issued, without his consent.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 43:49
|| '''Ohh! In his name? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''''Haan!''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- Shamim was quite brave also. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

44:57

45:59
|| I said ''ki ''look ''ki'', we, we thought both ''ki'' he wouldn't contradict because it was little critical of emergency but otherwise it was about country blah-blah. And he didn't- we did issue that without his knowledge, and... But... Sheikh ''sahab'', later, many years later, told me. He said ''ki, mujhe bura toh laga lekin aap logon ne achha kiya. ''Because it saved his face et cetera. Then... it was now... an endless tunnel. What do you do. After emergency who’s going to... So I... ''uhm... ''those days I remember I met lots o people, I said ''ki ''why don’t you speak? No body wanted to speak, they were so afraid. Journalists, afraid, nobody would, Press Club, I would go.. People wouldn't even come near me. They would shun. Shun our house also. Because such fear. I was a member pf the Press Council so I raised the pint there to be the chairman to convene a meeting... he said what is the purpose? you know...''' '''You know nobody publish our publish our proceeding. I said it's not a question of proceeding. Posterity will see my god, here's the highest body to protect and preserve freedom of press so nothing,, not a word was said So he called the local members first. To my surprise, shock, nobody supported me, only I was the one. The people were so afraid. So... Iyengar, Iyengar used to be higher member trust, Justice Iyengar. So, he was justified ''ki tu kya...?'' But later when this... white paper was issued...
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">FEARFUL MEDIA</span>

<span style="color:#ff0000;">PRESS COUNCIL</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 46:10
|| '''- In '77.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| I saw that there was a letter by him to... to... Shukla at that time.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- V. C. Shukla. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Haan. ''There he said ''ki, ''with great difficulty I have managed that no resolution should be passed, though Kuldip was very insistent blah-blah. I said my god! Even that man, I had never knew ''ki'' he was party to but anyway...
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 46:38
|| '''But in Express itself, what was, I mean the line...'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

47:21

48:30
|| No, Express itself, see... Goenka... did not interfere. And... I... was on the nes side et cetera. Ajit Bhattacharjea was on the … Mulgaonkar was the editor, he had been... I think sent back or some... asked to step down. So... they used to be ''uhm...'' Financial Express editor, so he was an old man, I'm forgetting his name He was asked to look after the.. And but, he, I must say, that man... was... such a fierce, independent person and he ''uhh''... gave me full freedom, he said you do, you write whatever... so I when I now was very conscious about writing so he would make it stronger, he said ''ki, ''it doesn’t... let it go. So he... it went on like that. ''Uhh...'' Now... when the emergency was about to end, I mean there was no reason to believe but some policeman told me. They said, look here, it looks like emergency is ending. He said we have been asked to think of candidates who can win. So they connected two and two, must have... This happened, no doubt about it. And then, I must say, to the credit of I N- this intelligence bureau. They gave a report to her. That she would sweep the polls. So she was riding a Tiger. So she wanted to say, look here, how do I dismount. So she announced an election. And was...
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- Trounced.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Hope- hoping that she would make a comeback but she was wiped out. I must say the question. She was defeated, her son was defeated – all them... And I, in express we used to have outside, you know.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 49:26
|| '''- The hoardings. I remember. I saw them myself.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - ''Achha.'' So... so when I was... I... saw that Sanjay Gandhi so I put it. SO everybody now was saying, ''bachhara toh hua, gaaye ka kya hua?'' ''Toh...'' So I got this flash now. Of no, first, this man rang up from my stinger who was in Rae Bareilly. He said ''ki ji...'' Mrs Gandhi is trailing. I said, don't be silly. How can she... So then... the turnout she was defeated. So now, I was in charge to put... I said not possible.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 50:25
|| '''- I'll tell you the one I remember, but go on.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

51:27

52:30
|| I said, not possible. And even if she were- she would come back from some other constituency. After all I never thought that Congress would be backed up. Would never imagine... So I didn't want to pretend- there were so much pressing people, what is the result, what's the result. So I called this stinger of mine, I said please check again. He checked. He said ''ki, ''she's lost. I said what about the returning officer. He said ''ki'' returning officer has not announced it yet. So anyway, he returned et cetera. But I tell you ''ki'', returning officer announced defeat. So... I think Brar was his name, I still remember. Second day, after say election et cetera. I flew to Lucknow and drove to Rae Bareilly. I said tell me, how did you announce the election. I'm saying- defeat. Because, she at that time, there was no- All India Radio say at the end. During the period you ddint know ''ki bhayi'', who was at... He said ''ji'' you come inside and you meet my wife. So I... widfe was Gujarati. He said ''I ''when she was defeated and her... Fotedar. Fotedar rang up and Raman rang up ''ki ''don't announce. … So he said ''ki'' I went to my wife, she said ''ki ''this is a betrayal so we must announce. So he- I – he take me there. So I said ''ki'', why did you say. She said ''ki, ''look here. I come from very small family et cetera. But this was dishonesty, I told him ''ki mai bartan maanj lungi, lekin beimani nahi karenege... ''And he announced... becaus eit was very brave of him, that is how I am saying ''ki ''I went and found...
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">aNNOUNcement oF ELECtion reSULtS </span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 53:24
|| '''Did he- did he face any consequences later after...'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| He did. See, during the emergency, ''uske baad toh Janta aa gayi'', and he was very good. So in 1980 when she came back, so I was trying to find out as a news story. What has happened to hi. So somebody told me it’s Allahabad, so I rang up. I was able to trace hi. He said, Mr Nayar, kindly ring me up and never again. He said you have no idea how I have been harassed. So, please, don't ever ring me up. I have respect for you that's the reason I took the call, otherwise I wouldn't. They have rally made my life miserable. So he was a poor man.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 54:21
|| '''- Such vindictiveness, my goodness. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| This.. When as I said ''ki...'' me... Now Ramnath Goenka said I want to make with her. So I had to lie. After that I never got a job. Anywhere. And I started writing this column which I syndicated. Then people... by... It sustained me, ''na''. And wrote books also, little bit. It sustained me. I had to, at that time, my children were going to school, I just was able to manage. We were able to... But it was tough. Because, after all, on freelancing you couldn't really live.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 55:16
|| '''Do you think that- that character of the relationship between journalists, proprietors and the government remains? That it's still a dangerous profession to make enemies in? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| See, now I find ''ki'' journalist himself has given up. He has compromised. I don’t think there has been pressure on him. He now has realised ''ki'' which side is bread is butter. So he has... After all now, every body looks pro-Modi Modi Modi. I don’t find any criticism of Modi. Maybe there is very little if at all. So I think what has happened to journalist today that he has lost that commitment. He doesn't have that kind of... –
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">VOLUNTARY COMPROMISE</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 56:13
|| '''But not out- You don't think it's out of fear – you think it's out of chasing... the buttered bread? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| No. Out of fear. No doubt about it. But that is not the profession. We are not... we- when we chose to be journalist... you knew ''ki, ''look here, this is a profession that , a little– away from other things. And so, you had certain commitment, certain thing. And you ha to suffer. But not today's journalists. Today's journalist, he can- Modi ''hai, ''Mrs Gandhi ''hai, koi aaye- toh theek hai, bhayi...'' But that way, I am disappointed in journalism. I don’t think there is a pressure from the government or from the owner. Now he himself has...
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- It's been internalised. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| But...''' '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''One thing that intrigues me, again, about the emergency is – you know I had some memory of it, but – the –the Express and the Statesman to some extent have a reputation for having stood up, obviously the partly people like you suffered. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- '''Specially the Express.''' '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- ''Hmm''. But what was it that you were actually able to get away with? Since there were strict controls, there was censorship, I know that in the period from Jan until March, there a lot of people came out because there weren't consequences. But...'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 57:39
|| - See, what...
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''What did you get away with before that? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

58:18

59:37

1:00:21

01:01:23

|| See, I personally think ''ki'' Express, since at that time, I would say, ''uhh''.. I was practically running the paper Mulgaonkar as I told you had gone. And Ajit Bhattacharjea was more interested in writing et cetera. So, I was ''uhm''... I used to write – I told. I still remember, I told reporters ''uhh''... to kill me may not be able to publish what you are saying. But you write, some day we shall see, we shall tell people ''ki'' this wasn't the thing. So some of them wrote and some they don't, but still I remember I told them that ''ki....'' And... what... I had in mind was that... that the Express had now become a sentiment. For the people. Here's a paper that stands against the government. Something. So... articles may not be but news items... the government at one time, punished us in one sense. There used to be ''samachar.'' So they stopped. ''Samachar.'' SO I had, after all our bureaus also. SO I... I still remember Javed Laiq was a journalist at that time. So I got him a short band radio. So you- I said you listen to world news and Voice of America, BBC et cetera. So he- and he used to produce. So we produced the paper, without news agencies. And in fact the paper was- without the agency was so good that people when I- we resumed, they said, ''nahi nahi nahi, woh tumhara pehla achha tha. ''Becaue at that time, all bureaus were different – stringers putting in and then. ''Who radio se sun- radio se sun-vun ke achha ''paper release ''karte the''. But then ''jab yeh cheezein mil jaayein toh kaun yeh karta hai...'' And... ''uhh''... … Express used to be little cheaper than other papers. ''Toh... ''Goenka said ''ki bhayi,'' ''itna news toh mehenga ho gaya hai'' and you are still publishing because- order ''zyada aatey the.'' So I said, we shall raise the price. He said, ''nahi nahi nahi.'' Today, Express is not selling sentiment, selling, whatever we do. So we raised the price – nothing. I mean, there was no... But once the emergency was over. I think I had crossed the circulation of one lakh or something. Once emergency was over. Ramnath Goenka said you can retain this. I said, no, I wouldn’t be able to retain. He sad why, I said that time, Express was not selling. But no, he said, they people bought it only because of... it happened...
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - '''The emergency was- the emergency was good for circulation.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Haan.'' After that, ''toh''... after that, when it was emergency – lifted. We were not able to regain the circulation at all.
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">PUBLISHIN DURING THE EMERGENCY: CONTENT AND CIRCULATION</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 1:02:02
|| '''But, it would be interesting- what about advertising, at this time. I mean was there a perception – did the market know that your circulation was high? And did you benefit in terms of advertisement, then – or did advertisers stay away out of fear of the government?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 1:02:19
|| No, I must say that... some advertisers stayed and not only stayed but helped. Take, Lever brothers. Dear brothers was now a big... So, they used to be their … I still remember. Alphon or whatever name, I just forget. I said ''ki bhayi,'' look here. I knew him. I said ''ki bhayi-bhayi ''we have a very big problem of cash. And... we can't – we wouldn't be able to give salary. So he said, what do you want. I-I want you to raise little bit, whatever you can and give us advance of two years. He raised. And they gave us the advance for two years. Now that he would do because- he said- he told me later- he said ''ki'' the person in charge was sympathetic to you... the emergency et cetera. Was against emergency. So when- he said he put up the proposal he just said yes. But Lever bother would do it because after all, they were not directly under- because England ''waisa tha. ''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 1:03:53
|| '''But- and Tatas, Birlas, how did they behave in terms of advertising – did they squeeze you at all? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Birlas didn't behave well. But Tatas did. Tatas... Birlas was afraid. GG Birla was afraid.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''And was ''sarkari ''advertising important at that time or...? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Nahi'', ''sarkari'' almost stopped.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- So it was there, but it stopped. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| See, UPSC advertisement we would get because after all that was meant to attract..... then also they didn’t want to say ''ki'' so much discrimination that they just stopped. So UPSC we would get our- some other tender we would get but nothing much. But we were able to manage. ''Uhh...'' And as I said, advance et cetera. But also, to the credit of Ramnath Goenka, that he also had... See, in Bombay, he had that tower, do you know?
|| ADVERTISING:LEVER BROTHERSTATABIRLAGOVERNMENT
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 1:04:51
|| '''Yeah. Express tower. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| So, is there a lot of rent and he used to divert money to this side. Because otherwise, it would not have come. Later, of course, It's another thing that... and when... when he said that I want to make up with Mrs Gandhi. He said I am at the end of the road. Either I close down the paper or I make up with her. So I am going to make up with her.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 1:05:20
|| '''So that was a business decision for him you think, essentially, yeah? Because he seen you've also written his sentiments were basically Jan Sanghi. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Haan haan. Pakkka. Pakka. ''He was RSS man. There …. In fact he, once he won on their seat – some ticket.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''Interesting.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - What else would you like to …
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''I think we can leave it there.'''
||
|-
|}

Audio 2

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- Hmm. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 00:01
|| '''- '''Who would go to the houses and slip in their doors et cetera. Because ''uhh...''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- These newsletters? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Haan. Hum ''prepare ''karte the aur...''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''- '''''So, were you involved with that also? Did the Express use its presses what- cyclostyle machines to do it or...?''''' ''
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">UNDERGROUND NEWSLETTERS</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| No. But I was associated with the people who were doing it. They were underground people.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 00:22
|| '''Can you tell me any more? I mean like who...''uhm... ''and one set of people or were there multiple newsletters. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| One person who used to work with me was... ''mmm... ''Barkha Dutt's father...
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''Mother. Father? ''Achha. ''He's still alive I think, no? Jangpura ''mey rehte the.'''''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| I don't know if he's alive or not. His brother also. His brother was my class fellow. But... and...
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 01:03
|| '''So they did what- they were bringing out newsletters? ''Achha.'''''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Yes. Though I was (?) helping them. And because I had the source, ''na? ''Where would they get from otherwise. What I couldn't it use there, we would use there.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''And those would be distributed by hand? So to speak.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Haan. ''I... But, I can tell you, that it was... great kind of feeling. ''Uhh''... I would say of course... you could be arrested. I had been a month arrested. I still remember VC Shukla ringing me up. He aid ''ki'', look here, we will put you again behind the bars. So I gave him very, since I knew him well. I gave him a very bad example. I said you lose your chastity once... So I have now been used to jail, so it doesn't matter now. You can pick me up.
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">VC SHUKLA</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 02:31
|| '''And tell me a little bit about the strangeness of this. Of personally knowing many of the people... in government – '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Intimately.''' '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''So, how did they interact with you, did they just cut you dead? Or you're saying VC Shukla called you up to give you a warning, was it a friendly warning or...? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

03:08
|| Yes. No, he called me to his room. He said, why don't you drop in sometime. He said, Kuldip, Younus- Younus used to be a kind of busybody. Younus, Frontier Gandhi's some cousin. So he was very close to Mrs Gandhi. So he said ''ki ''Younus said ''ki'', arrest him. So I have been saying ''nahi. ''So I'm warning you that I – probably they would arrest you. I said doesn't matter ''aur isme...'' But he did give me- so when I met him in the press club. So... he said, how was jail? I said, what are you on? He said but they gave you publicity of millions of rupees. I said that's well, may be. He said ''ki, ''the fact that you were the only journalist who was picked up, so you... you have been quoted in BBC... like all... Alright. But... but after that, Shukla and I just so... I mean used to be, he was Defence Production Minister. So he used to take me along also and I used to... we were good friends... He did try once or twice ''ki'' we could revive old kind of thing. I said, ''nahi, khatam ho gaya woh. ''
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">INFORMAL WARNINGS</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 04:30
|| '''Who else did you know from that Emergency generation of politicians. Gujral you knew, of course, but he was shunted out.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Uhm...'' Gujral himself was... I knew...''' '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''Bansi Lal?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Bansi Lal knew me. I mean also knew him. Bansi Lal was with Sanjay. And... Kamal Nath I knew. See, Kamal Nath close to...''' '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- He's a much younger... '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

05:15
|| - ''Haan. ''But see, Kamal Nath is a Punjabi. So he when, Indian Express board was re-constituted, during the Emergency, KK Birla became the chairman. Kamal Nath was a member. So Kamal Nath, he said that, Kuldip ''bhai'', we'll make you the chief editor. You come and meet Sanjay Gandhi. I said I've no compulsion in meeting him, but tell me, Kamal, what common ground do we have? He said why don't you write in favour of us? I said ''ki,'' what you are doing, I don't believe in. So if you were to do something good, I shall definitely write about you. But anyway...
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">KAMAL NATH</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 06:13
|| '''So that was a relatively friendly interaction. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| And... Kamal Nath was the only person. You know it's happen. Now when the Emergency was over, Janta government came. So Kamal Nath was the first one who came to my house. He said, Kuldip, they're after me and Sanjay. I said I don't think anybody can help Sanjay. But I can help you in one way. He said, how. I said, ''dekho, ki ''Kamal Nath, the government now would not – what I want you to- You slip away from the country. He said ''woh toh, sab jagah pe mera naam hai. Maine kaha, ''if I know this government, ''hamara jo system hai – tum ''Madras ''se chale jao. Wahan nahi tumhara naam hoga. ''And which was – came true. ''Kyunki, hamara ''system aisa hi hai na. Dilli ''aur aaspaas. ''So he went to- or he went away then, no rpblem.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 07:32
|| '''He flew out or took a ship? Or...? He had a passport.'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

08:16
|| ''Haan!'' Passport ''uska pehle hi ho gaya tha. Sab tha. Aur wahan pe – wahan pe kisi ko pata bhi nahi tha. ''See, Daheli had not informed Madras ''ki, ''look here – ''iss kism ka aadmi. Phir mai jab woh … aya wapis toh usne dekha ki ''that this was very good – this trick worked. So, ''lekin... ''I said ''ki, btao yeh... ki... mai kitaab likh raha, ''The Judgement. So I said ''ki mai... ''Sanjay ''se milna chahta hoon. Kehta no problem. ''So I... … ''ab doosri government bas aa rahi thi. Toh ''I went to Mr Gandhi's house. So Mrs Gandhi saw me, Indira Gandhi and came – ''barande se aane mey. Maine kaha, nahi, ''I haven't come to meet you... today I've come to meet your son. ''Toh woh darkhat ke neeche khada tha. Toh maine kaha, ''Sanjay, tell me, how did you think you would get away with it? He said, what was the problem? Bansi Lal ''ke saath, ''I would have ruled the country. In my scheme of things, there were no elections for thirty years. ''Toh maine kaha ''election ''kyun hue? Kehta woh unse poochho. ''I opposed her, she said no, election must be taken. Because she wanted to –
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">SANJAY GANDHI</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 09:24
|| '''- Be the good guy still – '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - ''Nahi'', dismount that Tiger. ''Aur uski jitni ''criticism'' thi, sari ''West'' se thi. ''East ''mey taarif ho rahi thi, ''West ''mey toh sab uske...dost the, saheli thi … ''so she couldn't take it. So that is the first thing she did ''ki kisi tarah main... ''But she was confident she would come back... Only thing where I look back – I think if she had only – emergency ''mey uttha ke, ekdum ''election ''na karati. Chheh mahiney ke baad karati toh ''she would have had a better... ''Kyunki yeh unka aapas mey ladna-vadna shuru ho jate hain.''''' '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 10:05
|| -''' Give them more time to... Well, in the same way, do you think... I mean... there wasn't much retribution in the end. I mean, there was a sense immediately that they were going after them but turned and then the implosion of the Janta. Do you think it would have been a good thing if – if you- the commissions, the judgements, if there had been more punishment for...'''
|| POST_EMERGENCY: LACK OF RETRIBUTION
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''- Dekho na... ''See, Shah Commission appoint ''hui. Aur baqayada trial wagerah hue. Lekin...'' What I found was the people said ''ki bhayi, aap usko ''defeat'' kar diya toh usse badla le liya. Ab jab...-''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''Political class was saying or this was the common sentiment?'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Common sentiment. Looked like that. Because when she got back... I tried to analyse, I went around to people et cetera. ''Woh kehne lage ki bhayi, ji, ab ek dafa saza dedi... Hamare yahan woh aage giri hui hai, usse aur maartey ho. ''I think this psychology I didn't understand.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 11:19
|| '''Striking, given your-your other stories of the vindictiveness of these people even later when they come back in '80 that they would punish a small official. '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

12:29
|| Do you think – ''kafiyon se. Woh, mujhe yaad hai ki bhayi, ''Police award'' mil rahe the. ''You know, who had done very well... during the emergency ''wagerah jo matlab... … ke baad unhone jo, kin logon ne... (?) kiya, wagerah. ''By this time, award ''milne- diye jaane the. Toh, ''she was there. ''Woh award milne – ''they stopped it. They said ''ki, nahi.'' ''Nahi award denge. ''Police ''wagerah, koi ''award ''nahi diye. ''Bravery ''ka.'' Because we did... Power ''jo tha, who ''Dhawan ''tha. ''And Dhawan ''se maine, baadmey. ''I mean I... said ''ki bhayi,'' I wanted to write a book and so give me material. He said family ''ke muttalaq kuchh nahin kahunga. Baki jo marzi poochho. Maine kaha baki toh open hai lekin khair...'' He did tell me about this ''woh... ''West Bengal ''mey ''Chief Minister ''tha...? ''
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">RK DHAWAN</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''- ''Uhh,'' at that time? ''Mai bhi bhool ja raha hoon, uhm... Ashok Mitra? Nai, uhh... '''''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Nai nai nai, ''Ashok ''nahi. Khair, toh... ''She... ''yeh jo tha, ''he said ''ki, yeh jo advice thi, ki ''emergency ''lag sakti hai. Yeh uss hi ki thi. Kyunki ''Mrs Gandhi ''ne toh kaha ''emergency ''toh lagi hui hai, jo ''Bangladesh ''ke saath ladai hui thi, uske baad. ''He said ''nahi, woh ''domestic emergency ''aur hai. Aur usko constitution mey yeh tum kar sati ho aur... kehta... ''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 13:30
|| '''Basically, a period that is under-examined, the lessons of which have not been absorbed, do you think...?''''' ''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| No, we haven't learnt anything. Because what has happened after that is... See, … emergency ''ke bohut bhayi loge pakde gaye. ''Hundred thousand people without trial ''pakde gaye the. ''What happened was Mrs Gandhi ousted morality from politics. ''Kyunki...'' She resorted to anything. Hitting below the belt ''wagerah Uske baad bas yeh ho gaya ki bhayi, jo marzi karo. Toh ''Chief Minister, when they came they- police ''ko use kiya, sab kuchh- jo marzi karo. ''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 14:21
|| '''And you think that culture has continued? '''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

15:47

16:36
|| So that-… and also those institutions, ''jo'' assert ''karti thi, who khatam ho gayin. ''Institutions ''kaunsi reh gayin? Jo bhi... ''Press''- who dara hua. ''Bureaucracy ''- woh dari hui. ''Judiciary ''tak dari hui. ''So institutions ''jo hain, ''they had been hammered and they have not – what - regained their health. Because... and, I don't know whether we would get them back or how. They – ''ab yeh jo doosri jo cheez ho gayi, na, ki ''whole thing has become politicised. Press politicised, bureaucracy politicised – everything. Take this, ''apna... matlab ''bureaucracy ''ko. Kya hota hai ki... Agar ek ''Chief Minister'' toh woh jo kehtein hain who karta hai. ''Willing- now they're willing to the tail-end. ''Ab toh nahi – agar ''fuss'' kiya, unko kaha jaye, ki bhaiya ''Kuldip Nayar ''ko... toh phir... jhoothe mukkadame mey dhaka(?) denge – kuchh kar denge... Achha, aur jo... kyunki ''TV-''vee-vee keh denge: hanji unka pakda gaya humne dekha ki unhone koi paise ghapan kiye hain ya kuchh aisi baatein. ''Transperency'' toh hai nahi na? ''So we, no doubt are a democracy. ''Jo ''vitues ''hoti hai na democracy ki who kaafi devalued ho gayin hain. Ek toh ab aaj... waise election jeetna hi kitna mushkil hai – pata nahi kitne karodon lagenge... ''JP ''ki ''wave ''aayi toh doosri ayegi. Doosra yeh ki bhayi ab, dekho kabhi... ''Polarisation Hindu-Muslim ''ke naam pe bohut kam thi. Ab uske naam pe bohut shuru ho gayi. ''Polarisation. ''Ab who ''Modi ''aya toh... achhe ''scholars ''jo hain, who jagah se- jagah se nikale haye hain kyunki bhayi, ''supposed to be secular ''toh apne-apne bhar raha hai.'' Pune ''mey ab jo ''agitation ''ho raha hai who ''institute ''mey, woh yehi hai ki ''they have brought a- some RSS man and the students are not willing to accept him. So ''yeh jo cheezein aa gayi, na, ab yeh...''
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">DESTRUCTION OF INSTITUTIONS</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 17:21
|| '''At the same time, so many of people who are in government now first tasted popularity in the emergency. That...'''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

18:18
|| ''Nahi ab, woh … ''How many officers would really stand up? ''Bohut kam. Agar uska ''Minister'' kuchh kehta hai ''but... At, ''dekhiya na, ''at best, ''kya hota hai, ''officer ''ko... ''transfer'' kar diya jayega. Ya... chaliye, koi aur ''post'' de di jayegi. Aur toh nahi ''permanent ''- ''constitution ''mey unko... bohut kam hai jo... aur … ''Standing for principles … any sort of thing. ''Theek hai chalta hai, humey kya? Toh zyada- yeh ''corruption ''bhi bohut ho gayi, na? Pehle inta nahi tha... (?) Zyada jo darr jo ho raha hai, na, woh yeh hai ki... ''judiciary ''jo thi ''independent, ''woh kam ho gayi ''independent.
||

Signal interference.
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''Independent ''kahan thi...''' ''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Pehle thi! Bohut thi pehle – uff. ''You have no idea.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| '''''Kab? '60s mey...?''' ''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Mai baat kar raha hoon, ''after independence for many years. ''Yeh... ''I remember, Mehr Chand Mahajan was the senior-most judge. Nehru did not want to make him Chief Justice of India, because ''iske zara ''views ''thode se... ''The whole bench! All members said we will resign if you do not make so Nehru had to make it. ''Ab woh cheezein nahi na rahin. Doosra yeh ki, dekho, ab ''take an example, even a journalist... ''Uski woh ''commitment'' nahi rahi. Woh ''profession'' toh hai. ''Industry ''hi samjho – ab kya ''professionalism''. ''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 19:27
|| '''''Haan, ''journalism is easily parleyed into contacts and money. '''
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">STATE OF JOURNALISM TODAY</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

20:00
|| ''Haalanki, bhayi, ''we are the persons. ''Jo ki, isko, ''democracy ''ko bacha sakte hain. Ki bhayi... ''After all, we are the transmitting lines. ''Theek hai, ''reader ''ya jo... ''listener - ''woh jo hum likhte hain wohi yeh sunta hai ya parhta hai. Agar hum hi ''dishonest ''ho gaye, toh usko jo... ''After all, if... the information is not free. Then how reponse can be free? ''Woh toh wohi hoga jo hoga jo hai. Toh yeh do cheezein hain.''
|| <span style="color:#ff0000;">ROLE OF JOURNALIST IN DEMOCRACY</span>
|-
|}

.NjQ2.MzQ

2017-11-03T11:34:49Z

Bhanugs:

<div style="text-align:center;"><span style="color:#262626;">'''INTERVIEW WITH JAWID LAIQ'''</span></div>

<u>'''INTERVIEWEE'''</u>* Name: Jawid Laiq [JL]
* Occupation: Journalist

<u>'''INTERVIEWER'''</u>* Farah Yameen [FY]

<u>'''Medium: Audio recordings'''</u>* Format: Audio .wav
* Language: English with smatterings in Hindi
* <span style="background-color:#ffff00;">Location of Interview</span>:
* Date of the interview: 19 May 2016

<u>'''ClipS name/DURATION: '''</u>

'''Recording 1: fy_jlaiq_raw_190516_1'''

* Length 00: 33: 23
* Bit rate: 1536 kbps
* Size: 366 MB
* Date modified: 19 May 2016 01:56

<div style="margin-left:1.27cm;margin-right:0cm;">'''Recording 2 : fy_jlaiq_raw_190516_2'''</div>* Length 00: 22: 14
* Bit rate: 1536 kbps
* Size: 244 MB
* Date modified: 19 May 2016 02:18

'''Recording 1: fy_jlaiq_raw_190516_1'''

<span style="color:#3482b1;">Interview Begins0:00</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [FY] : Today is the 19th of May and I'm interviewing Jawid Laiq. So we'll start with your career in journalism and how you got into journalism. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : I started my career in journalism in Bombay in 1970 and I was with ...started out as an Assistant Editor, </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Economic and Political Weekly ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">from 1970 to 1974, so a bit over four years. And then just before the Emergency I got a job with </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> in Delhi as a Special Correspondent. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">0:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> In...in March or April 1975, and the Emergency of course came few months later in June. So and it was a very interesting period to me, you know, to move from a academic sort of magaziners doing mostly editing and commissioning articles but I always wanted to do, you know, field reporting because at EPW it was mostly, you know, commissioning articles </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">1:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">???</span><span style="color:#262626;"> then rewriting ...rewriting their articles; so then I moved to Delhi it was mostly economic and political reporting but within two months the Emergency </span><span style="color:#262626;">had started, so there was a of course massive clamp down on reporting and so on. And then I was with </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> from '75-'78; and then after '78 till now, I work for various other, you know, print </span><span style="color:#262626;">magazines and then news agencies and then in between, I was also with ...I was also with Amnesty International, London, as a researcher from '87 -'94; and before that I was with the Centre for Policy Res...Research in ...in Delhi doing some research on regional groupings like SAARC and NASIA </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I mean GCCE and so on. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So I really been mostly journalist but also done human rights research and academic research.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Ah right! So you joined </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> in March, that was the time when the Allahabad Court judgement came - 12th March. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : No...no it wasn't in March at all. The judgement came on in June ...in June 1975. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Wasn't that the appeal to the Supreme Court? There were...when there was a stay on her being able to vote?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : No, the judgement came, I think it was on June ...probably June 12th if I'm not wrong...</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Yeah! ---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And then that was the Allahabad court judgement and then of course it went to the Supreme Court where I think it was Krishna Iyer who gave a stay on it or something like that. So that really...that stay allowed Indira Gandhi to impose Emergency on the night of June 25th and 26th.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Ah right! So when you joined the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, what sort of news reporting were you doing at that point of time?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : At that time when I joined I was mostly doing reporting on economic ministries like, you know, agriculture and to some extent finance and so on but I was also reporting on you know they allocated different things. So I was reporting on agriculture, finance, and also reporting on the communist parties. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So do you remember a particularly important report that you did just before the Emergency period?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : Well, there are so many reports because I used to report every day and that's...I mean...----</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">4:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Something about ...---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">4:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"><nowiki>---- .... lot of interesting reports but nothing....I can't remember anything which is really very, you know, outstanding. One report that I did was a...I felt that after Mrs Gandhi had been sort of found guilty by the Allahabad High Court, I sensed that something was going to happen....she's going to react. And that article was published not in </nowiki></span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> but was published in ...in </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Economic and Political Weekly ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">about how there's a build-up going on to project Mrs Gandhi as a sort of leader, you know, who was trying ...who was trying to make the forces against her, you know, who was trying to stop the forces pushing her into a corner. That was in...I think I reported that in June...just...just before the Emergency.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:58</span><span style="color:#262626;">[FY] : Just before the....you were anticipating something.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:00</span><span style="color:#262626;">[JL] : Yeah, definitely.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : A reaction?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : Actually I'll give you that report. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Ah Okay! That would be nice. So in these three months could you recollect the whether, given that everybody talks about how journalism had been clamped down and there was a sudden clamp down....a lot of people say - we completely did not expect something this drastic. Can you describe the period just before June 25th... between March and June 25th when (muffled spot) </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> even </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Economic and Political Weekly ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">you were reporting and it was...it continues to be a very... </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : (interjects) That was just one report. No but I was doing mostly other </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">???</span><span style="color:#262626;"> doing economic ministries and the communist parties but you see, I think the judgement of the Allahabad High Court came probably as a surprise to many, at least to most journalists and others as far as I can remember. So I don't...I don't think they expected this sort of severe clamp down. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But at the same time it should be said that most journalists those days used to especially the correspondents used to report mostly, you know, very routine things about government...not all of them but most of them about handouts from ministries, you know, and so on. So it was very routine and dull reporting and ... and I don't think except for a few exceptions most journalists were just in a way reporting in a very clerical routine manner whatever the ministries pushed out. And since then of course things have changed a lot but at that time I don't think...now people say - Oooo, you know, that journalism was a very respectable profession and so on; and actually I think it was pretty dull profession before the Emergency. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So who were the people and what kinds of report would you say were ...well not more than people but more than more specifically what kinds of reports were out of, you know, these dull reporting ...what were the important reports that were making it to the papers? What kind of reports?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : Well, that's too general a question. I...its so many years back ....what is it now...almost...what is it...forty years back?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">7:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Okay, let me make it more specific. You were...you were talking about like the economy and there were a lot of criticisms about the economy during Indira Gandhi's reign, so I mean that was one of the post-19...when the when the elections were declared again...the Janta Party also fought on that front apart from the ...so what were you reporting on the economy and how...what were the reactions from the government on that?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : At that time there was no....in early '75, there was no major crises in the economy....of course there had been the railway strike in '74 which was one of the reasons later claimed that Mrs. Gandhi claimed, you know, that they were trying to subvert her rule and so on. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">7:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But otherwise in '75 as far as I can remember there was no major economic crises in ...in ...in early '75. The ...there was a crisis much earlier when she came to power, you know and there was a crisis...there was food crisis and there was ship-to-mouth existence of American supplying grain and so on but that was in the '60s.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So by '75 I think the economy was fairly steady and ... and I don't think the Emergency was in any way directly related to ...to the economy.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Yea. The...No, I was asking about the economy because the government during the Emergency refused all the criticism. I mean they would not let any criticism of the government reported. So I was wondering what kind of criticism was going on before that. I mean one was of course Sanjay Gandhi.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : Sanjay Gandhi was there also what I ...I can't sort of directly connect anything to do with economy with ...with...with the reporting before the Emergency. I think the Emergency became an excuse to stop even the mildest criticism of ...of government policies of any kind and especially of the Family. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : You were talking about the ...the railway strike which George Fernandes ... that was by George Fernandes. Was that report in the Economic and Political Weekly...I mean was there an article in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Economic and Political Weekly''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. I am assuming there would be.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : It might have been mentioned but all the other papers had ... had major articles on...on...on...on the ...on the railway strike but I don't know if the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''EPW''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> had anything specific...must have had it...probably. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So okay...so let's go to the day that the Emergency was declared. Where were you?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : On the day or the night the Emergency was declared, I ...I was at home and f course sitting with some friends. So it came as a total ...although one was expecting something might happen and I had written about it but even then it came as quite a surprise; and then of course I was with some journalist friends and we thought my god this is really, you know, how long will it last....how long will we be under dictatorship, and what will happen to me in journalism. I personally felt- O you know that what will happen to me as a journalist because it will be hopeless to be a journalist in this total censorship. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">10:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So there was a....the immediate feeling was of ...of ...of, you know, great despondency and ...and of great sort of concern that, you know, as a journalist how will one work at all. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Right. So ...so the next day when you went to the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> office, what were the conversations that were happening in the journalist circles. And I am assuming there would also be people who were parting with the Congress and then people were parting with the other side, whichever ... whatever the sides were there. There must be people within the newspaper office taking sides. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : You see after 40 years you can't recall conversations of, you know, which day what happened and so on. It's impossible to recall. But generally in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I think most people were, you know, were totally against what had happened that night. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So and of course most of them were fairly, I think, people were fairly quiet but at the same time quiet upset about what's happening; and I think except for one or two most people...but </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was an excep...was an exception, you know, defy the Emergency from the beginning. And of course partly defy the Emergency because there were so many people in </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> including Kuldip Nayar, the Editor and Chief as Mulgaonkar, and others who were totally against the Emergency. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So that sense I don't think what happened at </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> reflects the rest of journalism. And of course I'm sure there were lot of Hindi paper, Hindi journalists and ...and local language journalists whom you should perhaps interview because lot of them quietly defied. They deified it in a very courageous fashion but we don't much about them.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Exactly! So I have been asking everybody about these people who were reporting in the local or the regional languages and nobody has come up with a single name so far.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : No! But you've been mostly meeting people like me nah... from very limited class.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">12:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So but would you not know your....</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">12:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : I mean if you meet Mala (</span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">Check</span><span style="color:#262626;"> the Name)</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">12:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and me and </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">???,</span><span style="color:#262626;"> we'll know nothing about these people. --- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">12:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Exactly. ---- ...so you should really cast your net wider, you know. Go to some state capitals and so on and many of them must have died by now...I don't know. You should go to places like Varanasi and there was a very active, you know, journalism against ...Hindi journalism against the Emergency. You should perhaps go...perhaps also to maybe to Bhopal and places like that. From Delhi you won't get anything. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : No, I ...I was just asking if given that there should be ...I assume that there would be a network of journalists who irrespective of their languages they wrote in would know - okay there's certain people writing in these places in a different language. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">13:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So was there not like a reporting from the hinterland that was coming to the capital and like in exchange of news between...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : Reporting for what sorry?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Wasn't there an exchange of communication between people from the hinterlands to the capital and vice versa?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : You know just like now there's definitely a, you know, its very compartmentalised journalism even now between the English language media including TV and so on, and the non-English language media and again then its again compartmentalised between different languages so there was actually  never has been much communication although there are, you know, journalists associations and groups and so on but even then there's a definite sort of almost a wall between English language journalism and ...and non-English language journalism; and amongst  non-English language journalism differs say between what, you know, Malayalam and Tamil journalism and Hindi journalism and so on. So for that you require massive research. I don't think you can get in by, you know, just talking to English language journalists.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Yeah, okay! Right. So what were your primary assignments during the Emergency when there was a clamp down and you were not allowed to report criticism of the government? Did you....in what form did you defy (a)?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : Well at </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, we defied the Emergency in a number of ways which were quite subtle in the sense that we play up, you know, reports of countries where there was a dictatorship and what effect it had there, you know, foreign countries...foreign news and you know played down sort of achievements which the Indira Gandhi regime wanted us to play-up like that 20-point programme and so on. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">15:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And then ...then of course there were all sorts of other things happened and then against </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> because it continued to, in a quiet way,  defy the Emergency was that, you know, they switched off the electricity in some point, they cut-off government advertising. At one point they also stopped all the foreign news, so we didn't get any foreign news and so on for a few weeks. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">15:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So things like that. Then I remember that as far as the foreign news...what we did was and I personally did was listen to foreign news broadcast on those, you know, old style short wave radios...those days. And Mr Goenka who was the owner of the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> his flat...and from those news broadcast a lot of things were happening in China and, you know, London, Washington and so on. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So we used to listen to the late night broadcast and BBC and ...and radio Peking, it was called Peking then, and then Voice of America and so on and then wrote those news broadcast and then passed them off as sent by our own correspondents; although it was all done from the, you know, from the radio.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So in that way we were able to, you know, put in foreign news without having any access to the foreign news agency vibes. And at the same time what else did we do that...and then small ways, we'd report small incidents which were not very favourable to the government...nothing major but we ...the reports of small incidents about, you know, things going wrong here and there. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But the main thing was that the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> went out of its way not to project Indira Gandhi regime in any positive manner except that routine things of course were published but otherwise it did not particularly play-up Indira Gandhi's speeches or ...or so-called Sanjay Gandhi's achievements and so on. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So yeah...what were you...were you still reporting on the economy at this point of time?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">17:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : Yeah, I was reporting on the economy and reporting again on the communist parties.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So the communist parties were like pro-the Emergency...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : No, the CPI was for the Emergency....said it was fighting... Indira Gandhi was fighting imperialist forces and reactionary forces. But the CPM was against the Emergency. And I met some people at CPM and so on but they were totally demoralised. It was quite surprising that, you know, some of these ...some of these people in the CMP headquarters were so frightened and totally demoralised. And it was quite surprising that, you know, people at </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> were more defiant than the people at CPM.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So well a constant rhetoric is this fear factor during the Emergency... everybody is fearful of the regime. In what way did it manifest itself in the people you interacted with in your circles, like the journalists circles. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : Journalist circle at </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I think the fear was ...at least people hid their fear but outside there were lot of concern about whom you talk to and so on, you know, at the Press Club and so on who might be government informers and things like that. So people were very careful</span><span style="color:#262626;"> but you know, talking of oral history it was amazing that all the major incidents took like in the Emergency, including Turkman Gate or, you know mass sterilisations in Haryana and then Sanjay's antics, you know. And then there was this man called Sawmi ....what was his name?.... Brahmachari or something who was...who used to use his personal plane to go around and was a great favourite of Mrs Gandhi. So and then Bansi Lal was Defence Minister and ...and Sanjay Gandhi roaming round the countryside doing all sorts of things. Surprisingly all these things were known, you know because you're such a ...such a, you know, talkative society that oral…oral history that way would be very useful because within a few days of these incidents, people will say - 'ooo, you know, we are...I'm telling you something in confidence but this has happened.' And of course at that time you didn't quite believe it but you talked to someone else and again he would say - 'Oooo this is totally confidential but...' within days not only in Delhi but I knew people in Bombay and so on who would, you know, people used to phone and talk. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">19:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So actually while it had that dampening effect both amongst journalists and generally society in a hushed tones but word got around very fast; so actually it had the opposite effect...lot of people began to exaggerate what's happening, you know. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">20:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So that...that way censorship and a clamp down is counter-productive because it leads to rumours and exaggerated rumours and so on. And of course a lot of the rumours later were proved true by the Shah Commission and so on, you know, later. They all proved correct.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Yeah, of course we have to talk about the Shah Commission also. So what were the sources of these ...what was the source of this information? I mean given that Mrs Gandhi was trying very hard to keep everything in, how did these ...how did the information get out? What was the source?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : Quite often it was from people within her Party and regime because they also liked to talk, you know that...Bansi Lal's behaving this way and Sanjay Gandhi's behaving that way. And you know a lot of people of course were quietly very much against Sanjay Gandhi. So they used to tell their friends....people who were within the regime and of course then it would be conveyed to others. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">21:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So it was...it was quite a porous sort of regime, you know. ---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">21:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : This seems like a very... ----- It wasn't...it wasn't like ... it wasn't </span><span style="color:#262626;">like North Korea or the Soviet Union or something like that. So in that sense it was...it was quite a sort of....it was if I may say so, it was quite a bungled </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">21:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [muffled spot] ...rather bungled sort of dictatorship. And the other thing is of course the big difference was that the middle and upper classes were never face this sort of fear factor....suddenly very careful of whom they talked to and so on. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">21:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But ...but for ordinary people it was much worse because there they really felt it, especially the sterilisation, the two.... two big issues which later came up in the '77 elections were again and again...forced sterilisation and demolition of .... of slums and so on. You know, this government was very fond of cosmetic things like beautifying bits of Delhi, beautifying other places, which really meant knocking down the, you know, dwellings of the poor. And the other thing was mass sterilisation which was mostly...mostly done in and around Delhi, especially Haryana, with some western UP, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh. It wasn't so effective in the South. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">22:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And a...that really...after she decided to have elections, that really went totally against her.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">22:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So when you're talking about, you know, news getting around and people from the Congress talking about it. This is for me, I mean from where I'm seeing it, it's like a very Lytton's Delhi circle things get around and if you have friends there. How did it percolate...I mean this is a power circle so to speak...it's a very elite circle where this news is getting circulated. How did it percolate down to the middle class, like middle class saying outside Lodi and Golf Links? How did it get to may be South Delhi or other parts of Delhi? Did that news get around at all outside these circles?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">23:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : Yeah, the Congress Party is, you know, quite a ... it has  cadres all over the country, it's not just Lytton's Delhi. People talk, you know, to their friends in state capitals or phone them or they...they travel there and so on. So it wasn't Lytton's Delhi at all. It was these stories and rumours were all over the country within few days it'll be in Bombay probably on the phone or something. So it wasn't restricted just to, you know, the ...just to a few people in the Congress Party. Congress Party was of course at that time and even now has lot of members outside Delhi. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">23:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So it just wasn't </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">23:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (muffled spot)</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and then they talk to people who were not a Congress so it'll get around a lot, you know. And then of course, allies in the CPI would also talk about what is going wrong and so on. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So, do you remember a particular rumour that really like flew around? Something that was very big at that time. It might not be remembered now by most people, may not have been written about but it was really big at that point of time.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : Well not...it wasn't a rumour. It was noted about how arrogantly Sanjay Gandhi used to behave with officials and so on, you know, wherever he would go, he'd be very rude and ...and then of course he'd ....he had that, you know, bejewelled society lady called Ruksana Sultana who appeared in Turkman Gate and you know  had sterilisation camp put up and so on. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">24:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And then what happened in Turkman Gate...there was police firing and so on. And of course that got very known everywhere, especially in Delhi because it was such a major, you know, there was a police shootings and the whole place was knocked down and so on. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">25:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Yeah, the whole settlement. Also you were talking about informers. Do you remember an incident where informers had been involved or somebody was adversely affected because of informers?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">25:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : You mean among journalists?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Among journalists or otherwise?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : Not really. But ... I was going to tell you something, I think... Ah! the other thing is of course you must put that down, I want to tell you is that....lot of journalists, you know, completely turned overnight and became ....began to curry favour with the ...with the ...with the regime, especially people in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and so on. And in fact, some very well known personalities who I don't want to name them...still in journalism and so on. You know, senior journalists that time, you know, forces one chap who's now a very senior journalist, retired now, and was an Editor at </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, appeared in front of the Pres Club....you know there's a big sign Press Club with some cameras and so on, and then gave a sort of talk about how good the Emergency was for the country and so on. So there were a lot of turncoats whom you'd expected didn't, you know, at least were self-respecting and not show but they thought it'll be good for their careers, and good for their personal improvement to back the Indira Gandhi regime. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">26:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So it mustn't be forgotten that there were a lot of ...they weren't even turncoats I think they were just </span><span style="color:#262626;">opportunists you know.  And who after the Emergency the Emergency pretended that they defied the Emergency, it was a total lie, you know. So in that way it was quite sad that after the Emergency lot of people who really defied it didn't get their due but were those who supported it or pretended to be you know  great heroes of the Emergency. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Yeah also there were a lot of arrest happening during the Emergency, especially of people...I mean Kulpid Nayar himself went to jail. What was happening about....how did news from the jail get to you? And were you aware of what was happening in the jails?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : Not really although we'd hear occasionally from like Kuldip's family and so on we'd hear occasionally that, you know, Kuldip had communications with his wife and so on. But I must say we didn't meet the families. We should have but we didn't meet Kuldip's family much, maybe once or something. But we didn't really know what was...you know we'd hear again rumours that these people are in jail and so on but I don't think the journalists were not ill-treated in jail generally. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">28:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I mean they were in jail but were not maltreated. The...again the people who were really suffered were again all these poor people who were picked up for all sorts of things like, you know, who didn't want to be sterilised or picked up for minor offences and so on. So I feel anyway in a way the Emergency was not particularly harsh on the middle class. Of course people were jailed in thousands but the middle class people who were jailed, you know, had special privileges in jail because there's a class system in jail or there was where...where you get graded, you know, what sort of ...what sort of jail conditions you're put in. So you happened to be middle of a class, your treatment was much better than of a prisoners who were ordinary prisoners. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">28:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I don't know what it is called...it was sort of Class A or Class B and so on. I don't know whether it's been demolished, you know, demolished now. But within jails there was definitely grading system.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">29:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : And there was no reporting about...I mean you could not report about the arrest except in like these small columns- this person has been arrested. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">29:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : No no, there...that was allowed. I mean that came out in the papers- who all were arrested and so on. But nothing ...nothing much, just so on has been arrested and so on. And of course, you know, the big thing was of course George Fernandes being arrested in the Baroda dynamite case and so on. So when he was arrested that was all in the papers...as a subversive and dangerous sort of, you know, violent sort of man. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">29:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So there was this one clan which everybody talks about now is, you know, people who were not supporting the Emergency. What were, I mean of the people who were currying favour with the government...in what ways were they reporting? I mean were they </span><span style="color:#262626;">like other papers....just reporting hand-outs from the government or were they report...like going out of their way to report something more and say something better about the government? How was the government portrayed?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : Well, it was portrayed in a very positive way by lot of newspapers. I'm talking again only about the English language press.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Yeah yeah yeah, I get what you mean.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : That it was... apart from </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and ... and </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> all the other papers like </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...other papers in...in regional areas, you know, English language newspapers in the South and so on, I don't know about. I can't remember about what the Hindu did. But in any case they were reporting in glowing terms whatever Sanjay did, whatever Indira did and so on. And of course personally a lot of them used to, you know, meet Congress leaders and so on and you know, say every...how everything's fine and so on. So as I think it was as Advani famously said, although I don't like quoting L. K. Advani but after the Emergency he said that, 'they were asked to bend but they crawled...' something like that.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">31:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : So, did you attend any of the rallies that were happening because, I mean, post-the Emergency there were a lot of rallies that Sanjay Gandhi organised for his mother and himself?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">31:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : Well my wife Bharti and I were the first ...first journalists, </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> journalists to ..to go Amethi after the election was declared. And in his first speech there, Bharti and I were there to report and his first speech in Amethi, you know, his election speech, where he said- 'Ooo all these Opposition leaders...' The exact words he used are '...</span><span style="color:#262626;">''yeh kire hain''</span><span style="color:#262626;">,' you know, '...they are insects.' And they must be crushed sort...that sort of thing, so remember reporting it. But by then things had opened up because Emergency was still on but she'd declared election. So that was a golden period at least and for </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> that we were able to report a lot of things, which the other papers even then were not willing to report, like I was...I did the first interview with Morarji two hours after his release from ...from detention and he said that the opposition must unite and so on but as usual, you know, his way of talk....I said, 'are you going to unite the opposition?' This was five hours after his release. So he said, ''</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">32:34</span><span style="color:#262626;">??? Bathroom, how can I tell you whether I can, you know, unite the opposition and so on. So things like that. Then of course we went to Amethi and Rae Bareilly and we sensed that the things were going against ...against...against Indira and in fact later I reported from Varanasi that how-  I think that was one of the first reports which said that- Mrs Gandhi, that the Congress would lose the elections because by then it was very apparent, especially I travelled quite a bit in UP. It was very apparent that, you know, that...that Congress had become totally unpopular.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">33:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Telephone rings.......... End of the 1st recording.]</span>

<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<div style="margin-left:1.27cm;margin-right:0cm;"></div>

<div style="margin-left:1.27cm;margin-right:0cm;"></div>

<div style="margin-left:1.27cm;margin-right:0cm;"></div>

<div style="margin-left:1.27cm;margin-right:0cm;"></div>

<div style="margin-left:1.27cm;margin-right:0cm;"></div>

<div style="margin-left:1.27cm;margin-right:0cm;">'''Recording 2 : fy_jlaiq_raw_190516_2'''</div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">Interview Continues--- Recording 2</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:00</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [JL] : And then you know that I, you know, on the first anniversary of the Turkman Gate after the elections I did a very detailed interview based story about what had happened at Turkman Gate. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">0:16</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> So that got me into a lot of trouble later.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Who did you do this....?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : It was published in </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Yeah, yeah, yeah but who did you do the interview with?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : Oh with those people who had been displaced and those people who...relatives of people who had been shot and so on. So all based on people who had been in that area and then who were displaced outside of Delhi. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Can you recall the story in more detail for me?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : Well, I decided that I'd known about what had happened, you know, on April 19, 1976, so a year later in April 19, 1977, I wanted to do a detailed interview-based story on what had happened a year back. So I went to Turkman Gate area and met a lot of the people who were still there and then went to the resettlement colonies sort of totally, which were not resettlement colonies at all. They were just like, you know, like just put on empty land and is given a few, you know, a few pieces of tarpal and to live on miserable conditions. So I went and meet...met people there and what they had to say what had happened on that...especially on that day. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">1:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So of course Sanjay was very much involved so was..so was Jagmohan who was Vice Chairman of DDA. But of course he felt defamed in my involving him in this ...in this...by this article. So that case went on for about seventeen years and so on. But of course I feel what I had done was absolutely... what was reported and was from eye-witnesses and of course he felt that I had defamed him. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : And then you went to jail for it?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : No, I didn't go to jail. I sentenced to jail but then I went in and appealed; and I was sentenced to two months in jail. It went on in the...in the...in the (JL tries to recall) '79 to '82. (Recollection over) Yeah it went on in the Magistrates Court for thirteen years, you know, just the magisterial. So real harassment because I had to go dozens of times and you know, it keeps getting adjourned. That's how the judiciary works. So in the lowest court it was thirteen years then I was sentenced to two months. And then I appealed to that so it went on another four months and then the whole thing sort of fizzled out. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So I didn't go to jail. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Thank god for that at least.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : It was a major source of harassment.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Sir you were talking about how you were travelling a lot around UP just after the elections were</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:57</span><span style="color:#262626;">(</span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">LAST</span><span style="color:#262626;"> WORD is a Muffled spot...please clarify). Can you describe conversations with people...conversations or can you describe what people were saying about Indira Gandhi because everybody says nobody excepted Indira Gandhi to lose the elections. You say it was evident to you in ...in the reactions of the people that she might ...she might lose. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : You know when Bharti and I, we were both...she was a reporter at </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and I was a correspondent. So when we landed in the morning by train at Amethi. The first the most vivid thing, which you should record here, is the first person we met as came out of the station was a rickshaw puller or rickshaw </span><span style="color:#262626;">''walla''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. And he was straight away said that..that </span><span style="color:#262626;">he would never vote for Indira and Sanjay because they had done such terrible things that, you know, his home had been destroyed and lot of people he knew...he was a young man...had been forcibly sterilised and there was no question of ever voting for Indira and Sanjay. The first people we met. So as we moved around the constituency in Amethi and Rae Bareli, we came across a lot of youngsters and so on, and others especially the younger males who were openly against, especially against Sanjay. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">4:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And at that time we felt that Indira Gandhi might be re-elected from </span><span style="color:#262626;">Rae Bareli but it'll be more difficult for Sanjay to be re-elected. That was in February. Then I went again in March. I went to eastern UP, went...went with Chandra Shekar to Ballia, you know, his </span><span style="color:#262626;">constituency. So there was a huge turn-out, you know, it was sort of a very huge crowds all cheering him and so on. So by then ..by March it had become ...I'm talking...the earlier bit was February and by March it became very apparent that...that UP had turned totally against Indira. I mean I went to Ballia. I went to Varanasi. I went to Lucknow, and even the Congress had given up. They said ...one Congressman told me that- </span><span style="color:#262626;">''eis''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Sanjay </span><span style="color:#262626;">''ne chopat kar diya''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. He made a total mess. So by ...by just before the elections... about a week before the elections...I think the election was on 19th and 20th of March. By about 14th of March, it was apparent that, at least to me, that Congress is going to lose.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:28</span><span style="color:#262626;">[FY] : Right! Also, you know, a lot of the books talk about you know songs that were, you know, being sung, around the countryside- </span><span style="color:#262626;">''jhoot bole janta kaate''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, and things like that. Do you remember any of that?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : No, I don't. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : While you were reporting the Emergency what were...I mean because there was no criticism of the government, were you allowed to report things like maybe natural disasters or crimes? Or was that also not permitted?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : No, ordinary crime and so on and natural disasters were reported in a ...but it wasn't supposed to be played-up. But there different; they were reported. The other big thing one began to note during the Emergency is that it was really... the Emergency was run more by the bureaucrats, you know, the officials. The political class was side-lined even the Congress Party. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">6:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And apart from a few ministers, the politicians were side-lined and it was... it was the ... the role of the bureaucracy has never been really examined. More than journalists it was the bureaucrats who totally, you know, crawled. They didn't have to but they probably thought they're part of the government and there was hardly anyone in the bureaucracy who...who would defy the Emergency. Although later they claimed they did but ...but most of them really crawled, and within the bureaucracy very often in the districts, it's the district superintendent of police who became more important than the district magistrate, you know. Usually it's the other way round. The district magistrates are supposed to or the collector and somewhere is the commissioner supposed to control the district but very often the powers were taken over by ...by the police officers. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">7:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So what I'm trying to say that I...I...IPS became more important than the IAS. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : And you were saying that the bureaucrats became...I mean are there incidents that you remember that... because of which you say this?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : It's not incidents...it's...it's what they...what they enthusiastically did, you know like it was so apparent that they were so </span><span style="color:#262626;">enthusiastically because again opportunism to really push through the forced sterilisation campaign, you know- push old men, young...young boys to be sterilised because there was a quota system, I mean. So this was done with great fervour and so on. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">8:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Again in a totally opportunistic fashion you know. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Okay, to go back to something you were saying earlier Press Club, there was some...the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> journalist would come and announce that. So Coffee House and Press Clubs was...were the places where the journalists would meet constantly and they would....there was also a Coffee House in CP that was shut down because Indira Gandhi thought there was a lot of subversive conversation happening there. Do you remember anything of similar from your own experience?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : No, Press Club people would meet and so on; and amongst you naturally talked to people you...you trusted and you were friends with. So that was quite normal. There wasn't any ...any particular...and of course people you didn't disagree...you disagreed on the Emergency you also had chats with them but of course there were distinct groups, you know. A lot of them were at least for the Emergency just for the opportunistic reasons and then of course there were other friends and so on who were totally against the Emergency. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So there wasn't that much confrontation, you know, people would stick to their own...own groups.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : How did you know whom to trust?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : Now that's too general a question...how can you...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Would you not be like- I think this person is on the other side or an informer- but you'd not have a ..</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : No, nothing...you can't, you know, say - how do you trust a... That's instinctive whom you trust or not. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Okay, I mean you did not know who was on which side of the...fence?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : No, you'd know who had...who had come out in front...in favour of Indira Gandhi publicly. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Right! So post-the Emergency, how...I mean you...you were talking about how you reported a lot of things from UP. But also some people say that the fear continued until the election results were declared. And then you were like- okay we can...for instance Raghu Rai said his one picture like that's very famous now was this guy sweeping up the Indira Gandhi poster. He was like- it was not published until the time that the election was declared. I mean the results of the elections were declared. So post the Emergency, how did you see...I mean did people come back and say 'Oh! no...we were ...we were like anti-the Emergency all along'. How did the fear change?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : You mean after the election result?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Yeah!</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">10:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : Yeah, after the election result everyone pretended they'd been against Indira and so on. But in that crucial period between...you know between when she decided to hold the election, I think January to March, most papers continued to be very fearful; except for...I'm talking against the English language basically...except for ... and the daily newspapers...</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...except for </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. But I must say in </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, we ...we behaved as if there was no Emergency at all between January and March because we reported everything. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> There was a ...in fact we reported as...as if there was no Emergency. So </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> because of the Editors and because of quite a few journalists who were, you know, openly against the Emergency, including myself. There was no fear at all but we ...of course at the back of the mind there was a fear that if she comes back, you know, whether these reports...what would be the result like when I wrote from Varanasi saying 'Congress is going to be defeated', I ...when sending the press telegram...in those days of course was all telegrams and so on...there was no email and fax and so on...So I remember thinking what </span><span style="color:#262626;">would happen to me if, you know, I...if she came back to power. But at the same time I wrote whatever I felt like and so did lot of others. I'm talking of </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> itself.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Yeah yeah yeah. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : So </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was an exception. And it was very...it was quite an exciting and very adventurous time to be with </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> right form '75 to '77. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Also while </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> are like the perceived heroes of this period. There were also smaller pamphlets and notes that were doing the rounds I believe. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : There were a lot of that. Although I can only tell you only second hand because you know that... that lot of pamphlets were thrown around here and there and printed mostly by, I think, RSS and other groups. And we heard then of, you know, pamphlets being found in, especially Old Delhi, against the Emergency and being picked up by the police and so on. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">12:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But I didn't see any of the pamphlets myself but I heard about it. Then they were of course in Hindi.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : But where were the...who was printing these pamphlets? Where were these presses? I mean I'm assuming the major presses would just have refused. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : Yes, small presses were printing them and some of the got into trouble also and I must say at that time the RSS...the youngsters in the RSS did lot of this sort of propaganda. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : But nothing like passed through your hands at all?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : I might have seen one or two pamphlets but I can't remember now.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Did somebody...when you're saying second-hand, can you recall what other people said about...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : Yeah...I heard other reporters say that they'd seen these pamphlets, you know, in Old Delhi...coming out totally against Sanjay Gandhi and Indira Gandhi. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : And what these pamphlets say? Do you remember?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : No, I don't.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : ... the content of these pamphlets?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : ... except being anti-Emergency.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Yeah...</span><span style="color:#262626;">''matlab''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> RSS was very predominantly anti-Emergency. Okay, so have broadly asked my questions. Do you think anything outside...I mean, I've talked about journalism but even outside journalism, is there something specific that you want to say about the Emergency? And how it affected the country?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : I think in a major way it probably affected the country was that </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">14:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I think the media especially realised that it has to be much more...much more proactive and much more investigative and there was a new generation of magazines and journals, which came out very boldly and started reported things in a much more activist fashion than they did before the Emergency, you know, especially I think this magazine called Sunday nah... ---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">14:42</span><span style="color:#262626;">[FY] : Sunday Magazine ---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">14:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ...which of course was against... at that time against the Congress but I think they began to report much more actively about the political class and ...and about, you know, about atrocities, police atrocities, about ....investigating into public issues about wrongdoing and ...and by the bureaucrats, politicians and so on. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">15:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So in that way I think the Emergency did...did help to change the tone of journalism. And lot of magazines came out, you know. And lot of new publications, which were far more active, especially younger journalists came into the profession who were far more idealistic. Before...before the Emergency lot of journalists were in the profession which they thought will join, they'll write everyday and then they'll retire. But after the Emergency, the younger crowd came in which were very proactive about investigating reports of...of...of wrongdoing.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">15:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Is there a specific piece that you remember which you saw and said- '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''yeh toh''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Emergency </span><span style="color:#262626;">''ke phele or ya''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> during the Emergency would not have been possible at all?' This was like scintillating journalism so to speak without being breaking news-types journalism but really good journalism that you thought this would have been impossible up until now?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : No, there were a lot of reports of that kind </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:20</span><span style="color:#262626;">  (</span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">Muffled</span><span style="color:#262626;"> spot...unclear)... They cannot become one or two.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : But the Telegraph.... (JL continues)...sorry.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : ... like lot of reports on communal riots and so on, which were reported in great detail, which won't have been earlier.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Communal riots would not have been reported like that?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : They would have been but not in such great detail.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Also I believe up until then local correspondents weren't very popular. I mean people would just use stringers, if I am not very wrong. Did that increase post-the Emergency? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : Just say it again.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:55</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Up until then I believe like...like going to the specific location and then, I mean...you went to UP of course but it wasn't very popular that you go to the location and report. It just that list of stringers would just tell you the information. Did that change?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : Yeah, that's quite true that after the Emergency there was a lot of people actually travelling and going to the spot where, you know, some atrocity had taken place while before they just talked to the police officer and just report whatever he had said, you know, just report what the official said. But after the Emergency, there was to some extent...lot of them still reported what the police chap said but after the Emergency there were reports which were much more field reporting. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:38</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : There was increased field reporting post- the Emergency?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : But despite that, you know, the...even after the Emergency the biases continued, especially on communal riots...they'd just report the officer and give the Hindu point of view, you know. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">17:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Very often it would not give ...give accurate things about what had happened, like Muradabad and so on...what happened in Muradabad...lot of. And then the, you know, personal prejudices covered the journalism also. So that trend continues </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">18:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (</span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">Muffled</span><span style="color:#262626;"> words)... communal bias of the press. As you can see what's happening now. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">18:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And one more thing I want to mention that although at that I felt there wasn't any overt communalism but in retrospect most of the ..there's a particular concentration of forced sterilisation looking back on Muslim areas...that was definitely so.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Although at that time I didn't feel it but when you look back, now</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I see that lot, especially Sanjay and so on would see to it that, not just Muslims but especially...forget Muslims...mostly poor people as always...but amongst the poor even more so on...on minority Muslim areas. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : I think that is why the Imam of Jama Masjid had come out to say- we'll defeat the Congress...</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">19:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> touched wood (</span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">PLEASE</span><span style="color:#262626;"> CROSS CHECK THE LAST TWO WORDS) with the RSS leader so on and so forth.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : And of course one thing after the Emergency was that for brief period there was a lot of, you know, feeling of great Hindu-Muslim reconciliation during the earlier Janta...Janta period. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : But once the Janta...I mean Janta started failing very early on. They didn't have like much of a period ... form or anything. What was it's...like what was sense....what was...were you disappointed? Was journalist...were journalists as such disappointed? Were you? And because, of course, the Shah Commission...I forgot to talk about the Shah Commission completely. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">19:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> How were you reporting the Shah Commission?</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Did you report the Shah Commission?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : No, I was...I had gone abroad for a while. But I remember going exactly a year after I had gone in '77 ... I went in '78...exactly a year after the election and by then Raj Narayan, he was then representing </span><span style="color:#262626;">Rae Bareli...defeated Indira Gandhi; and I reported in that also how people within a year had become totally disillusioned with the...with the...with Janta Party because they'd done nothing, you know... mainly squabbling with each other. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">20:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And people had such high expectations with...when they came to power...that it'll be a new era and so on. In a way nothing to do with the Emergency but I think same things were replicated now...that Modi had raised such huge expectations, that there's going to be a backlash. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Yeah, in fact ...also you were not around when the ...when Indira Gandhi was voted back into power?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">20:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : I was...I was here.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Was there a fear that the ...she would come around back with a clamp down at all?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : Initially there was a fear of ...of what Sanjay Gandhi would do, you know...that he'd pick on people and so on; but then he died shortly afterwards in that air crash. But by then it was quite clear that people were totally fed-up with Janta by '80. And I reported on that election also. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">21:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : And so...I mean given that you were travelling just on the 1977 election and the...so how did the tables turn by this time? I mean the conversations must have changed completely. Did you ask anybody - have you forgotten about the sterilisation or something like that?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">21:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : Yeah, I actually did do a lot of that but they said 'what has Janta done for us? Nothing! And it's such a chaotic government nah...Charan Singh overthrew Morarji and then Charan Singh's government was hopeless.' So people began to think, you know, at least Indira had some idea about to rule. These Janta people don't even know how to run a government. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">21:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> People wanted some stability and, you know, they were fed-up with instability and the squabbles within the Janta Party.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">22:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Okay</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">22:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [JL] : What I'll do is ...can you...you know... [ 2nd recording over...abruptly]. </span>

{{anchor|GoBack}} <span style="color:#2e74b5;">Interview Ends</span>

<span style="color:#262626;"> </span>

<span style="color:#262626;"> </span>

.NjU1.MjY

2017-11-03T11:25:26Z

Bhanugs:

<u>'''interviewEE'''</u>* Name: H K Dua

<u>'''INTERVIEWER'''</u>* Kai Friese

<u>'''Medium: Video + Audio recordings'''</u>* Format: Audio .wav
* Language: English/ Hindi
* Date of the interview: 18/02/2016

<u>'''Clip name/DURATION: '''</u>* kf_HKDua_raw/ 01:17:06

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:16.445cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <u>'''TimeCode'''</u>
|| <u>'''Transcription'''</u>
|| <u>'''Remarks'''</u>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 00:00:00
|| KF: Interview with HK Dua on the 18<sup>th</sup> of Feb, 2016 at the IIC Annexe. Mr Dua, if you could ''uhh…'' tell me first a little bit about ''um'', how you started out in journalism and when.

||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 00:17
|| HKD: Well, I started ''uhh…'' way back … I joined UNI.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Oh, okay,
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| It’s a small little news agency at that time.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - On Rafi Marg origin-? No you were in Khan Market then …
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| It was Khan Market, above Bahri and Sons – the book shop.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - ''Hmm. Hmm''.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| And the entire office was where fabindia is.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Oh right.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| And a shabby office, not like fabindia’s…
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Yes
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| …products will be. Fashionable products but this office was shabby.
|| SOUND OBSCURED
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - ''Mm hmm.''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| One side was teleprinters. Before the metallic* age, before digital age. Teleprinters – old type- ''tuck-tuck-tuck''.
|| Best guess.
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Clacking away?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Clacking all night. One side that was that, the desk. And in the hall next was the reporters. And next one room for the management. Staff was limited. And I was keen to join journalism. There were no jobs available. That time entry into this profession was very-very difficult and I was -
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 01:21
|| - This is… this is what year?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ‘63
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Okay
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| So ‘62 was looking for a job. ‘63 February I joined. Wherever you go, like to be journalist… any…. position. You’ve experience? No experience. One editor I had... forced to ask, how do you get… don’t give me job, that’s okay, but, tell me, how do you get experience without working? (laughs)
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''- Mmm''.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Anyway, didn’t make an impact. It’s possible he was busy with writing editorials, no complaint. Somebody said there’s a little opening in UNI. Nobody knew what it was, it was too… too raw. And they wanted to be rival PTI.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''- Haanh. Haanh.''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| It used to have two services, foreign services, it was distributing in India. As you know, foreign agencies cannot give news directly to a newspaper, they have to go through an Indian agency.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Right
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Associated Press and DPA (laughs)
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Right.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| So your country’s DPA was also a subscriber. There was this
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Hmm.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| So when... Indian news was very limited, so foreign news from EPA, DPA… EPA and DPA used to cull out what was relevant for India. Indian audience… so we used to cut that to the size and all that. Edit it. It was a good experience.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 02:54
|| And you started as a reporter…?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Sub-editor.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Sub-editor. Okay.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| But I wanted to be reporter. But being on the desk, editing Indian copies ''uhh… ''Associated Press copy and DPA copy it widens your vision. The day Kennedy died ''uhhh…'' late in the night, when the shift changes and by the time he had died and I was… the flood of copy which was there''.'' I was sole person; we had limited staff.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Wow.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Every copy I was editing, Kennedy Mirror, Murderer all that… But I learnt a lot. But I wanted to be a reporter. I used to ask for… night duties so the daytime I could look for some stories.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Okay.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| So I covered two speeches of Jawahar Lal Nehru.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''- Hmm.''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Then when Nehru died in May ’64, by this time I was a reporter. So I covered his death, his funeral procession from Teen Murti to… Teen Murti to what has come to be known as Shanti Van. Huge crowds. There were three buses for ''uhh…'' for press men in the funeral procession. Crowds could push the … bus even. If they have it… if they have the power, they could have pushed it down the road. I never seen that kind of crowd.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Mmm.''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 04:17
|| Maybe I had seen ''uhhh''… Gandhiji’s but I was a schoolchild at that time, primary school student. So came to ''Daheli'' on a tonga. We were living nearby Delhi. My father brought me. So saw Gandhi’s procession. On the top of the car where I …
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''- Achha.''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| … made to sit. After that, this crowd. Even the leaders could not reach in time and those who reached, Mountbatten came from London and had to walk along with the bus to find his way, he was escorted. Sheikh Abdullah…
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''- Achha.''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| … has been released by Nehru a little while before he died. And he was in Kodaikanal.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| HKD: ''Kya haal hain jenaab…?''
|| (Interruption)
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 05:10
|| HKD: ’64 death. I saw Sheikh Abdullah going up the pyre yet to be lit crying like a child. Nehru imprisoned him for eleven years then released him before... Sheikh, you should be in charge of sorting out India-Pakistan problems. So he’d gone to Muzzaffarabad. When he heard Nehru died, so he came back. He reached late but before the fire was lit. I saw him literally crying like a child.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Mm hmm.''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Now that was interesting ''uhhh''… day. And I was in the VIP enclosure.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Haanh.''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 05:51
|| There was not much security. Like an enthusiastic young journalist, I got into VIP enclosures no problem. (laughs)
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Achha.''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| No problems. And I was shocked, here I was impressed with the size of the people and how Indians were so emotional about Jawahar Lal Nehru. This big calamity and here is the VIPs … in the VIPs squad… when the body is yet to be … fire is yet to be lit is yet to be… what go through the ceremonies of death and these people are discussing who is going to be the prime minister, who’s this, who’s with whom… will it be Morarji Desai…
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 06:38
|| ''- Kaun-kaun the?''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| All people… Some MPs, congress leaders, state leaders, chief ministers, all…
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - This was the chatter. ''Hmm''.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| This was the chatter and it shocked… I said they’re not worried about somebody’s death but I was a young man (laughs) Maybe I’d not been to funeral processions. Parents go on this kind...
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Wouldn’t be so surprised today.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| So I was shocked. (laughs) I said how cynical these fellows can be.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Hmm''.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| In that we did not know what cynical could be but looking back was strange thing. They’re not bothered about the man dead and earlier they used to be queuing up.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 07:02
|| - But Indira was not in this gathering, she was -
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - No Indira came. No Indira wasn’t. Indira, she was close to the body.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Yeah. Yeah.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| She came close to the body. I’d seen her in Teen Murti before.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| -''Hmm.''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| And… she was dignified in her life, no doubt about it.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| -'' Hmm.''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Shastri became the Prime Minister. But two speeches I had covered Nehru’s.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Two parliamentary speeches or public speeches -
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - No, outside. You don’t begin in parliament -
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - ''Hmm hmm.''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 07:44
|| One was ''uh'', the first was in Agra. Pandit ji had come from… cosmic rays conference. Science – Scientific… there was some science conference… scientific meeting. And world leaders were researching in cosmic rays phenomena. They had come to gather at Jaipur. Pandit ji had flown from Jaipur to Agra and after that there was a public meeting. Why he went to Agra; There was a … Japanese had donated a leprosy mission to India. And the bus – press bus which they had taken from here the jap- organisers was to go at four A.M. to go to Agra for … to be in time for inauguration. Jawahar Lal Nehru asked to lay the foundation stone for the leprosy hospital. Nobody wanted to go at that early morning four A.M. but everybody saying it cold winter of ’63. I opted for it. I was keen to look for opportunities to do reporting. So we went there, after that there was a public meeting. Huge crowds. Jawahar Lal Nehru was talking to general public about cosmic rays. (laughs).
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 09:22
|| - In English or in Hindi?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| … scientific temper - Hindi.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Hmm.''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| One of the- one chap in the audience got up, ''panditji, aap cheen ko kab hatayenge''? Mind it, China was ’63 october
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - ’62.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| This is the summer ’63. [he must mean ‘61] Just a year more.'' Cheen ko hatana padega, apney aap nahi jayega. Taakat ka istemal karna padega''. Young, untrained reporter. I had no ways of… no ways of – please have -
||

(Slight interruption)
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 10:08
|| How did he handle the question?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| So I… we came by bus – same bus, Now I (?). We didn’t have any teleprinter line to Agra. I didn’t know how to send the story. There were no mobiles. The bus met with an accident near Badarpur. That delayed a bit. I reached there at ten o’clock and filed the story. And yesterday [the next?] morning I was shocked – the UNI news which was hardly appearing in the papers, it was new agency, became the lead. China will not quit on its own, we’ll have to use force and all that kind of thing. The chief of the bureau… He says, you’re the lead in Times of India. Said what? My story was hours late. And I’m… this was the story I … nobody thought of that angle. They covered just the speech should be covered. Anyway that became the… and the reward was one cup of tea if your news is published, there were no bylines. Slowly-slowly I came into the reporting. Parliament.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''- Hmm.''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Started the Rajya Sabha, later on turned out to be MP there.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 11: 52
|| - Yes… In the Shastri period you were covering parliament?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| I covered Shastri’s ascension to power. He was studying price-rise. After taking over actually, he had a heart attack. So the ceremony was delayed. He was elected leader of the parliamentary party but swearing-in was delayed because he had a heart problem.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 12:37
|| And did you start to get to know politicians?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Ya, started knowing, building up contacts. I was serious in my work. No wastage of time. Go on chasing stories. I used to work on the night duty to get some stories, look around. In between I used to spend my time at Bahri Sons.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Okay.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Since that time we became friends. He gave discount on the bus- every book you buy from there but I think he gives to everyone.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - He does. Long standing -
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Once my wife was teaching sociology at Delhi University, she complained to Bahri – old Bahri, you give discount to your – my husband but not to her. He said, Mrs Dua, I was a struggling bookseller when he was a struggling newsman. He has gone up in the profession I have also become a big bookseller. (laughs) Our relationship is old. He didn’t give her (laughs) to keep up his-
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - good businessman.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - so he had a hearty laugh. Four years I remained there.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 14:09
|| And who was your boss at UNI in those days?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| First was DP Wagle, he was the general manger, he recruited me. I went up to him. ‘Any experience?’ I said no done diploma in journalism from Punjab University. They had a campus there [meaning in Delhi], Chandigarh was coming up.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Okay.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| And his department had no place to… after partition, many of the departments were in Delhi… DP Wagle… Kuldip Nayar came, who was Shastri’s friend, he came later. But he went to Statesman for the Delhi resident editor.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Ketchup? Sugar? … Now an agency like UNI…-
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - But you see the staff was limited so one could cover senior assignments. That was the advantageous. It’s… sometime it helps. If I’d been to a newspaper, I would only cover crime, courts and all those kind of… accidents like this kind of thing. Here I’m covering politics, which I’m interested in. Election of Shastri. We are going to Kamaraj’s(?) place. Like many people used to go. Working committee meeting, parliamentary board meeting. These situations mattered at that time. These days, they don’t. So one kept on enlarging contacts… building your credibility of reporting. Learning the craft. If you’re agency you try to learn and worked on every copy.
||

(Name unintelligible)
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 16:26
|| No danger of getting in trouble as a young journalist at an agency in those days?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Get entry was difficult. But otherwise there was no problem what you write, what not to report. One thing, agency report has to be correct unbiased, non-partisan and all that which you learn in the journalism class. Built enough credibility then got into express in ’67. Elections I covered ’67 elections.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 17:03
|| And you were interviewed by Ramnath Goenka or… by the editor?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

18:18
|| Editor. Resident editor… you don’t need – you were never interviewed by the proprietor at least at that time. And my area was covering politics. Some politics some ministries and parliament. There I remained… twenty years. Grew up as special correspondent, parliamentary correspondent, political correspondent… like that, Bureau chief. I was editor of Express News Service which was the widest network it had at that time. Learnt how the government of India functions, how parliament functions… an interesting period post-Nehru. In a way I was covering post-Nehru period India… from Daheli, as viewed from Delhi. And that’s what I wanted to do. Changes of government. Shastri died soon then Indira came. There was a division in the party… Rajeev [?check] wanted to- first time he was persuaded to step down second time he decided to contest. Mrs Gandhi was not having a free hand. She was a minority government after ’67 elections… Old timers in… Morarji Desai…. Syndicate group which it came to be. They wanted to outwit first Morarji Desai so they selected Indira Gandhi. To succeed Shastri. Actually Indira Gandhi wanted to succeed father but it was Shastri who was chosen. She was not very happy with the decision but she was not the front rank at that time excepting as Nehru’s daughter. So they selected Shastri. Shastri sensed that Mrs Gandhi could be more troublesome outside the government. He made her I and B minister. One of her first decisions was to appoint Chanda committee. AK Chanda committee former Comptroller and Auditor General of India. Used to live in Sujan Singh Park, retired, on autonomy of the media. (laughs)
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - How ironic.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 19:55
|| - That’s why. Since you are coming to the Emergency. So she believed in autonomy… Chanda committee report was submitted. I met Mr Chanda as a young reporter to look for a scoop, what is the report you have submitted?, it was kept in the depths. I met others also, Ramesh Thapar. You must have met him or heard of him. Who circulated this magazine-
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Seminar.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| … called Seminar… His office used to be on Janpath.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Still is. Seminar office is…
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| 64 Janpath, around that… it was first floor office.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Malhotra building.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Malhotra building, absolutely… Like that I got a scoop a bit…
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 21:01
|| Was this Chanda… was it significant?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - It was significant…
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 21:08
|| Did it address problems that were emerging already at that point? Yeah?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

22:03
|| There was no problem at that time but still they thought that it should not be government media. This must enjoy autonomy. So ironically some years ago, when she was the prime minister ’75, by ’75 she was cutting into that autonomy rather than enhancing it. She never implemented the report. On the contrary she talked of committed press, committed bureaucracy, committed judiciary. That is pre- that is pre-emergency statements… she made. Her thoughts were… I thought she wanted it to be a Presidential form of government in the[her] heart of hearts. She also was doing exercise on presidential form of government. Congress leaders like [A.R.] Antulay and one Supreme Court advocate, Bhatia. They organised a conference at Vigyan Bhawan on presidential form of government. So these thoughts were being thrown up for debate so that one day she can be presidential form of government. She was fascinated with people like de Gaulle and all that kind of things. And she thought that the kind of experience she had met with the congress party… ’69 it got split. But ’71 election she won by throwing Morarji Desai out of the government by enforcing nationalisation of banks. You would have… You would have been studying that, I’m not going into that detail… She formed the government post ’69 with the help of CPI by throwing out Morarji Desai. ’71 elections she fought on ''gareebi hatao''. She swept the polls. She got 349 seats… ’71 war came in December. The elections were in March. ’67 I covered the elections with her in Bhuvaneshwar she was hit with by stones.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Yes.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 23:33
|| You might have seen the pictures with bandaged nose. She went to Patna from there. I was in the UNI, PTI, All India Radio – three man team was taken and Peter Jackson from…
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Oh! I know him also.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Peter Jackson from Rueters.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Reuters.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Reuters. These four correspondents were taken along. Since rural areas of Orissa, in ’67 elections, they were… warm to Indira Gandhi. When she came to Bhuvaneshwar the last meeting of the tour, stones started coming from the audience and one stone hit there… Some of the stones came to us also. We were standing on the ground and Prime Minister was -
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 24:17
|| - But why was the crowd so agitated with her in Orissa?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Prices are high and all that she was unpopular and all that. And… Orissa was not a Congress state… ''Ganatantra Parishad'', many maharajas were there she had abolished like that… there was opposition. ’67 she had lost the elections so imagine Nehru had died, this is the first election she was fighting. And now ’71 elections. ’67 she takes over. ’69 the party gets split. ’71 elections, country was sharply divided between Syndicate and the new Congress and new Congress was in minority, she formed a government. So that was… Orissa was in the hands of the old Congress.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Okay
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 24:13
|| Naveen Patnaik’s father was the- no longer the chief minister but he was the big force.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''- Hmm.''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| He was their extra constitutional… authority. One of his cronies had been made the Chief Minister but that was a rubber stamp. So I saw that… ’71 elections she wins on ''Gareebi Hatao'' outsmarting Syndicate, outsmarting everyone… The split plus ''Gareebi Hatao'' made her popular, she played her cards very-very well… Outsmarted the old guard, what came to be old guard. She was at the top of the world… I remember I was in the Express that time covering politics. My resident editor asked me – asked the bureau, everyone, which state you would like to cover elections. I said I’d like to cover Bihar. He said why Bihar, have you been there?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Hmm.''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 26:18
|| I’m a ''daheliwala'', Punjabi. I said never. He said ‘then why Bihar?’ I said that is why. (laughs) All the ills of Indian politics are present in one state… if you have want to study at grass roots. I went there he was appreciative. But the politics was so sharp. Frank Moraes the great editor of Indian Express and earlier of Times of India, he was a writing a daily column. The proprietor Ramnath Goenka, whom you were remembering, was in favour of the Syndicate or old Congress as they came to be known. But the situation in Bihar, what I saw in the election, in the countryside they were all for Indira. So I wrote there… Madhu Limaye will lose, Ram Subhag Singh will lose, Tarakeshwari Sinha will lose. I went to the villages where no newspaper had been- no newspaper man had been. Jagjivan Ram will be the only Congress winner in Bihar. But it was a good study. Frank Moraes was writing those days a daily column attacking Indira Gandhi. ‘Myth and Reality’. To write a daily column is not easy, as you know. Not so easy.
||

|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Not at all.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 27:45
|| I mean he was impeccable writer. Excellent prose. Oxonian of course… but still to maintain a column day-in and day-out to which Chalapathi of National Herald, the National Herald also comes into the picture. Chalapathi, the celebrated editor – equally good writer. He wrote one column and in which he wrote, ‘myth is Frank Moraes Reality, is Ramnath Goenka’. (laughs) But look at the tolerance. Frank Moraes read it, he rings up Chalapathi: ‘MC, you had a nice one on me come have a drink this evening’ – this was the kind of spirit that was there. But what Chalapathi Rau had written was absolutely correct: [of the] proprietor-editor relationship at that time. Short of saying that he’s his master’s voice is Frank Moraes, he wrote (?) myth is Frank Moraes, reality is Ramnath Goenka. I haven’t forgotten that. But ’71 elections she swept the polls with 349 seats. Come the Bangladesh war she becomes top of the world. Even Vajpayee described as Durga. But seventy f… five she could not govern without imposing emergency.
||

(Unintelligible)
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''- Hmm.''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 29:30
|| So this 340 sign- the point which I am making is, 349 seats – massive vote… was of no use to her in ’75. She had lost the ground. That requires a separate discussion, the run-up to the emergency. She herself had [been] disqualified… Allahabad court judgement, High Court Judgement and all that kind of thing. She didn’t give up the fight. Imposed emergency -
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 30:08
|| - At this stage, the express was… going after her and – through the Allahabad court case. The… the newspaper’s position was already and… what did you feel about the court case… and the judgement?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| We were in the – frankly speaking, she should have resigned.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''- Hmm.''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| She could have been one of the top moral* leaders of the country. We … were opposed to the emergency, no doubt about it. Particularly in the Indian Express. And I think that was the golden period of our… Express. Proprietor fighting so that gave us strength. Banks had stopped advances to Indian Express. I remember since I was in political* beats and I used to go home rather late. Leave early go home late. So as I said, it is the late worm which catches the dews.
|| <nowiki>* May be “modern”.</nowiki>

(Word unclear).
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Right.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Exciting politics. Twenty Fifth of night, I gave a late story that Siddhartha Shankar Ray and R K Dhawan have meeting with- had a meeting with President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed. Important decisions are likely which may affect the political system of the country. We had not heard of the word emergency. Nobody used that word. The morning paper never saw the light of the day. Emergency came on the same night. So in the morning we got up, overnight…
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 31:58
|| Power had been cut, na…?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Power had been cut. Press had been locked and the paper never appeared, including my story. I thought I had a bit of a scoop. I was closest to that… the story. Nothing appeared. That story has gone still not read. (laughs)
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 32:15
|| And what were your sources for the… for the story about the meeting…? How had you heard…?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| No, I heard about the meeting. How I heard, by rounds. My daily sniffing for the news. I was fairly good sniffer of news. (laughs) Having covered Congress split, it gives you some sources. A senior journalist told me, when the twelfth of June judgement came… What will Mrs Gandhi do? In going to the Supreme Court case, to get a stay of the judgement. Supreme Court, that was the debate. Will give stay, will not give stay… They gave a conditional stay. She helped – it helped her in a way. But on principle, she had not been vindicated. Krishna Iyer’s judgement helped her out. I won’t say it was being partisan. But still, conditional stay was given. Good judge, though… I said if Supreme Court, what will Mrs Gandhi do, if Supreme Court doesn’t give her relief? I said she will nationalise the Supreme Court. (laughs) That was my comment. Anyway, she took absolute power. Then there was session at Mohali. At that time, they named it as Komagata Maru Nagar – the Canadian ship. Where the decision was taken to extend the life of parliament by a year, amend the constitution – forty second amendment, which was brought… she was grabbing more power. Censorship was imposed on the press. The press also succumbed. Totally. Except for papers like Indian Express, Statesman, Economic and Political Weekly and A D Gorwala’s Opinion. These four papers stood out, the rest of the press…
||

|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 34:37
|| But where – Do you feel that… How is it possible really to… resist once censorship was imposed? Or what forms did it take? According to you – for you, for example, what could you do?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| We… A, your sources dried up. Still you were able to get around some things. Then you have to draw conclusions. Pages were cleared by the censors- every page. Then they arrested Kuldip Nayar, who was in the Indian Express at that time. Editor of Express News Service, a job which I took up later after some years, my turn came. And I was covering politics. I came to know the judiciary also is under pressure. On one day they decided to transfer sixteen judges of the High Courts. One stroke. It’s a politically significant story. That means you are packing the courts now. Rest you have already put the censorship, the fear of absolute power now strikes on… overtakes judiciary. Sixteen High Courts to send a message to the rest of the judiciary in the country. And earlier I mentioned to you, before (?), she had started the debates on Presidential form of government.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 36:07
|| But were you able to report this story about the sixteen judges being…?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| I did.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| And that was not ''uhh''… cut?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| No, it was published. It escaped their attention because I reported safely like a posting transfer story. I didn’t explain the significance. But I placed the story next to the lead.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Okay.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Sixteen High Court judges transferred from this to this, this High Court to this, this High Court to this. That’s why like a ''muffasal'' correspondent. Like a lit[tle]- town correspondent. Posted like posting transfers. But it became a significant story and people understood the meaning. It was understood. Next day, censors also understood the story. I was asked questions on this. Tell us who told you the story, why did you it? I said no, it’s a story it’s a fact. It’s not a wrong story.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| And it was presented to the censors.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - And the page has been cleared.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| But they were embarrassed.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| No, they were not embarrassed. Tell us the source! I said this I won’t disclose. Do you know the… Young man, you are a very enthusiastic correspondent, tell me who has given you the story? I said that I won’t… You know your accreditation can be cancelled? I said you do whatever you like, I’ll do whatever I like. But the story wrong or right* -
||

<nowiki>*(Best guess at what was said.)</nowiki>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 37:45
|| But this kind of confrontation would happen on the phone or you’d be called to the…?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| No-no. I was called.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 37:52
|| Where would you go? Where was the office?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| P I B. P P I B. There was a separate room was set up for this.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 37:59
|| And who?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Chief-Chief Chief censor. He was not a bad man and-
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 38: 04
|| What was the name? At that time…
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| I think it was Balaji- baji- Bajirao. By this time [Harry] D’Penha had been… No, Bajirao was the… It was D’Penha He was basically a gentleman asked to do a dirty job. He was not speaking … (?) Vidya Charan Shukla. He was I and B Minister. And so he has to work under I and B Minister – censor. He has no independent judgement. No, you know, this kind of… And he and I – everybody knew him. He was at least a decent man. Earlier he was chief public relations officer of Indian Airlines. But he was part of the information service. At this time he had become- they appointed him… later on he was changed because he gentleman. He said your accreditation can get cancelled I said do whatever you like. My editor supported me. He said – you retract the story… to the print where there’s to retract? If it’s a wrong story, issue a denial. He said why should he issue a denial, it it’s a wrong story you come out with denial, we’ll publish that. But we’ll quote you on that. That you can’t because the story was right, won’t you give the source. I said no… You have to have some reliable source. ''Maine kaha,'' very reliable. What if I say Mrs Gandhi gave me the story then what will you do to her? I said do you have any power- anything to do, power to do it? Now that I’m saying that she gave me but if I to say Mrs Gandhi has given me the story, what will you do? So unlike that kind of… When emergency came the Express- there was no editorial. They left the space.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - The blank editorial. Yeah.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 40:04
|| Vidya Charan Shukla objected to that blank space. It looked funny. Why have you kept the page blank? I said… We told him. It’s our right not to print anything. Censor doesn’t mind blank space. You’re carrying a message. I said we are not carrying the message. It is- the blank space is carrying the message. It is what you did or you done – that is the message. And blank space is (?)… You’re objecting to what we publish, so we are not publishing. The cause is you. And people know that you are preventing us to publish what we… ''Toh'' Express was special- special case kind of… Soon we found ''ki'' emergency is becoming unpopular. And It didn’t last – it didn’t last long. Turkman Gate and all that. But it was a… not a – the worst thing they could do to the press was emergency censorship. The press- most of the press, my worry was, and many people worried… most of the press succumbed minus Express…
||

(Unintelligible)
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 41:27
|| And – But that was down not to the journalists but to the… senior editors and the owners, no (… proprietors)?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Owners. The press was closed, wouldn’t open. If you open then pages have to be sent, pages have to be cleared. So there’s many people were – Kuldip Nayar was arrested. But others – it was message to everyone… set an example.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 41:53
|| Who else was arrested in… from the Express group?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Only he.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - This Virendra Kapoor from Financial Express.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Virendra Kapoor was arrested because he was present at a meeting where Ambika Soni was… Sanjay Gandhi’s meeting. So must have… spotted something.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''- Hmm.''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| So he was arrested. But some other journalists were arrested… ''uhh….'' Gopal… in Bengal they were arrested. Gopal… Gauri Kishore Ghosh. Like that… so selective. Idea was to set example, create fear. But most of the press, as Advani later on said, crawled. But this papers stood, Express… And we were not getting any salaries also because the banks stopped giving advances to the paper. All the kind of….. Goenka fell ill, went to Calcutta for treatment. His son B D Goenka was not a big fighter. They were starting to look for how the paper should be run. They appointed a… board. Board consisted of KK Birla, Kamal Nath Rai and one more. Government appoints board for the Indian Express. When Goenka recovered from his heart attack, he came he sacked the board. He said who are you to sit in my office. I have section fourteen of the constitution the right to property. It’s my property. He used to tell us later on, fighting for freedom is your business, printing paper is my business. (laughs) That was interesting… She never—the mystery is she never arrested Ramnath Goenka…
||

(Gour Kishore Ghosh?)
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 43:34
|| There’s a story that he was in hiding briefly… or that he checked into a hospital when he wasn’t actually sick.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - He was in hospital but she could have arrested him in hospital also. ''Usme kya hai''- she has two people outside the room that’s not a… Many businessmen get arrested and go to the hospital whether illness is genuine or not separate question. I mean, many tax-evaders do this. High class tax evaders. The story went round that sh… Goenka had given employment to Feroze Gandhi once upon a time in the Indian Express. That she didn’t forget.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 44:11
|| Okay one story I’ve heard is that it- it was a kind of blacklisted that he- because of his connection with Feroze that he’d ''uhh…'' he had in his possession some letters.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - That may have been…-
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Talking about their personal problems and that this was…
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| That may be maybe true, these are all theories. But he did have a good turn to the family when she was living with Feroze… which he sustained, gave a job… before he joined parliament and all that. In better days of Feroze Gandhi-Indira Gandhi relationship… Never arrested him.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 44:54
|| But now as a sniffer with many of your Congress sources dried up, did-did you change your routine, where did you look for information…?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - No we looked for comparatively [?check] stories. I kept busy. Legal aid to the poor. This story that story. But in-between, little subversive journalism. Smuggle in something like this sixteen judges transfer.
|| Check unclear
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Hmm.''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| It messed with* the judiciary all over. The chap who had given me the story he was nervous.
|| <nowiki>*(Sound unclear.) </nowiki>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 45:27
|| So who – now you can reveal your source or-
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - It was from within the government because many of them were…not…unhappy. Many of them were unhappy.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - So he was nervous once the story was out?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| He was nervous if they come to know he will get the sack. I never disclosed. And he always was grateful I never… It was from within the government. But that kind of credibility one had enjoyed. At that time- I never disclosed the source throughout my life and I never went home without attempting to get an exclusive story which is very difficult. But as you said for years I had that… midnight dinner. The day Congress split in ’69 I had dinner at four AM. Ninety-Two-years-old organisation splits into two… that can… Then Hindustan Times invites me for job as a (?)-editor then editor, several years editor there. Like that…
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 46:42
|| That is- that was well after…?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Much after. That came in ’87, twelve years later. After seven years – seven years I was chief of bureau of the Indian Express, the largest bureau – we had large number of India editions.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 47:00
|| Did you feel the… emergency itself was the golden period for Express or immediate post-emergency or the end- end of the emergency?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Emergency period. I would call in emergency period… emergency period… Then editor V K Narasimhan, who was shifted from Financial Express to this paper. He was outstanding. He used to make a point and yet give it in a manner… the argument- nobody could take offence to it. He stood up. We were living in Defence Colony. He was given the house in Defence Colony just opposite mine… when they were… threatened to cancel my accreditation he said don’t worry, I said no, I’m not worried. He himself was taking a stand… he and I had developed good relationship. When emergency ended, Goenka sacked him. Just like that. Because Frank Moraes came back. Frank Moraes was living at – in Bangalore in the guest house of Indian Express. Brendan-Brenton-Branton Road or Brendon Road – Brenton Road. The gov-guest house. Although I’ve also stayed later there. Only ''dosa-vada'' was the meal for the morning. (laughs) But Frank Moraes like--used to like his ''uhh…'' drink. Mulgaonkar – by this time it was Mulgaonkar. So he lived there. But when emergency was lifted, Mulgaonkar was brought back and Narasimhan Rao was sacked.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 48:44
|| - But what was… the story?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| -because… people had started admiring Narasimhan. And Ramnath Goenka didn’t like that. He just removed him. He could have sent him back to Financial Express. Never explained to anybody. Which was bad thing. And I remember V K Narasimhan gave me some books which he had taken from Express library. He was a great reader of books. He had been- I delivered those books to the library. (laughs)
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 49:13
|| And what became of him? Where did he go?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| He went to no paper after that. Afterwards he went to… went to – left Delhi. And he’s never entered the building. He told he’ll never enter the building. Went to Bangalore and became some sort of a public relations, press chief for Sai Baba. (laughs) He’s no more. He died.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| One hears a lot about him. A lot of people admire him…
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 49:47
|| - No no. He was a remarkable man. He kept the flag high. So he was getting the credit for fighting emergency or standing up… which Goenka – Mulgaonkar was back in the saddle. Come and work with him, like that… but the emergency was black period. After that, next black period came: the defamation bill – defamation bill. Rajiv Gandhi brought it. That was one blunder he made. I was by this time, I had become editor of Hindustan Times. Bofor was the controversy. Chidambaram was his internal security minister - internal security minister. Bright, sharp fellow he is, but politically bad judgement.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| ''Hmm.''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 50:44
|| By the way, Goenka never interfered what kind of story you should do. When emergency was lifted, Janta party came. There were fighting from the beginning. From the day one. And I was reporting that fight also. Warranteed* Indira Gandhi but these people were no saints. Jagjivan Ram.
||

(Unclear).
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Charan Singh.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Charan Singh, Morarji Desai. Every day, was getting into the bad news. Goenka was – might be playing some politics they realised, we realised… but never told us what to write, what not to write.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 51:25
|| In that government, he was closest to Morarji or… who do you feel?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Morarji. Charan Singh, no. He was divided Morarji Desai and maybe Jagjivan Ram but he was with Morarji Desai.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 51:41
|| Not so much with LK Advani and Vajpayee were too junior…?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Ya, he didn’t regard them much. They were not in the picture. Excepting that they were part of the government. He wanted [a] ticket from them. He fought Lok Sabha election from Vidisha, from where Sushma Swaraj is a candidate. (laughs) So he had- he had… political-politically he was close to J P.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 52:10
|| And what was his ''uhh…''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| -JP and his ''uhh…'' BJP leader who had been… became Nanaji Deshmukh.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Yes.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| So he was close to Nanaji Deshmukh.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 52:21
|| And what was his beef with ''uhh…'' Charan Singh? You said he didn’t like… on what grounds?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Jagjivan Ram. He was closer to Morarji camp. But he was definitely closer to… I would say Vijaya Raje Scindia who was a BJP leader.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 52:41
|| Charan Singh was what- BLD, no it was called then?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Yes. Bharatiya Lok Dal.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 52:45
|| Which had come- had it emerged from a socialist thing or…
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

54:52
|| He committed a blunder. Arresting Mrs Gandhi. How Mrs Gandhi came back. Charan Singh – if they had not arrested her, she would not have emerged as a leader. When she arrested no plan of action. She sat on the bridge, they were taking her to… Mathura side… Palwal. Near Faridabad. After Faridabad. They didn’t have any orders. How can you arrest and send somebody under the law then no instructions, so she sat on a culvert. Little bit of bridge. Can you make up your mind? I’m sitting here. Then they brought her bag, then they created a room for her in Tihar Jail and all that kind of thing. All improvised. What you call ''jugaar'' in Hindi. (laughs) The privilege motion was passed under which they were arrested but that was a big blunder. They had built her up. Second thing that built her up was, there were ''Harijan'' atrocities in Bihar in a place called, Benki. The area was surrounded by a slum- you could not reach that village. She went on Elephant-back to reach that village. To come to the aid of an aggrieved Dalit family – families. That made here very… And people were very excited about it – she’s fighting for people, poorest people. Then she realised she can come back… In-fighting which Congress encouraged also. Congress ultimately brought about the downfall of the Janta government by supporting Charan Singh and Madhu Laya – Madhu Limaye supported at that time. There were debates like MISA et cetera. Maintenance of Internal Security Act. Laloo has named his daughter as Misa. (laughs) This is – a lot of twists and turns in the story. And she might land up in parliament. There’s serious risk of her MISA landing again in parliament. That was my scoop and cabinet ultimately decided to take it off. Bahuguna was the minister. Like this kind of things… Now defamation bill – I was the general secretary of the editor’s guild and as an editor, I went on page one. I ran a debate, I published artictles by Madhu Limaye – all the critics of the defamation bill. Every day one article bottom spread. And my editorial… don’t let this bill reach Rajya Sabha, that was the thrust. No notice to the press, no notice to the country. This bill was off-loaded into Lok Sabha. Gapped*, passed in three and a half hours. By Rajiv Gandhi, who had four hundred two seats. And Assam results came in became four thirteen. And this man pushes the bill with so heavy a majority. We used to meet at Firoz Shah Road. Ramoji Rao was the President that time. I issued a statement (?) consulted the people here. Guild members here. And issued a statement attacking the bill, wrote editorial. Page one. Next day more and more and stepped it up. So fight began. Then other organisations began got into it. Press club, Press Association then it travelled to states and became a national movement. Because Indian press learnt the lesson from emergency that if you go down there is no hope. Fight it immediately.
||

(Word unclear)

(Sound garbled.)
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 57: 03
|| But in HT you didn’t feel any pressure from the owners to avoid confrontation…?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||

57:58

58:38
|| - Well, I went on page one. And I was a comparatively new editor it was very difficult for them to say. Secondly, the entire press was also against defamation bill. So they will get – obviously there were- government was telling them your editor is doing this doing that doing that. And I gone from the Express tradition. I said nothing- on this question, of press freedom I cannot compromise. No way! So they also thought they will be unpopular. I was playing unpopularity card and… you can’t compromise press freedom. I said we are not National Herald. That time. And I joined on the undertaking that I will have full freedom, full… And our circulation was going up because I was running the paper on non-partisan lines... being suddenly non-partisan line- we were forging ahead of Times of India and all that so I was showing the results. There were other issues we came to fight later on. But on press freedom they could not – And the mood of the people also supported. I ran a debate on page one. Madhu Limaye on page one. S Sahai from Statesman on page another. The former chairman of the press council- his article I put it on page one. Every day one article on page one. I was reflecting the public mood. Nikhil Chakravarty rang me up. He says when editor of the Hindustan Times opposes- the your thought which came. Rajiv Gandhi’s… (?) to Rajiv Gandhi, the bottom of the bill has been knocked out. Because Hindustan Times has opposed, now nobody can revive it. He rang me up early in the morning when he read my front page editorial, no compliment to me. One could get away. You had to look for opportunities to increase the and –credibility was my crease*. Built Hindustan Times’ credibility. Because it had lost credibility when I took over. It looked like a Congress mouthpiece. And I made it very clear to them… to the proprietor, I will not be anybody’s mouthpiece neither of Congress nor BJP nor anyone. Only then I’ll take. But proprietors forget their assurances. But the question is you have to choose the issue on which to-
||

(Word unclear).
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 59:38
|| So how long did that take?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Well, I lasted seven and a half years. One of the longer innings.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 59:44
|| But did it end in conflict with the proprietors or…?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| On St. Kitts, I took the stand. Because I stopped… I gave my resignation. Not threaten to resign- resigned. Now if I - editor doesn’t believe the story, it was cock and bull story, worse than that – mischievous. Cock and bull are not necessarily any reason to… cock and bull…(?) So I won that battle later on. I won the battle by resigning. Then they assured not one word will go into newspaper. If editor of Hindustan Times does not believe the succession of stories which are planned on St. Kitts then why didn’t the readers believe? And I resigned my paper. So if they accept they have to stop nonsense. If they publish, if the editor doesn’t believe then who else will believe. And I sacrificed my job for… And I told them I’m doing it for the paper. If you publish this story, for fifty long years – next fifty years – your name will be in the mud. You’ll be remembered for it. They said we’ve not sent this man who went to St. Kitts. Et cetera et cetera. I said then my fight is with the Rajiv Gandhi. (laughs) Which they would not say. Rajiv Gandhi did not pay the fare for the chap who sent – anyway… I won that battle. There were so many other-
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 1:01:17
|| But the story was not carried...?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| They threatened to carry the story but did not carry the story… arrival stories… The chap who came back after visiting St. Kitts. That’s all they wanted the dateline. The story was being effected(?) here. I’d never seen the story. Because I said no, this my resignation. Not one word will appear. The publicati- the chap’s visit to St. Kitts was published. They had no story. They wanted to acquire the dateline for mischief here. But they couldn’t publish any story because if editor doesn’t believe the story, who else will? Editor had sacrificed his job. So I have a few battles I’d fought. But anyway, that’s not the story. Your ''uhh''… talking of the times of that period. Then came editor’s guild fight on… defamation bill. The defamation bill got drafted by Chidambaram. Passed by the Lok Sabha in three and a half hours. I happened to be the general secretary of the guild. Ramoji Rao of Eenadu was the president. He took a stand against this. This must be withdrawn. We led the struggle. We used to meet on Firoz Shah road, Ramoji Rao’s office. So a collective struggle developed. Then other associations were brought in and all that, became a movement. That was a… excellent moment. Why we were able to force unity on the press was the Emergency experience. The press which crawled excepting the Express, the Statesman, and Opinion, and Economic and Political Weekly. That experience I think was fresh in the minds of press.
||

(Word unclear).

|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 1:03:27
|| So, in that sense you think the emergency… the memory of the has been a positive ''uhh…''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - On the press, yes.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - influence on – on the press?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Yes, it was. It was.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| And not just a bad precedent even for proprietors’ sake, in terms of getting away with it?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Goenka also was there, holding the flag one day… you may have seen the pictures. I was the general secretary; Ramoji Rao was the president. Every day we used to meet at Firoz Shah Road, 30 Firoz Shah Road. Twenty-Eight, I think. Ramoji Rao had an apartment… and kept united. That united the press. So we fought that defamation bill. That was the golden moment of the press.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 1:04:27
|| And what do you feel-
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - And then there were offers for the talk from the government. We rejected it. Not only that we said nobody to talk to the government. They wanted talk and face-saving. No talks. The government… nullify them. We said no talks. They had withdraw (?) on their own. That was the- that is the lesson we learnt during the Emergency. The press learnt. A government of four hundred two seats, Rajiv Gandhi, was worried about that. After that he never…the press. He suspected. Why he wanted that stupid advice… He… He didn’t want to… Bofors obviously- Bofors (?)…not to be published. And then, you are virtually declaring yourself that you are a culprit.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 1:05:31
|| But you feel, those lessons are… still remembered and… by the press, by the media and the- and the…?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Part of the press, yes, but part of the press, no.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 1:05:43
|| So, something has changed again in- for the worse?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Can – can change. Can change. Because most of the press is owned by the proprietors. And proprietors are being influenced by the government.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Or by their desire to… yeah, make nice with the government.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - It can.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| And is that - you think ''uhh…'' phenomenon more of this government or…?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - All governments.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - also in the previous…
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 1:06:15
|| Because this government is a majority. And if they’re a well-organised party- which was at that time fighting against Rajiv Gandhi. So the roles are changing. The real love for press freedom is when you are- in the government you are (?). They’ve won over the proprietors now. But what do you with the newsmen on the street. Or the workshop. How many people you can transfer? And at that time, television was not there. Medium.
||

(Unclear).
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Hmm.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| Now you beat up newsmen and then you as proprietor to… support the government. It’s impossible for them. But face they will have with the staff. There will be curbs on the press. It can be there. If- their independence… The first people to respect independence should be press itself. If you don’t respect your freedom then why will the proprietor or the government will respect your freedom. You have to respect yourself.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 1:07:25
|| Do you feel that in this administration in the immediate ''uhh…'' after the election that there was.. a lot of hesitancy and even fear in - in – in the press and a reluctance to be critical of the Modi regime or do you think that was just enthusiasm…?
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - No they had demolished the credibility of the previous ''raaj''. But the way they have been going… you see, BJP’s majority is eleven. There [were] 349 seats. The government did not last. They had to impose emergency to continue. Rajiv had four hundred two seats without Assam results. With Assam results which came later it was four hundred thirteen seats. And 1989 elections he lost. And what is eleven seats? In Bihar itself they have lost considera- got thirty-nine, thirty- thirty out of thirty-nine or forty seats. Don’t you think they will lose eleven seats there itself? They can’t have assembly seats- power in assembly. Supposing they lose twenty seats, this eleven majority will be wiped off. Shiv Sena is not a reliable ally. (laughs) Then seven seats in ''Daheli''. How many they can get? Then in Gujarat they are in difficulty. Rajasthan they can’t get twenty-five out of twenty-five seats. Can they get it? No way! Impossible. Can they f… forty-six seats again in Maharashtra? Then where will get in the majority, that’s their problem. That is their worry. And that’s why they’re becoming…
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 1:09:15
|| But do you feel they’re also as…
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Winning the proprietor does not mean…
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - ''Hmm.''
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - … you’ve won the press. A small story by a reporter can do the damage. Second, television journalism, if journalists can be beaten up. It’s there on the screen. Why will not they do the story which is critical? How many stories you can suppress? Because the press will get a bad name… ''Ab'', social media will be there.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 1:09:46
|| But sometimes I think- I mean the… the difference is-is that… I mean the sense that you know in-in… you could say in the emergency or post-emergency time. In the seventies, the impression was, you know… HT is a Congress paper, T. O. I. is pusillanimous, Express is anti-Congress. But nowadays… a lot of media houses ''uhh…'' TV channels also will- not be objective, but do… do both – both be sycophantic and occasionally aggressive.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - No most of them are psycho- ''uhh''... they indulge in sycophancy no doubt about it. But when… its comes to brass tacks, they can’t tell a reporter not to publish… he will publish somewhere else. He will leak out I was told not to publish. Second, put it on social media.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Yeah.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| So they ca- then they have to compete also. Why Times Now, people are laughing at? Because often they support the government. Although- whatever the government is opposed to, they take the battle in their hands. So it looks silly. Although their TRP ratings will be higher. But the point is, they have to be in the field. All that they did in the last two days, they shifted the criticism of that day from JNU – Patiala House. It’s very subtle. The battle is of Patiala House. That becomes lawyers versus the media… Not versus… so the media is also clever So you shift the focus so that. Sa… even the press which wants to support the government of the day, proprietors won’t be able to do straightaway. The people are watching. The people want to know – not only the nation. (laughs)
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 1:12:02
|| So, dangers but g- good opportunities also for good journalism.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Second you have learnt lessons from emergency
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Well, I sometimes wonder if people really remember it anymore.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Emergency- emergency lesson – oh yes. People- press remembers. Emergency was a great educator for the media. If you don’t defend your credi- if you crawl, if you bend you will be made to crawl. So that way emergency served the purpose. It’s very difficult to suppress freedom now than earlier.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 1:12:36
|| Well interesting, no, that- it was Advani who said that…
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Yes, Advani said that…
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - One often feels that it’s the BJP who are…
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - They were asked to bend and some crawled which is a fact also. Even the courts crawled… Justice Chandrachud. Chief Justice during emergency days, upheld the negation of right to life. That we don’t have the right to life. Can you imagine? Degradation of the- darkest hour of the Supreme Court. And later on, when emergency was lifted he said it was – much later it was, much later he said it was a mistake. What do you mean? You are giving my right to live, right to life and then you say it was a mistake. Shameful. Now it’s very difficult for anyone to do like that. But governments will be governments. And they learn the hard way. So this government will have problem if they curb with the freedom of the press. So do it to the proprietor’s vote.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 1:13:42
|| But proprietors can change their minds also.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Proprietors can change their minds when they’ll say they will lose. They’ve also to survive. Secondly now the Bombay pro-… proprietors are also upset with the government itself. As stories have said. As stories have said in government of the day one… one- one paper has written a column on this. Blaming- for why more FDI is not coming on the corporate sector. More investment is not coming is because of the corp- corporate sector itself. They’re not pulling their weight together. That means that they’re unhappy with government. Obviously they dried up political support. So that is why they are going for start-ups. You people are not investing? So the start-ups- that’s why Modi has, let’s help start-ups. He doesn’t know that rate of failure is ninety-five percent. Five percent succeed in a big way. Anywhere in the world. But why this disappointment with corporate sector? Many of them will be enjoying there. Those who are not getting preferential treatment like ''uhh…'' Mr. Adani gets… (laughs)
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Yeah.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 1:15:07
|| This Gujarat group is (?)– they don’t voice any dissent whether gain or a losses. Bombay group is not happy. Doesn’t look like from the statements which are coming. Or their enthusiasm is not there as it was earlier- in the campaign period. Corporate sector praised ''uhh…'' backed Modi campaign quite a bit. Because they were – they were ''uhh'' carried away by vibrant Gujarat’s summits... Now they don’t get those results. So they’re disappointed. They want more profits. They are not… bothered about whether you are a democracy or otherwise. They’re bothered for their profits, which in a way [is] useful for the country. But profits how do you earn? Unless the government of the day follows your policies… That is sickening*. Anybody that doesn’t agree with the government is anti-national. That will be unfortunate. One doesn’t know where will this debate end.
||

(Best guess at word).
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - Yeah. Well, I don’t know. I can’t imagine this current situation ending well for the government.
||
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #000001;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
||
|| - No it’s a critical- that’s why today I find Ravi Shankar Prasad says- JNU has another voice. But you should know this- should have- all universities should have other voices. What’s wrong with that? Then ''uhh…'' Jaitley also said press should not be – nobody should beat up the press. But he- he’s making the statement four days after. It has been beaten up last three days. And he’s minister for Information and Broadcasting, he should have been the first to say no, don’t do it. They’ve done it. His own colleagues… (?) Rowdy-ism taking place.
||
|-
|}

.NjI4.NTM

2017-11-03T11:23:22Z

Bhanugs:

== INTERVIEW WITH DILIP BOBB ==

<u>'''INTERVIEWEE'''</u>* Name: Dilip Bobb (DB)
* Occupation: Journalist

<u>'''INTERVIEWER'''</u>* Kai Friese (Kai)
*

<u>'''Medium: Video + Audio recordings'''</u>* Format: Audio .wav
* Language: English
* Location of Interview: <span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#222222;">''Outlook''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#222222;"> office in Safdarjung Enclave</span>
* Date of the interview: 08 January 2016 13:33

<u>'''Clip name/DURATION: '''</u>* kf_dbob_raw_080116.WAV
* Length 00: 47: 29
* Bit rate: 1411kbps
* Size: 479 MB
* Date modified: 18/02/2016

<div style="color:#3482b1;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">Interview Start</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I was basically at the University, which was Calcutta University, in those days was quite happening place. So I already got into the writing </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Sorry...what was it...the college magazine in Xavier's? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] I can't remember the name...uhmmmm many years ago. Any way I then got in....once I started writing for the magazine I realised that I had a flair for it...talent for it and I ...there was then this magazine called Junior Statesman, which was part of the Statesman group, which was a youth magazine but very well done very well produced and very talented writers who were ....So I met the ...I happen to meet the editor socially one day and...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] This is Desmond Doig.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Desmond Doig. And he said, 'why don't you write for us?'</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] This is still around '73? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Yeah. So I did that. I did one piece for them which was published without any editing, so I thought well maybe that's where my future lies.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Any recollection what that was? Your first published piece?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Not at all. Well I did two or three for them so...I think one was to do with careers and, you know, career choices, which was very limited in those days, you know. And then once I decided that I wanted to be a journalist or a writer, Calcutta was obviously not the place. It had, in those days, only one English newspaper and I think </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Junior Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was about, </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Anandbazar Patrika''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was the only. So but Delhi was the place where all the national press was based. So I finished college and then moved to Delhi, and looked around. I really wasn't all that keen on newspapers because newspapers were...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:55</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">[Kai] And </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Junior Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> you hadn't joined? You were sort of a freelancer?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] no, I was a freelancer. And I did write for them while I was in Delhi as well. But then I you know realised that my kind of writing was more suited for magazines than was for newspapers. Though Delhi was where all the newspapers operated from there </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">3:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> The </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times, The Sun Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, and the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;">,</span><span style="color:#262626;">'' Statesman. Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was of course Cal (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Read as Calcutta''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) but they had a big operation in Delhi as well. And so I just in fact Emergency had already been declared. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] So you came in '75 to Delhi?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">3:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Yes, so I moved here in '75...end of '74, yeah. late 74 and then 75 it was yeah... Sorry I came here in '75, you're right. And by June the Emergency had been declared and I really had no experience of working in a publication under Emergency it was censorship at that time...a kind of situation and then I saw this ad for a magazine that was going to be launched called </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. I was like, you know, it just said walk-in-interview, so I walked in and I liked the people behind it, I liked their attitude and their approach...what their plans were.</span>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#262626;">Keywords/Phrases</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">Background of DB in Calcutta </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Junior Statesman''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (JS) Desmond Doig </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Anandbazar Patrika''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Freelancing at JS move to Delhi Joined </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> DB likes their concept.</span>

|-
|}
<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Who did you speak to? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:05</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Initially Madhu Trehan was the editor, and so through her, then of course I met Aroon Purie after that. And they hired me on the spot. I mean I didn't have to come back. So that was...(long pause) let me get the dates right because</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Yeah, when the first issue came out is also a bit of a mystery to me. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Yes, we launched in December '75 sorry. So it was six months after the Emergency and now the initial plan, I mean it was a stupid idea to launch a magazine, a news magazine in a situation like that in an Emergency but their initial idea of India Today was really a magazine for ...a magazine for Indians abroad.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:15</span><span style="color:#262626;">[Kai] Right, that's what I've heard.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] It wasn't meant to be sold in India at all</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] So it was being produced here and printed here and then shipped or printed over there or </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Printed here and then shipped. And basically it was the America and the UK.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">6:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] As a fortnightly already or as a monthly.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] As a fortnightly... as a fortnightly. So we...thinking, from what I remember, thinking was that you know domestically that appears as heavily censored wouldn't be the case if sold outside India. So we merrily sort of put together the first issue and and it was, you know, meant to be entire...the consignment was meant to be exported and then we realised that even if we want to send it outside, it still had to go through the censors. So it went to the censors and they ... suddenly we realised that Mrs. Gandhi was the Prime Minister then who'd imposed the Emergency was as concerned about her image abroad as she was, well she wasn't really concerned about her domestic as she was about her image abroad. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">7:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> You know in the west especially so we were told we couldn't do it. We couldn't send that consignment abroad --- [Kai interjects] ...at all!--- at all. So we were stuck with all these copies. This was December 15 1975.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] My goodness! Have you got some of those original copies?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] I don't but but they're somewhere, I mean, in the archives I guess. So and the first issue, I remember very clearly, the headline on the cover was, ‘Whose Afraid of the Emergency?’ And so it was provocative kind of a headline. And the story (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''sic''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) inside were fairly, I mean, knowing (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''can be read as towing''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) that, you know the Government was being extra over-sensitive about, whatever was written there. So there were a lot of features, there were a lot of stuff about business and and ... so we kept politics to minimum but it was a, you know, since it was the cover story, it was obviously gonna catch somebody's attention. And it did. So we decided that </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai interjects] Had it got much in the way of advertising. Actually how [</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> DB: No, we hadn't....{</span><span style="color:#262626;">''DB continues in the background''</span><span style="color:#262626;">} ] was it handled since it was for foreign market? No advertising! </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] No, we hadn't really, you know, though of because if you...the rules in those days </span><span style="color:#262626;">was if you were selling it abroad, the advertising had to come the market you were selling it (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''read- the product''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) in, and not from domestic unless it was a company that had offices there (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''read- place of circulation''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) or was doing business there. So we got the odd ad from, you know, Air India and people like that who were allowed to advertise for a magazine that was sold abroad, except we were told that we couldn't send it abroad, so we said, 'okay, we'll put it in the domestic market'. So overnight the cover price was changed from pounds or dollars into rupees. And...</span>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#262626;">Keywords and Phrases</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''IT''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) launched in December 1975 Madhur Terhan Aroon Purie nature of the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''IT''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> meant for Indian readers abroad well written fortnightly range of topics covered Headline- </span><span style="color:#262626;">Whose Afraid of the Emergency? </span><span style="color:#262626;">but had to go through the censors in India. Switch to domestic market advertising </span>
|-
|}
<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai]</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But that initial issue was scrapped or you now tried to sell that issue.?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] That same issue...we just changed the cover...price.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] But now it went through censorship and was cleared for domestic audience.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Yeah yeah...it was.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Okay.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Aa... we'd been very careful about how we wrote it. I mean, we had a, you know, a sense that they would...and you know it was the first issue, we didn't want to be shut down out of one issue. So we had been very careful about we had written it and what we'd written. But you know, I mean, it was written in a way that people got a sense of what was happening. In those days it was, you know, nobody knew what was happening, the public because of censorship. You know the newspapers were not allowed to print anything negative even if you saw it happening in front of your eyes, you couldn't publish it. So... but it was, you know, the quality of writing, the quality of photographs, and the style was far superior to what was available at that time in terms of news magazines and whatever 5,000-6,000 copies that we reprinted, every single one of them sold out. So we switched the entire focus to domestic overnight. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And it continued to be a fortnightly, which was, you know, odd...but then you know, it was </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">12:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> initially brand as a magazine to be sent abroad so we needed that [</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">12:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Kai adds- gap] </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">12:11</span><span style="color:#262626;">[DB continues] gap. And...but once we switched to domestic, we realised that, you know, since there is censorship we may as well just keep it as a </span><span style="color:#262626;">fortnightly, which we did. But.for the next few months we carried on every single page...had to be sent to the censors and some stuff they let it go, some stuff they underlined with blue pencil and you couldn't print that. So...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] But they didn't get agitated...it didn't become a conflict?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] No, it didn't. There was no, you know, these were all bureaucrats sitting in Shastri Bhawan, I&B Ministry (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Read as Information and Broadcasting Ministry''</span><span style="color:#262626;">), you know, they were told that anything to do with Mrs Gandhi...negative...cut it out. And, you know, the writing was subtle and was, you know, so it was easy to, you know, write something that would the bureaucrats would not find offensive but the reader would understand what we're trying to say. So that's how we carried on for a long time until the Emergency... she suddenly decided to lift it. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Hmmm...the Elections.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Yeah and announced elections. So for a long time we were in that situation where we were just trying to basically outwit the censors by the way you wrote a story.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Writing in a winking manner</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] So, you know, you could read between the lines if you were smart enough. And that's what, I think, was a huge advantage for us. We had good writers.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] What kind of stuff were you doing at that stage?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Mostly everything. And it was, you know, it obviously had caught the imagination of the public because we were selling out. We increased the print run, and still sold then we printed a little more.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai]And advertising started coming in slowly.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Advertising was trickling in and in those days, you know, advertising in print was not...there was no television. But, you know, the economy was pretty much, you know, socialist...Mrs Gandhi, you know, was strictly very very socialist kind of economy. So there were not any big business...the guys who were in it...in a particular area of sector were mostly guys who had a monopoly. Whether there was cars or bikes or motorbikes or scooters or whatever. So, you know, there was really no need for advertising. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">15:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Not a lot of competition. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">15:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Yea, not a lot of competition at all! So advertising was not that great. A few, you know, more progressive types like the Tatas and Bajaj did advertise but generally it was ...we weren't...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] But are you saying that the business plan was based on circulation rather than advertising....on cover press?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] It was all on cover press, absolutely. News-stands were, you know, what was really what we focused on as opposed to sheer advertising. And then of course the Emergency ended.</span>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#262626;">Keywords and Phrases</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">Complete switch to domestic market quality of writing 5,000-6,000 copies all sold reprint screening by censors profile of the screeners affecting the writing declaration of elections nature of economy under Mrs. Gandhi (Socialist) trickling of advertising </span><span style="color:#262626;">''IT''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> business plan based on circulation</span>
|-
|}
<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">[Kai] Yea, so talk about the transition. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And till then I think the only two newspapers that had some...shown some resistance was Indian Express for sure, Statesman to some extent and but all the rest just caved in. They just went with what the Government wanted them to do. So in that situation everybody was, sort off, virtually most journalists were jobless. I mean they didn't have to do anything. They just printed press releases from Press Information Bureau that was it. And nobody could do independent story, nobody could write about the Government or about what they were seeing right in front of our eyes, which was whether it was sterilisation or Sanjay Gandhi's extra-constitutional authority.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] So was that exciting that phase when Mrs Gandhi was still in power, the Emergency technically there but Elections had been declared so everyone knew it was going to end. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Yea, well yea yea...She lifted the Emergency same time she declared the elections. And that's when the dam broke, you know, all those stories that people had seen, knew about, couldn't write about, you know...suddenly they all came ... the huge dam broke. And that was when I think Media's big... </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">18:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai adds]</span><span style="color:#262626;"> moment came.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">18:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Big moment...yea. I think it was huge media revolution really because within the moment that happened suddenly, you know, newspapers were sort of became much more aggressive than they had been earlier in terms of investigative journalism, in terms of being a lot more, let's say, less respectful of authority, much more critical in their approach to Government and then you had new tools that came along, news magazine...there was Sunday...there was couple of others were launched. So obviously there was a huge boom that happened immediately after the Emergency was lifted and, you know, in a couple of years’ media was...pretty much what it should have been, which was, you know, sort of conscious </span><span style="color:#262626;">keeper </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">19:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and exposing wrong doings, exposing and of course, you know, all the stuff all the people who'd been extra-constitutional authorities during the Emergency and done things we knew about. So all those guys were exposed and suddenly, you know, ministers were being, you know, reduced to ...shown as, you know, sort of criminals really. And that whole equation between the Press and the Government changed overnight. And which has now got a bit aggressive, I think in ...at that time it just, you know, was just a right balance. And of course, there was so much to write about apart from the Emergency, and Sanjay Gandhi's own role, and Maneka and all the things that had happened in Old Delhi, for instance the sterilisations, and people coming forward with all sorts of stories about torture, and you know...all the opposition leaders who'd been put in jail. Apart from that it was ...there was a huge pond of stories to do with the guys who had taken over because the Janta Party </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">21:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> who were, you know, just so badly, it was a </span><span style="color:#262626;">''khichdi''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> you know...what we call a </span><span style="color:#262626;">''khichdi ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">is a coalition of guys who had</span><span style="color:#262626;"> nothing in common, no ideology, you know, and they'd made a mess of everything and so you had so much to write about so there was no dearth of material for media.</span>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#262626;">Keywords and Phrases</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">Transition from Emergency to Elections during Emergency, the journalists were helpless mostly exceptions </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian Express ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">and</span><span style="color:#262626;">'' Statesman''</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">dam broke increased reportage change in the nature of writing---investigative journalism ‘media revolution’ writing about Sanjay Gandhi and those who undertook extra-constitutional powers new media tools- Sunday magazine sterilisations stories of torture Transition of Janta Party-</span><span style="color:#262626;"></span><span style="color:#262626;"> making a mess </span><span style="color:#262626;">''khichdi''</span><span style="color:#262626;">  plenty to write about </span>
|-
|}
<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">21:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] And no sense of pressure though from that...from the Janta Government.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">22:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] No, by then, you know, the media had really come into its own, I think and nobody dared, and then you had people like Arun Shourie (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''read as AS''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) and, you know, stars like that who were being very aggressive and exposing, you know, the government. So the government was really on the back-foot in terms, as for as media was concerned. Of course the Janta experiment didn't last very long and Mrs Gandhi was back in a couple of years. But she'd learnt her lesson and she came back and then she was...Sanjay was still facing a lot of charges; he had to go to court all the time. She was under pressure, so it was a different Mrs Gandhi who came back to power and she never dared pressure the media </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">23:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> at all because </span><span style="color:#262626;">she knew everybody...I mean now the media was, sort of, energised, you know, itching to get back at her for what she'd done. So she was very very careful about dealing with the media. I mean she was not a very ...she was not very accessible to the media but that was her way of functioning. And of course she then had all the Punjab problem...then Blue Star, and then of course her assassination....so things sort of just snowballed, you know, since she came back, and I think the...then of course television had come much later around 1985, when you started getting television and NDTV was the first to ...private channel otherwise it was all Doordarshan only. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">24:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So then we had television also, you know, and the visual impact is so much more greater than anything that print can do. So the media was spreading into this, you know, new world and then television and print was pretty, you know, expanding ...very very fast, getting and of course advertising was coming in, you know, because things were changing and all. Socialism was dead and so it was a great time for the media to be, you know, taking on a sort of...not adversarial but a, you know, very very aggressive role in terms of anything to do with...where the government was going wrong, where, you know...so it became I think the credibility of the media has...was never as high as it was in that post-... </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">26:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] adds...post- Emergency </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">26:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB continues] Post-Emergency period. And of course, you know, there were I remember (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''L. K.) ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">Advani's favourite quote, 'If you're asked to crawl, I mean...you (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''read: the press in the Emergency when asked to bend, they crawled''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) were asked to bend and you crawled' . So you know people did that and that of course had a lot to do with people who owned newspapers...they had other businesses...Birlas' just owned </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;">....very very minor part of their empire, so if the newspaper during the Emergency, the newspaper got out of hand, it would affect </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">26:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai interjects] The Jains, of course, The Times of India Group, that was their only business but they also famously caved </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">27:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] yea....well the Jains, you know, it wasn't so much, I mean Birlas had a lot of other businesses; the Jains had through their family, the Dalmias, you know, they're all connected. So they could have been affected, you know, the family could have been affected. So it wasn't just the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> but every, like I said, apart from the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, everybody else just, you know, didn't have a very proud record in the Emergency.</span>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#262626;">Keywords and Phrases</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">Absence of pressure from Janta Gvt @DB media post-Emergency very powerful Arun Shourie a prolific and vituperative return of Mrs Gandhi she was more careful sanjay Gandhi going to court Mrs Gandhi not too accessible to media Punjab problem- Blue Star-Assassination coming of television in 1985s NDTV first private tv </span><span style="color:#262626;">channel Advani’s quote on press reasons why the media crawled</span><span style="color:#262626;"></span><span style="color:#262626;"> families and businesses could be affect. Birlas Tatas Jains Dalmias</span>
|-
|}
<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] But seeing this as a kind of a Golden Age of media showing spine immediate post-Emergency ....you're implying which now would be surprising also some kind of decline subsequent to that...I mean, do you see it as an age of return of </span><span style="color:#262626;">''sarkari ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">influence or...now because you mention advertising comes in, you know, being delicate towards corporates becomes increasingly important, which in my experience is largely true but tell me what you think?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] It really depends on individual publications and individual owners. I don't think, you know, </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was the first really introduced stuff like the Page News and all that and then, you know, that's their strategy...that's the way they think that the money is gonna come from, so they went ahead and did it. At the end of the it's still a good paper, you know. It's not a paper that you can dismiss. Similarly, you know, </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> has this image of being pro-Congress because of Birlas' connection but, you know, everybody has their own, you know, interests .</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">29:05</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But I don't think, you know, when I worked in </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and now here...there's absolutely no pressure from owners at all to say, you know, don't write this or don't write about this or don't write about that. So it's not that, you know, people are...maybe a little careful about...not about the Government for sure. I mean the Government has, you know, as you can see the papers are quite quite critical still about most...the ones that are not, you know, what their....they have some affiliations but by long I think the press has got, thanks to television, become overly aggressive and overly ...call it a competition, somebody does it and then you have to do it too. So they're following, you know, and if that....whoever is being, you know, aggressive and sensational and, you know, not too worried about credibility and if they're still getting advertising support and they're still watched by majority of people, you know, I mean then everybody else has to follow. They figure that if that model is working well, you know, we have to do it too.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">31:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Not everybody but some people will go along. So it's a ...I don't think there's, you know, government at one time in the early days in the 1970s and the 1980s...government advertising was important for some sections of media because they advertised a lot...state governments, central government, so I think the regional press more than the national press got....would have been possibly under some pressure from the Government because of advertising...a lot of their advertising depended on state government but today its, you know, it’s a ...challenge is not to do with </span><span style="color:#262626;">advertising as much as it is to do with the platform you're on, which is social media, which is now the new kid on the block and it's challenging. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">32:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai agrees] That's the bigger threat rather than the state or corporate... </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">32:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Yes, that is a bigger threat rather than state or corporate...yea... absolutely. I mean corporates, I know here for instance after the Radia Tapes (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''c. 2010''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) and Tata...withdrew </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">32:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Yes, pulled the plug on. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">32:33</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Pull the plug on advertising, you know, that was a huge huge amount of advertising every year...but they lost. But that's the risk you take, I mean, you know, if you want to be a credible publication</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and you have information and you know it's going to affect the bottom-line, you still go ahead, that's, you know, I admire that and I think a lot of 80percent of the media is still pretty much not concerned about pressure from corporates or...</span>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#262626;">Keywords and Phrases</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">[Kai]: immediate post-Emergency as the Golden Age and gradual stepping back into </span><span style="color:#262626;">''sarkari''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> mode? + Role of advertising + threat of ad blockage used to direct tone?</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">{DB] hard to heel because of increased competition+ gvt. ads not very important (beyond regional press) Radia Tapes Controversy in 2010 seldom pressure from corporates now threat from social media</span>
|-
|}
<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">33:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] You don't think even with...you spent a lot of time </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and as that grew as a business, I'm wondering whether it didn't also make them more...sensitive and disinclined to  step on the government's toes. Did you ever have that sense </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">33:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB pips in: No!] ... No? </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">33:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Never, not one day. There was, I think, Aroon Purie (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''AP is the correct name here''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) for instance was classmate of Rajiv Gandhi, and I don't think anybody was more critical of Rajiv Gandhi than </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was at that time...but he was messing things up. So no, </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was never...I can't remember a single instance where anybody came and said, 'hey, you know these are clients or this is, you know, go easy on the government.' It never happened.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] More recently, and this is a, I mean, distant parallel, of course, and a crude one...many people have at times compared them...the media mood here with, I mean, in recent years or months with the Emergency. Did you have a sense in the...at the time of the elections that brought the BJP and Narendra Modi to power that there was an element of caution and fear and let's see what happens in the media too, and that people were holding back out of some nervousness. That is my sense though, [DB promptly interjects: No!] I think it (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Read as media''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) has changed again a bit.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] It has. I think, you know, there was a great amount of hope and expectation from this </span><span style="color:#262626;">Government, and Narendra Modi had been, you know, really trashed in the press over Gujarat, so it wasn't that the press had been easy on him. In fact, he was very very anti-press because of the coverage of Gujarat post-Gujarat. So he still avoids the press. He doesn't have...he's never had a proper press conference, he doesn't meet the press. He stays away...he doesn't give interviews, so he's very weary of the press.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">35:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I think the press was, you know, went a little overboard in...when he first came to power because he seemed like, you know, one....(???) </span><span style="color:#262626;"> , there was a huge disappointment with the earlier Government, so you know, anything new was welcomed. He had this reputation for being a man who is pro-development, and that was and still is in his favour. So initially the press was very very favourable but and then I think, you know, it became a kind of a...</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">36:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> sort of cynicism crept in and you can see that reflected in the coverage that he is getting now. But in the first, I'd say, three-four months it was widely supportive.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">36:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] So you think that was genuine enthusiasm not a fear or not being nice out of ... [DB promptly repeats: no no]  ... fear at all?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">37:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Genuine enthusiasm, I think a lot of people, you know, knew him as somebody who could be vindictive and could, you know, he had this very very negative view of the press. So there were people who were maybe a little weary of ...but I think generally, you know, it was just the opportunity that the kind of hope he generated when he came in...that out-weighted anything else. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">37:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">So there was fear as such, I think that era of...went with the Emergency. It's never gonna come back. And I think any Prime Minister knows that...anybody in the Government knows that. They can't...you know Press has become very powerful, much more than it was earlier. So ...so nobody has that kind of fear that there was during the Emergency. I mean that was fear...you could feel it, I mean you could see it...in the way that media reacted. But you don't see that now. The media is pretty critical of anything that the government does, personally to do with him or his or anybody close to him. So there's, you know, no question of fear because (one)you know, what can the government do? They can stop ads but that doesn't bother anybody because government advertising is no longer important enough </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">38:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai interjects: Significant]. But it's a...it also released a lot of ...because of the boom and...in the media, it has allowed a lot of people to get into the media who really shouldn't be there.  </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">39:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai laughs: Oh really!] </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">39:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Yeah!</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">39:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] You just mean the quality of ... </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">39:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Yea, quality...quality one and... </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">39:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai continues] people coming in to journalism.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">39:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB continues] quality one and two people who are...have political connections, people who are, you know, politicians themselves.</span>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#262626;">Keywords and Phrases</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">Any pressure from the government on India Today as it grew as a business </span><span style="color:#262626;"></span><span style="color:#262626;"> (DB) none</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">Ex of Aroon Purie being critical of Rajiv Gandhi</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">Over comparison between media clam-down during Emergency and Narendra Modi -</span><span style="color:#262626;"></span><span style="color:#262626;"> (DB) doesn’t see the comparison as being completely correct believes that despite NaMo being thrashed badly in post-Gujarat episode, people hoped a lot from him NaMo weary of press—no proper press conference or interview but a cynicism creeping in </span>

<span style="color:#262626;">[Kai] Was the press not afraid when NaMo came to power but was genuinely enthusiastic? [DB]; Press as enthusiastic though some were weary fear as existed in Emergency not present with NaMo @ DB ….not possible as press is too powerful</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">Change in the quality and nature of people getting into journalism and threat from social media</span>
|-
|}
<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">39:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] But why is that happening except if the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''maliks''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> are encouraging that.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">39:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Well, to some extent, you know, that maybe true but I think a lot of people just want to be in the media because to be in crowd gives them some status, so it’s not so much as the government encouraging them as to their own, you know, it seems to add to their... </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">40:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Oh! You mean the owners were connected up, setting up media operations (DB agrees with Kai comment with - Yea...Yea), not reporters as such (DB says No No No - in the background). </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">40:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] No, there are very few reporters who... but generally, you know, you can tell now it's easier to tell who is, you know, pro-government and who's not. So...or pro-this Government. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">40:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] But just to go back to when you came to Delhi and started in this Emergency Era, coming from Calcutta, were you struck at all by the incestuousness of connections in Delhi, including between journalists and people in government? I'm often startled when I hear stories about how everyone knew everyone at the senior level.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">40:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] I don't know...It was a totally different era and was a totally different kind of relationship. I think there are more people now who are connected with the government than there were then. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">41:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> In those days it was a pretty informal kind of thing. You could, you </span><span style="color:#262626;">know, there was no security, there was no, kind of, you know, aloof kind of attitude that there is today. You could walk into a minister's office without an appointment, and he'd see you, you know as a reporter and there was no question of....so. Whether it was the Emergency or before. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">41:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> You had a ...access, you know, if it was a minister who or somebody in power who was kind of or somebody you respected and liked, you got friendly. It wasn't that people actually cultivated anybody because it was such an informal kind of, you know, scene. And in those days, you could walk into the Prime Minister's office or a house, and you know, and ask for an appointment...you can't get anywhere near 10 kms today. So it was a very very informal kind of, you know, situation then. You could, you know, you had...there would...In fact, more than the press cultivating politicians, it was the other way round. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">42:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Politicians were the ones who were cultivating the press, and that happens today as well...so not much has changed. Well in those days, you know, it was very very ...totally different relationship. It was...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">43:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ...So you see this as essentially a positive transformation the benefits of which have continued and are secured, except for the threat of the internet is …</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">43:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] The threat of the internet, the internet has created journalists who are not journalists. They're basically, you know, anybody can write what they want on the internet on twitter, on Facebook, blogs and they can trash you. So the internet is creating this alternative army of trolls, you know, and journalists who...anybody can write an opinion. They're not trained journalists, you know. Journalists require training, you know. It's not somebody can walk in and overnight become a journalist, you know, there's a certain specific training that goes into becoming a journalist. There are certain rules you have to follow and now days it's free for all on the web... on the internet and they call themselves journalists, because they write opinion, they write blogs or whatever.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">44:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] And the media to some extent is involved, at least television channels... we encourage this - citizen journalist. (DB agrees with Kai's point). </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">44:36</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] And the television, you know, because of the competition ... intense competition...sometimes steps out of line...a lot of times, steps out of line. And it just confuses everything, and because of this shouting matches on the news, so you're not getting.... (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''corrects himself''</span><span style="color:#262626;">) ...getting lot of noise and not getting lot of news. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">44:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So I think the print media is still the most solid, dependable, credible, I'd say but, you know, what's happening in the rest of the world in terms of the print media so it'll eventually happen here. And social media is...I mean, everybody today of any ....most magazines, most newspapers are now tying up with Facebook  and Google to be on their platform. So </span><span style="color:#262626;">you know instead of reporting on Google and reporting on Facebook, you're now a part of that, so that's a compromise, you know this is social media</span><span style="color:#262626;"> is awestruck (??) on the press </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">45:49</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai simultaneously add- on the print]</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">45:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] So just a couple of corny template questions at the end. [DB: Yea...] High point and low point in the memory of your own career? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">46:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Low point was the Emergency, definitely. Lowest point was when you could not as a journalist write what you meant.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">46:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] But any particularly memorable story for you?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">46:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Oh lots...lots...lots. I'd done some great ... I've been to some great places and written a lot of cover stories for </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;">, too many to count. So, you know, it’s tough to single out one or the other but, you know, </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was a very high point. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">46:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Being there from the start?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">46:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Being there from the start and being part of the team and launched it...that was...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">46:49</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Who else was there in that first team?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">46:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] There was all...Madhu Trehan and Aroon (Purie) and his sister and…their sister and couple of friends of theirs and that's it. I was the only paid employee at that time.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">47:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Acha!''</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">47:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] All the rest were... </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">47:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai enquires- Well, was it in F Block already then?] </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">47:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [DB] Yea...F Block....F-13. But yeah well that was a high point of being part of part a team that too launch a magazine. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">47:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">[Kai] I can imagine.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">47:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Okay...[DB: Okay] ...Thanks so much Dilip.</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">'''Interview Ends'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#262626;">Keywords and phrases</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">Inept people getting into media for personal image and gain lack of discipline and training</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">On close connection between media and politicians during Emergency-</span><span style="color:#262626;"></span><span style="color:#262626;"> It was informal, no solid connections, politicians cultivating media, ministers were more accessible (unlike now)</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">On threat from social media</span><span style="color:#262626;"></span><span style="color:#262626;">created journalists who are not journalists thrash people etc without much research internet creating an army of trolls lots of noise & not news</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">Role of facebook and google & collaboration with newspapers print media still somewhat more credible than television</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">On low and high points of DB’s career </span><span style="color:#262626;"></span><span style="color:#262626;"> low point was the Emergency </span>

<span style="color:#262626;">High point</span><span style="color:#262626;"></span><span style="color:#262626;"> being in the initial team in the launch of India Today as the only paid employee Madhu Trehand & Aroon Purie & sister & family friends others of the launching group. Housed at F-13</span>
|-
|}

<span style="color:#262626;"> </span>

<span style="color:#262626;"> </span>

.NjM3.NDM

2017-11-03T11:17:33Z

Bhanugs:

<u>'''interviewEE'''</u>* Name: Coomi Kapoor
* Occupation: Jounralist

<u>'''INTERVIEWER'''</u>* Kai Friese

<u>'''Medium: Video + Audio recordings'''</u>* Format: Audio .wav
* Language: English with smatterings of Hindi expressions
* Location of Interview: Residence- Nizamudin East
* Date of the interview: 18 February 2016

<u>'''Clip name/DURATION: '''</u>* kf_CKapur_raw.WAV
* Length 00: 53:15
* Bit rate: 1411kbps
* Size: 537 MB
* Date modified: 18/02/2016

<span style="color:#3482b1;">Interview Start</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [</span><span style="color:#262626;">'''Kai]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Interview with Coomi Kapoor on the 18 Feb 2016 at her home in Nizamudin East. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">0:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Coomi, if you could start by telling me little bit about where you came from and how you began in journalism and when.  </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:18 [</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">'''CK]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I was living in Bombay, no connection with Delhi. I was a science student, my father wanted me to do medicine but I didn't...so I took zoology, chemistry. Then I didn't want to continue in science and I thought I'd go...In those days our generation a lot of people were going into advertising, and I wanted to go to advertising. And mother sent me to meet somebody she knew in advertising at the famous Pochkhanwala, which was the artists' hub.</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">0:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> He said, 'why do you want to go to advertising? Why not journalism?' There were no women in the field at that time.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [</span><span style="color:#262626;">'''Kai]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> In advertising? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> In journalism. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> In...okay.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:13 [CK]</span><span style="color:#262626;"> in any case, I must have been easily persuadable. I did my...I did an evening course in journalism from Bhartiya Vidya Bhawan, Bombay. After that I applied to Boston </span><span style="color:#262626;">University and did my Masters in Journalism from there. I came back to India. I applied in the newspapers- The</span><span style="color:#262626;">'' Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> in Bombay. But no response from either. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:48 [Kai]</span><span style="color:#262626;"> This is which year?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">1:52 [CK]</span><span style="color:#262626;"> 19.. I think 1971. Then my brother-in-law [Subramanian Swamy] was in Jana Sangh Party and he said, 'why don't you come to Delhi. There's a paper starting now by the Jana Sangh...RSS' </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai interrupts] Malkanis' Group </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [CK] Malkani (starts to agree but corrects)...Malkani wasn't there at that time, called the Mooo… </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:19</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai finishes] </span><span style="color:#262626;">Motherland. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:19</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">[CK continues] Motherland...</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So I…</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:21</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai asks] So it started only in 71 or so?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:23 [CK]</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> 72 is it...ah ah no </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Organiser''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> was there for a long time but they started in 71 . </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:34</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai asks] So you applied there…</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:35 [CK]</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> I....they were happy to have me.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:40</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai asks] And who was the editor at that time? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">2:41 [CK]</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> You see...They had an idea that they were going to be making it non...not blatantly partisan as was the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Organiser''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">, which is the weekly paper but it was supposed to be like a general paper but they felt that all newspapers in Delhi were overawed by this establishment so they would not give negative {</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''really loud thump of a cup hitting saucer which drowns out the word''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">} views (?) of Mrs Gandhi who was very strong in those days. Aaaa so I joined ...I came to Delhi, joined the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Motherland''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">. It was a very good experience. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:20</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] Where was…was...it...was it near Caxton Press it was? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:22</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] in Jhandewalan</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:24</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai interrupts] Caxton Press was nearby </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:25 [CK]</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> what is there at Caravan...the old Caravan </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:29</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] Yes, yes... </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:29 </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> You know that road…where Deendayal Upadhyaya that was the office.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:36</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> yes, yes, I know...I used to go to ...my father was a journalist, so I used to go to… </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:38</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[Ck]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> Where…where...where was he?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:39 </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> He was a foreign correspondent for German papers, but he ...before that he worked for the German Embassy's magazine, which used to be printed at Caxton Press. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:48</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> It was where the present Deendayal Upadhyaya thing is. The original building was the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Motherland''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:57 </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> And who was the editor? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">3:57 </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> Editor...they wanted to be respectable at that time so they ...the editor was a gentleman Mal...Mankekar...K. R. Mankekar...who was the resident editor of the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">. And there were two sets of people there. There were people like me who were chosen purely on ...you know... professional basis and there were some who had come because of their connection with the RSS. Malkani was the deputy editor.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:30</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">And did he have RSS connections</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:32</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> Of course, Malkani was earlier the editor </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:34</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> No, I mean this Malkekar. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:35</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> Not at all...not at all. He was with </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> for many years, before that for some other newspaper...senior...well. But a lot of his contemporaries felt, sort of, that it was very </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">4:54</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> to join, because you know RSS was looked upon as in those days </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:01</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[Kai'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> interjects] beyond the pale...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:03</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> Beyond the pale. For some rhyme or reason, in those days, they were certainly joining it. But the Congress...I mean it wasn't considered at all reputable to be in </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Motherland''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">. A lot of people wouldn't talk to you. </span>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">Keywords: background Bhartiya Bhawan, Bombay Boston University few women in journalism looking for job Jana Sangh starting a </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Motherland ''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">not blatantly partisan Caxton Press Kai’s father K. R. Mankekar being at </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Motherland''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> not reputable</span>
|-
|}
<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:27</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''Kai]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> So how did you feel about that since you had done a professional degree?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:28 </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> I I I...I'm glad I started there because it gave a kind of experience I would have never got in a mainline newspaper....because there were 3 or 4 journalists....4 or 5 reporters....so I did all the beats...things which I wouldn't have done...for a women.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:50</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> for example...what were you put on to?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">5:51 </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> Covered things ...covered many things....but I also had to cover the municipal corporation. You see in those days there was usually one woman per newspaper. And the woman usually did the features, you know...flower show and the prizes and things like that...didn't do beats and things like that ...but </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Motherland''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> was the paper which didn't have the luxury, you know, of anyone being slotted in a particular thing. So I had to do beats plus. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:27</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> You worked the local politics.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">6:28</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> Local politics was one but I covered a lot of other politics because there were two elections—first there was the Assembly Election then was the Parliament Election. So I was put...thrust into the middle of the thing and also the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Motherland''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> was able to write far more </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">freely than you would anywhere else, even the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> so like and my first one...my first scoop was ... you won't know all these but Nagarwala </span><span style="color:#262626;">Case ... I mean this was much before your time. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:03 </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="color:#3482b1;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">No its not.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:05 </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> But like, you know. We did a serious pointing out that the story that the Government was giving out that Nagarwala was ... (</span><span style="color:#262626;">''note: delete 'was' for correct reading of the sentence''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">) impersonated the the...Mrs. Gandhi's voice...had taken out the money was highly implausible...in fact, since I am Parsi, I had gone to Parsi Anjuman where he stayed and that man said that he had a speak (</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''sic''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">) impediment. I knew Nagarwala actually...he's a family friend. And there's no way he could imitate Mrs Gandhi's voice. I met him in jail also. I was going for another story and thing...So I mean there was quite a lot of freedom to do stories. I was on the campus </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:48</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> You interviewed him in jail and wrote about that?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:48 </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> I did. I talked to him and I wrote about it but I had to say, I was told to say that I had gone with a Jana Sangh Counsellor - Jail Counsellor, who was a BJP. So he said...since I wasn't supposed to have been there, he said, 'you say as told to the other man.' That is what he was saying. Uhmmm so anyway I was there for two years and then I applied for a job in the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Indian Express.''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:23</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> And why...because you thought you had more experience or …</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:26</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> No...there's a difference ...I mean...To be in </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Motherland''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> was a handicap. You know I can remember even you're you were doing pro-stories...I remember the Bangladesh War ...you know...relief collection and all, I was sent to do a story to meet Padmaja Naidu. As soon as she heard the name</span><span style="color:#262626;">'' Motherland''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">, she refused to talk to me. And people were a little intimated and scared.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">8:55</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[Kai'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> enquires] This was the time as I recall there were three party affiliated [papers]...</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Patriot, National Herald, Motherland''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">. Any others? These were the three main (last bit overlaps with CK's agreement) </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:06</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> These were the three mains...the three ones. So in any case I applied for a job in the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Indian Express''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> and Frank Moraes was just leaving so he deferred me to the man who was just coming...Mankekar who was quite impressed with my clippings. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:29</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[Kai'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> asks] Hang on...Mankekar (</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''a bit confusing attempt to pen the correct identity of the editor by both, Kai and CK''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">)</span>

<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:31</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> I'm so sorry. Mulgaokar...Mulgaonkar...It was [S.] Mulgaonkar. He was just joining there. He took me on</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:40</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[Kai'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> asks] as? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:40</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[CK'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">] As a reporter but, in fact, since I was getting a salary, I remember he said....(</span><span style="color:#262626;">''leaves the thought incomplete and rephrases it''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">) I thought I'll have to take a cut in the salary because the salaries were very low in those days. And in </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Motherland…''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:49</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[Kai'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> asks] Approximately? in the hundreds or</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">9:50 </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[C K]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> No, If I'm not mistaken I started in </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Motherland''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> with 400 rupees. And all my money used to go on scooters because I lived in the IIT Campus with my sister and my chief reporter was originally to get me out so he would send me to the university, then he'd send me to somewhere Jamia Milia, somewhere where women were allowed.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:17</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> And you weren't reimbursed for transport? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:19</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> You got some things....you weren't reimbursed...I mean it was counted as part of your salary but I think it was 400. What I do know is when I went to the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Indian Express''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">, they weren't paying very well So I thought I may have to take a cut. But Mulgaonkar said, 'no, I'll give you more than what you're getting.' So when I came in I found I was getting more than everybody else as the Chief Reporter.  So the male reporters were all fuming and …</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:56</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> Any other women reporters at the time?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">10:59 [CK]</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">  You see in every newspaper there was one woman. In the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">, there was Usha Rai...In the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">, there was Barkha Dutt</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:12</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[Kai'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> corrects] not Barkha... her mother...? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:14 [</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">'''CK'''</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">]</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> aaa. sorry...what's her name?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:16</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''Kai'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> adds] Prabha </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">11:17 [</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">'''CK'''</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">]</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> Prabha Dutt. Prabha Dutt... In the...</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Indian Express''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">, there was Razia Ismail and so that the woman slot was there. So but when I came in, in any case, my colleagues were so aggressive, they said, 'you're going to do night duty.' I said, 'yeah, I was doing night duty for </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Motherland''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">, I'll do it over here.' Before that women weren't doing night duty. And it was one way of keeping women out of the profession because you...what is his name...the news editor...Piloo Saxena ...he had a glib explanation which they all used to give, which is that you know, under the Factory Act we'll get into trouble if we keep a woman late at night. So that's why we don't take woman...because they can't do night duty. </span>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">Key words</span>

<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">About </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Motherland''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">- its nature, freedom to write maverick nature some people wouldn’t entertain, eg. Padmaja Naidu Nagarwala Case shift to </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Indian Express''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> salary </span>
|-
|}
<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:11</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> In </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Motherland''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> did you experience any tussles? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:15</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> No, no I had to work for my...that's why I got a very good experience because I was a new reporter I just did about everything including of course night duty and all that....so there was no question of this...There was shortage of manpower and you had to pull your weight. So same in </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">, they put me on night duty. They gave me beats. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:35</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''Kai'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">] And what beats did you get here? Anything new?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">12:37</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> I started in university...corporation also for a while. I did everything but that was unusual for a woman because earlier I'd said that woman was usually doing, you know, Monday...they used to have a diary and like pieces and things like that. It wasn't usually beat reporting and....this late night duty etc. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:04</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> And were you building a network by this stage among politicians or were they pushing you to exploit your connections with the Jana Sangh </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:13 </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> No no...I didn't have any connections with Jana Sangh. I mean I knew the people who were there…</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:16</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai]....your brother-in-law ?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:16 [CK]</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> Ha....but he wasn't very high in those days in the party. No they weren't ...there was a clear distinction, which still is, </span><span style="color:#262626;">I think</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">. It was more then </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">13:28</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [phone rings] </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:29</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> You said that your connections with Jana Sangh were not particularly strong so </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:35</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] I mean I knew them. I knew them, I'd been covering them but that wasn't the reason...that had anything to do. They put me onto it for local reasons. There was a difference. You see, unlike now when people jump straight into the national politics, there was a clear cut class divide. The reporter who covered the local…</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:56</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[Kai'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> adds] as a junior person</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">13:56</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> as a junior person, then you went into bureau and then you started covering the national parties, and parliament and all that. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:06</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">  </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[Kai]...'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">but was crime useful in getting police contacts? Did that help you later at all or not? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:11 [</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">'''CK'''</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">]</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> It always helps you. Yeah. There's crime...even though politicians whom I covered in the corporation and later on it was then called the Delhi Administration. They also grew up to join the national politics. So then...So anyways I was covering those. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:40</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> And now we're in the run up to ...this is about 70...You went to </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Indian Express''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> in what...? 73  or 74.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:45</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] You know, I'm very bad with dates. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:49</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] Well, how long had you been there?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:49</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] It was December 73 yeah...72...December 72. I think.</span>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">Keywords/phrases</span>

<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">CK’s work profile at Express Women not allowed night duty nor beats covering municipal corporation any advantage of connections with Jana Sangh class divide among journalists Prabha Dutt Razia Ismail</span>
|-
|}
<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">14:59</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] So say a bit about the approach of Emergency and how much shock or …</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">15:09 [CK]</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> It was a shock but like let me tell you that the situation in Delhi was such...that as I told you I was treated by certain quarters in government and establishment as untouchable because I worked in the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Motherland''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">15:23</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[Kai'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> corrects] ...because you had worked in the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Motherland''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">15:24</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] no...no...yeah...not so much but when I was working in </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Motherland''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> (Kai says 'right' in the background). The papers generally towed the establishment line and the coverage was, if you see the newspapers of those days, they're so dull. He said ....what ...somebody made a speech was the lead, you know...conventional thing. You might add a good exclusive story, coloured story, or featured story always inside. By-lines were given almost never almost very infrequently, you know, some big thing. It was...at the same time a very clear cut class divide. What the bureau did was put on the front page, what the reporters did was inside. It wasn't really a judgement of the news value of a story, news interest of a story. So...at that time most of the newspapers...</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times, The Times of India''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">...not the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">, the</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'' Express''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">...they were considered pro-government papers. So...I mean it was considered sort of outside the pale and beyond the establishment if you were doing a negative view. Censorship of any type, it was just that feeling that the Congress is the Party and Government and you know and others are…</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:53</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">'''[Kai'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">] But the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> for example was still a very respectable paper but yours was very {Kai's sentence is drowned by CK's sentence} </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">16:57</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">[CK] No it was respectable....it was respectable. They were all respectable but there was a feeling that you should be part of the establishment...everybody. Not the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> to such an extent. It was an old tradition. </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> was okay...more considered a maverick paper. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:15 [Kai]</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> And </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> at this time in the immediate pre-Emergency was was was not seen as...because of Goenka of being close to the Jana Sangh and RSS? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">17:30</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] You see, Goenka had earlier been with the Congress but at this point it was a run-up to the Emergency. Goenka was pro-JP. So </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Motherland''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> was out-and-out hitting out at the Government about the Maruti, about Nagarwala, all that and that alone writing about these things was considered considered infra-dig (???CHECK)</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">17:51</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> you know...aaa </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> did it </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">and a mainline paper doing it not to the degree of </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Motherland''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">, where you could just you know, you didn't really have to check too much ...you could...aa…</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> was also doing it because now Goenka was with JP and the Movement, So it  started becoming anti-national and I think Goenka had got a loan at that stage from Rajmata of Gwalior, who was also in the Opposition but that didn't, I mean, didn't affect him because he was naturally, tendency by that stage to be anti-the government. So we were much freer in what we could write than the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">. There was no censorship or anything of that sort. It was just that the people didn't do. </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> was, you had the freedom to do it, certainly. You didn't have the freedom to do it in </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">, and the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">. Just went along, you know, with people...what a particular politician was saying or what a particular political official was saying or the ...there wasn't that much investigation either...little bit here and there and then Emergency came. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:23</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] You remember the day, I presume...at work. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">19:29 [CK]</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> Yeah...You see what happened was ...I'd mentioned in my book. June 25, I had been covering Mrs Gandhi's speeches in her roundabout [meaning the traffic roundabout in front of the PM’s residence] before that and Express was hitting out at the government after the judgement of June 12 and everywhere you were giving the story of both sides and everyone was, and I was covering many things but my beat was the Municipal Corporation. Municipal Corporation meant electricity board also. So that June 25 electricity went off.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:09</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] But you were at the roundabout or at the office? So did you have any inkling…or heard any rumours? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:13</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] No no, not at all. The roundabout was everyday but not on that particular day. June 25 she wasn't there. But earlier she kept coming there. You know, we used to go in the ...certain times when… </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:26</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai smilingly shares] I went as. [CK: huh?] I went there as well with my father. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:31</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] Where was your father working? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:33</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] He was working for German newspapers. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:37</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> So aaa...uhmmm What do you call it...the electricity went off so they asked me that the person who covering the ...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:50</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">  [Kai] This was what time of the day?...</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''bijli''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> went.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">20:51 [CK]</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''bijli''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> went at by...in the evening. evening...so I phoned up the Deputy General Manager, I think his name was Piloo. He said, he'll see what he can do...this was not an infrequent thing. It did happen...power break downs. So he said... and the power came back. Power came back and I left that day. When I left. I left at the usual time... about...7:30...8, </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">because I wasn't on the night duty...electricity was back. But when I ...early in the morning I got a call...it's all there in the book. From my sister's saying that...  you don't need to know, if you've read the book, you know. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">21:41</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Phir bhi bataye thoda''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">. It's nice to hear… </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">21:41</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] My sister saying that Swamy is....there's an arrest warrant for Swamy and they've already arrested other leaders. So my husband said, 'Why did he come over to my house', which was actually his house, which was his Parliament allotted house. But he was living in Greater Kailash. So he was supposed to come over and in the meantime a colleague from </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Motherland''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">, Manohar, also phoned, and, I think my sister also told me that Malkani is being arrested and some other people.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">22:31</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai and CK talk simultaneously] He said...so Virendra told him, 'why don't you come over.' This was about 6 O' Clock in the morning. Swamy came over ...may be 5 or something. Virendra took him on his scooter to his friend's house in Gole Market. And....he went across to the UNI so he knew the names of the people who were being arrested. So I did phone up my Chief Reporter, Mr Rehman, I said, 'Look,' because we didn't, I didn't have any transport of my own, and the normal process was when something major happened you were allowed to take the office van. It was used to distribute the newspapers, so it was [called] the ‘dog van.’ I said, 'can I have the dog van, I'll go to the houses of these people who have been arrested and get the reactions from the family, and what happened etc.' He said, 'no no no, don't do anything. Let's just wait and see. You know the paper hasn't come out. The electricity went off.' He said, 'we'll wait and see the situation.' </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">23:36</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> So I said, 'okay'. Then they...my sister phoned again to say, 'put on the radio. Mrs Gandhi is announcing that there's an Emergency.' Virendra, in the meantime had gone to...It's there in the book, you know, had gone on to </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Motherland''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">. I think if you read the book...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:07</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] Ya ya I have read the book but [CK in the background states...that part is there] tell me about coming back to work and… </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:14</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">  [CK] So next day I went to work again... (long scramble for words) no...I had got a copy of...Virendra gave me a copy of the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Motherland.''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:30</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] That he had helped to bring out.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:32</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] and the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Evening News''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> and there were gaps for me that I wanted to fill. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:35</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] by </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Evening News''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> you mean the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''HT Evening News''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:36</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] Ha...</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''HT Evening News''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">. </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''HT Evening News''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> had the headlines from PTI, just PTI Reports </span><span style="color:#3482b1;"><u>24:45</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Next FEW Mumblings are COMPLETELY UNCLEAR]</u></span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">24:50</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> And </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">the newspaper office...Mulgaonkar was very hoity man never sat in his office and never moved out of it at any time.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:59</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] But now? </span>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">Keywords/phrases</span>

<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">Run-up to the Emergency nature of reporting before emergency HT TOI Statesman</span>

<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">Goenka pro-JP Maruti relative lack of censorship in pre-Emergency days June 12 </span>

<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">25 June Indira Gandhi not on her roundabout. June 25 electricity went off call from sister about Swamy’s warrant Meeting with Virendra Chief Reporter Rehman’s wait and see advice declaration of Emergency </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Motherland''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> editorial that Virendra help bring out</span>
|-
|}
<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:59</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] And I remember so well he was sitting in the newsroom with his head like this (CK probably enacted the position) and Piloo Sahib was handing him the PTI flashes . And we were bringing ...we were supposed to be bringing out a special edition but of course the electricity was off. The electricity kept going off. So we couldn't bring out anything and then....by the time electricity came back, there was another flash thing censorship 'you can't give anything without...'</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:34</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] That came from PTI? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:37</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] Yeah PTI. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:38</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] How did Mulgaokar address you all or… </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:40</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] No, he didn't address us. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:43</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] There was no meeting. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:43</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] There was no formal meeting at all. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:46</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [KAI and CK speak simultaneously] [Kai] It was just conversation happening around it [CK] It was all we were all gossiping in the newsroom. You know how newsroom is like. So we were all, you know, quite stunned.  And two days the electricity didn't come back then we had to give it to the Censor so there was obviously nothing...the blank editorial and all you know about that. As I mentioned in the book, Kuldip [Nayar] called us for a meeting and he said that, 'you all should still file whatever is happening and keep it for posterity.'...I didn't follow [that advice]. And we went to the Press Club to this protest meeting. The youngsters like that... that time the younger lot of journalists were in </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> and The </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Indian Express, Statesman''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">...to some extent. </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> had a lot of old people. </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Times''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">, you never graduated to the bureau till very late so the reporters were quite elderly. They were all </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">sitting...</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Times''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> reporters were sitting, you know, watching us but not taking part in the proceedings. It was basically the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> and maybe few of the younger </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> reporters, mostly the younger people...all signed the statement, protesting to the Government. The </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Times''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> was pro-establishment and they were, you know, giving us dirty looks and they were the ones who went back and informed that this is happening. Then you know, Kuldip, was arrested. It's all there in the book.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:34</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] Virendra was also arrested also. How soon? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:35</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] Much later…much later. Warrant for Kuldip had come. So then basically you're told censorship is there, then you don't do anything. So basically we did nothing. We did handouts that were coming, we did that. There wasn't anything you could do because the few (CK searches for words) it had to be from senior level that, you know, decision to try in any way to defy the censors. It was in, where Edit Page articles where you sort of made a reference to, you know, dictatorships to try and bring out that point but little little things which one could do and one did like for example, I remember I had to go and interview the girl who had topped the board exam. Her father was in jail. So you couldn't say, 'her father's in jail' but you could say that, 'but the family is not celebrating because father is not at home,' you know things like that. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:52</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai comments] A very opaque reference. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:54</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] Opaque references. The .... we did do some stories later on like in Turkman Gate when in the rains, they were shifted to the new thing. Experts wrote about it. I remember writing about it. The photographs and all were there. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">29:13</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] I mean this question interests me because there's such a received opinion that, you know, the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> and </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">....stood up...were different but… </span>

<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">[CK interjects] yeah There was no way you could ...</span>

<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">[Kai] the fact that nothing was possible…</span>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">Keywords/Phrases</span>

<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">Mulgaonkar’s reaction censorship continued electricity shortage blank editorial Kuldip [Nayar] </span>

<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">Protest meeting at Press Club age group of reporters at HT, TOI and Statesman TOI being pro-establishment Keldip & Virendra arrested indirect protest reportage dictatorships interview of a board topper whose father had been arrested Turkman Gate</span>
|-
|}
<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">29:29</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] It was not possible because in </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Express'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> case the censors stopped...took over the editions for very long ... so every day it was coming late so it wasn't even being delivered, so </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">there was nothing you could do. What resistance was there was on the Edit page on the first page when they put a blank editorial and things like that but basically there was very little that we did.  What we did all started in 1977, from the reporters' point of view...there were a few edit page articles...very brave edit page articles but </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Express'''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> finest hours was in when the Emergency ...it was... </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:12</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai interjects] When it was declared that it would end. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:14</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK qualifies] It wasn't lifted but it was relaxed and elections were called </span>

<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">[Kai in the background] </span>

<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">[CK] Elections had been declared. Then I must say Mulgaonkar wasn't there by that time, if you remember. What do you call him...[V.K.] Narasimhan gave us full rein and we really did. I remember doing a lot of stories.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:35</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] It's that way...it's about three months.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">30:38</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] No, no, just a month and a half. But it was...a month and a half in which we talked about...I remember interviewing all these people who had been tortured, interviewing the family on what they had gone through. Narasimhan allowed all of it. He did the sterilisation </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">31:04</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK’s words UNCLEAR] and all that, which none of the others—</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Statesman''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> was not doing it, by the way.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">31:08</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] even though…</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">31:09</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> was definitely far more open. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">31:14</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] And you don't think TOI, or HT had started showing any spine by this stage? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">31:18</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] Not at all...not at all...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">31:24</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] Sham Lal's famous editorial… </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">31:24</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] The editorial they did the day Emergency is lifted...it came. Not at all. Like Prabha (Dutt), that I remember, she showed something that when Ambika Soni became Chief ...Head of the Youth Congress, Usha had interviewed her. And Prabha could have interviewed her as well and she said, 'Usha, you have no shame to go and interview her...she put Virendra in jail and ...'. I remember that. So I mean little individual touches but there was no doubt that </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">, I mean there was no doubt by that time everyone was buying the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> and cutting the circulation of the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">, and I mean you know there were...Nandini Chandra, who was with me, this fellow—Vikram Chandra's mother. She said, 'Oh we're so sorry but we don't decide.' But they were really ready to pounce on her at the public rallies and meeting when you said, you were from the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">. And the circulation of </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> went up and up and up but we couldn't cope with the circulation. </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">... </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">32:40</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] It wasn't attracting advertising as well or what?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">32:43</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] Advertising in any case had been cut off, because in those days you relied a lot on government advertising. So the circulation was going up but it couldn't cope. So in </span><span style="color:#262626;">those</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> month and a half from January till March l.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">33:01</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] The reputation was built on ...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">33:02</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] I mean it really went to town. No...even earlier they did but it was more in the edit pages and reporting…what could...but how much could you do. You could do a little as I said ...vague thing. Sometimes...I remember doing a story about a missing man because I happened to get a crime reporter and I didn't realise that it was just the time of the lifting of the ...you know January, and the police were so rattled, I couldn't understand why they're so rattled. I said, 'that he was taken into police custody and disappeared'. It turned out that this man had been bumped off in the same way that Sunder was bumped off. You know, Sunder was the convict...not convict...dacoit who had escaped from jail and Sanjay Gandhi had ordered his execution...bumped off. And this man was done the same way. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:12</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] And why? What was…</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:13</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] They just killed off these people. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:18</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] But he was a </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''goonda''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">...a </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''dacoit''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> or what was ....why would they want to execute him?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:21</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] No, I don't think there was anything particular about him. I remember he was an auto rickshaw driver. I don't know why...but they were very rattled about we would actually report this case…I remember. And then I...later </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">37:40</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> on </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:38</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] You mean you got calls from the policemen or what? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:39</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">  [CK] Yeah, I got calls from policemen and all because they were nervous because Sunderlal had also been done up...killed in the similar manner. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:52</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] Was there any scene of underground cyclostyle magazines, pamphlets that were...and were you involved in that at all? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">34:58 [CK]</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> Yes, there were...if you read the book, you’ll see. Yeah...you could say. We were living in VP [Vithalbhai Patel] House. The BJP, Jana Sangh knew they were going to be raided so there cyclostyling machine, they gave us to keep because we were living on the first floor.</span>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">Keywords/Phrase</span>

<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">Censorship and its impact on reportage relaxation in censorship during elections Narasimhan as the editor Express shining through its reportage Prabha Dutt Circulation of Express challenging HT Ambika Soni Nandini Chandra </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">advertising and funding police rattled & case of Sunderlal & him being bumped off</span>
|-
|}
<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">35:18</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Achha''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">, you had the cyclostyling machine? </span>

<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">[CK affirms] I had the cyclostyling machine. </span>

<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">[Kai continues] makes a racket though… </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">35:21</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] It's all mentioned in the book. So the it....my husband helped them cyclostyle Nanaji made various calls to what people should do, how you should quarterise[?], how you should do this, that etc. Then his police officer friend gave him a copy of the banned </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Time''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> magazine and the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Newsweek''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">. So those were circulated...cyclostyled there and then Virendra distributed them. …people in the coffee house, office and things like that. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">36:02</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] But this didn't get confiscated once he was arrested or …</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">36:05</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] By that time....cyclostyle machine...they never knew about it. They...Actually I gave shelter to some…Balbir Punj, I think it's him only, who told the police that there's a cyclostyle ..that they are printing in their house.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">36:25</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] He told the police after he was arrested? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">36:26</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] Because...no. He was on the wanted list because he was a student leader from the Jana Sangh. He signed the 20-point programme but because my chief reporter told me that the CID man is saying, 'you're a relative of Subramanian Swamy and at your house illicit literature is being printed.' So he...uhmm...but the CID man covered up. A lot of people in those days were helping.  He ignored this. But yeah, literature was being distributed underground. And also papers like </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Opinion ''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">and all that were coming out...gave what happened in Parliament, which the national newspapers could not do because of censorship. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">37:26</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] And....your husband was released also in this period ...before the elections? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">37:32</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] Yeah...before the elections.  </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">37:35</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] And went back to work? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">37:37</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] Yeah...he went back to work.  </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">37:40</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] And after the...Oh!  sorry...one small thing I was just curious about me. Where was the party on the day election results came out? You talk about a party in Press Enclave?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">37:52</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK puzzled] No, I don't talk about it. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">37:53</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] I'm sure it was there or was it in another book...sorry...I've read several memoirs of this. But do you remember celebrating that... </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">38:00</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] I remember I was at the office...I remember celebrating outside...celebrating in the office because we were busy getting results...Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg...it was like a </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">festive day and there were crowds after crowds outside our office much more than </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">38:20</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] So you stayed late that day? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">38:21</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] Yeah...in the office. It's all mentioned in the book. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">38:28</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] Now in the...after the elections...so do you see that phase as a continuing kind of golden period of journalism? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">38:41</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] No, what happened after the elections and the Janta Party, suddenly there was a burst of freedom. As I have said, even before the Emergency came, Indira Gandhi's control was so overpowering that people were...the media were...it was limited amount of media...it was not very shrill, except for </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Motherland ''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">and party organs. They were not very interested in exposing the government or anything. If some accusations were made, then in the Parliament they were covered. ...didn't go out their way to do it on their own. But after the Emergency was lifted and the Janata Party came in, </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today ''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">came out. And I think </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Sunday ''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">started coming out at the same time and they started also doing a lot of investigative reporting...much freer political reporting than before...just as he said...you said, you know, behind the scenes etc and the newspapers also, especially </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">. </span>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">Keywords/Phrases</span>

<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">Cyclostyle machine being hid at CK’s circulation of banned Time magazine Nanaji’s call being published thru cyclostyle Virendra being tipped off by a CID friend </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">Balbir Punj telling police about the machine release of Virendra Election results Janata Party in power reporting given more freedom change in the nature of journalism</span>

|-
|}
<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">39:48</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] So there was a new kind of crusading journalism. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">39:49</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] There was, I would say that was there with the coming of these two magazines- </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today ''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">and </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Sunday ''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">Magazine. And the old hierarchy levels also changed because suddenly young people in the magazines, there was not that you had to be a reporter for so many years and then you're old and become the bureau and you cover the politics....mainstream. There were young people who were entering and covering politics… </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">40:21</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">[Kai] It became a more charismatic profession or…so would you say…at that time or so for young people? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">40:28 [CK]</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> There were more ....there were slightly more openings...where were the openings ....</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express ''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">was a lower paid than the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times ''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">so if you wanted to graduate you </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">graduated to </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">. At </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Times''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> you got a higher salary but you would not have that much freedom to write. But all the salaries were low and these magazines came, the salaries increased suddenly you know...there was a burst of energy which was lacking in the earlier...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">40:58</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] And you stayed on with the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> or what was your trajectory after the Emergency? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">41:02</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] I stayed on with the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">, eventually I joined </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> and there were a whole lot of other papers also. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">41:08</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Achha''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">, when did you join </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> and who was there then? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">41:09 [CK]</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> I joined </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''India''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Today''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> in 19...much much later in 1982. I spent ten years in </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">. I mean a little less than ten years because they never gave me my provident fund or whatever was due. I made the mistake of leaving a month or two early. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">41:28</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] So you stayed on in the period when Indira Gandhi came back? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">41:32 [CK]</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> Yes </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">41:34</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] And was that disappointing to you in terms of how Goenka behaved, I mean, Kuldip Nayar has told me, for example, of him [Goenka] calling him [Nayar] up and saying, 'I want to be friends with Indira again.' [ie. telling Nayar ‘you’re fired!’]</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">41:44</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] That's much much later. That was when I was with the </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">... no I was not with the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express. ''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">I was with the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Sunday Mail''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> at that time. And that is never with Indira Gandhi. He never said it with Indira Gandhi. It was with Rajiv Gandhi. Rajiv Gandhi changed his [Goenka’s] tune...in 1984. Only in '84 for a limited time, he [Goenka] gave an interview and said he that, you know, that 'country's in the right hands etc.' Then of course he fell out with Rajiv Gandhi. But it was never with Indira Gandhi… </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">42:18</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] You didn't feel that he went soft on Indira?...at any stage? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">42:19</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] No, no, not at all. And the people he brought in...Shourie and all that were anti-Indira...so there was no ...he didn't go soft.  Rajiv...he was a little confused. Rahul Gandhi...Rajiv Gandhi...at one stage...when Rajiv Gandhi came to power, he [Goenka] backed him. And he appointed Suman Dube, editor of </span><span style="color:#262626;">''the Express...''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">very briefly and then he fell out with him. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">42:58</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] I thought....Suman...did he actually take the post? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">42:58</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] Yes yes. I was in </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''Sunday Mail''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> in those days. </span>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">Keywords/Phrases</span>

<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">change in the nature of journalism entry of magazines loosening of hierarchy </span>

<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">CK joined India Today in 1982 return of Indira Gandhi Kuldip Nayar & Rajiv Gandhi </span>

<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">Suman Dube as in-charge entry of Arun Shourie and the changes brought in by him</span>
|-
|}
<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">43:04</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [Kai] And who was in-charge in </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> when you were there? Who was the editor? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">43:07 [CK]</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> Suman Dube was the editor. But Arun Shourie [Aroon Purie] was the real editor of the newspaper...of the magazine. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">43:13</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [KC] Yeah, he was a hands-on editor at that time. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">43:15</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [CK] Very much. He learnt a lot because he was ...took a lot of interest in the things which we hadn't </span><span style="color:#262626;">really </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">bothered about in the old days in journalism, which is display and you know...headlines were very staid and all that. </span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;">, Arun Shourie [Aroon Purie] saw the product as a, you know, from the viewer, intelligent viewers, readers' point of view. And he looked at all the blurbs, the headlines, the photographs etc. before they went for print, they showed it to him. And took a personal interest in those, He used to change them and all. There was not that much attention to detail in newspapers. We just wrote and printed. Arun Shourie [Aroon Purie] came...he did lot in...also in encouraging the reporters to...  </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">44:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Shourie [Confused by the Shourie/Purie confusion] in </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;">?  </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">44:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Yeah, to write more freely. You know the very old conservative style of writing was...for example when there was a communal clash between two things...’certain communities’...and all that, it was all left very very. Ajit Bhattacharya wanted it. Whereas Shourie [Poorie?] wanted specific....more specific, which is I felt was necessary. And Shourie [Poorie?] also started carrying a lot of...after '77...a lot...you know as I said earlier whatever the bureau…is was important, it would be on the front page...that is some minister said in parliament...what some minister said about some policy decision ... all went on the front page. Features, interesting stories, scandals, investigation....the started coming on the front page...after '77 </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">45:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> You think Shourie was important in that change? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">45:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> That was the general atmosphere but Shourie was also to some extent responsible. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">45:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Was there, I mean this is not terribly important but, did you have a sense of there being much conflict at the top around Shourie? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">45:51</span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Yeah, there was a lot of conflict between Shourie and other editors in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. And Goenka played one against the other. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">45:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> That did happen...because people seem very close to Goenka but Goenka also… </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">46:03</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> No, no Goenka got rid of him twice. The only editor Goenka gave a totally free hand to and didn't interfere much was Mulgaonkar...because he was a personal friend. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">46:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [</span><span style="color:#262626;">'''Kai]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So do you have a sense of this phase of journalism and the revival and money spending? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">46:27</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> More money was being spent going out to various places, getting stories, investigating and all...was more. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">46:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But you feel that phase came to an end as well and things returned to something dull or it was a good positive change which has...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">46:46 </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> No, no...it was a good positive change which went on. Then also Sunday paper started coming out. I started the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Sunday Mail''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> in 1984...wait '85. We started doing, putting on the front page and doing stories people wanted to read, you know, not basically he said...minister said this and minister said that. And before that we know that Saturday </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Sunday''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Observer''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ...all these Sunday magazines and newspapers and Sunday magazine and </span><span style="color:#262626;">''India Today''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> all of them helped in, you know,... </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">47:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Opening things up…</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">47:40</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Opening things up and lightening journalism. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">47:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But you think in more recent years there has been a ...return or change in terms of... </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">47:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> What has happened in more recent years is that the control of newspapers has gone from individualistic owners who were only concerned with the media business to corporate interests having some sort of say in newspapers. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">48:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Because they are the owners ...</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">48:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But loans have been taken or there are some kind of financial deals have often been made... </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">48:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[Kai]...'''</span><span style="color:#262626;">which has an impact on …</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">48:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ...which has an impact. [</span><span style="color:#262626;">'''Kai'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> interjects] quite strongly if possible. </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[CK ]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But you see the question of freedom now is that in old days there were few newspapers so it was easy to control... now it is impossible to control anything. One publication or television channel may go one way but there are so many going the other way...you know, I would say we have a great deal of freedom. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">48:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Because of the proliferation of sources </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">48:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Proliferation...no ...ha...of the media. Of course the social networks and all that have also helped encourage the...you can't keep anything....you can't hide anything. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">49:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But do you think that has come along with a kind of decline in the integrity or the quality of the larger masters {</span><span style="color:#262626;">'''Check'''</span><span style="color:#262626;">??} the larger brands</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">49:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I don't think so really. No, I don't think so. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">49:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So by and large you think the Emergency experience has been well absorbed, people learnt lessons, reacted to it in a positive way. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">49:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> There's nothing you can do and I think even the governments realise that they can't control the media any more. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">49:39</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Well, except that they did for those two years… </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">49:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> For those two years but that was a different time and there were fewer to control, easier to control. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">49:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[Kai]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Some people give the opinion, in a sense, that the owners, the corporate owners, for them this was a lesson that editors and journalists could be cowed and would draw back and draw a …the line. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">50:11</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">'''[CK]'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> No, what happened is a different thing happened which was that in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> when Ashok Jain left and Samir Jain came, he decided that the editor would not have freedom. So in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> he was this...selling it as a product. And it is also true that the influence of the editor in several publications [</span><span style="color:#262626;">'''Kai'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> interjects: diminished] in some and not in all </span>

<span style="color:#262626;">[</span><span style="color:#262626;">'''Kai'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> adds: but the larger ones...</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> became dominant] </span>

<span style="color:#262626;">[CK] </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> is...Basically in the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was always, by the way </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> saw it as a product, basically it was a commercial decision...that what they thought were going to sell were going to sell. And not so much as control over pleasing the government or not pleasing. So there would be that to some extent but it was more that a group of business managers would decide what was the ideal product that would increase its market share. Whereas earlier, the old fashioned editor had the right to decide on his own what he ...how the paper would look. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">51:24</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Ha, that ideal has diminished [</span><span style="color:#262626;">'''CK'''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> interject: in some] but continues to survive… </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">51:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [CK] ...in some </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> for example, the owner had given total freedom to the …</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">51:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] Express has got some of that character. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">51:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [CK] It depends on what ...it depends on what ... </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Hindustan Times''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> was ( read </span><span style="color:#262626;">''has) ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">always never stuck its neck out....whichever government comes. But I would say that in a way the Indian media has greater freedom though, I mean, not everyone would agree, than for example, even the American Press, in the sense, that they are much more...there are sections which are much more ready to be irreverent about decisions taken </span><span style="color:#262626;">by the government than the American Press.{</span><span style="color:#262626;">'''''this whole point reads a bit unclear....which has more freedom BUT I've typed it out as she says'''''</span><span style="color:#262626;">} For example when they went into Iraq, nobody questioned it really...whereas I don't think that would happen here, you know. There's always a section of media which is ready to criticise the government on any issue. There are far more points of view coming up. It is not such a chauvinistic you know media. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">52:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [Kai] So [you’re] hopeful, basically… [CK: Hain?] So hopeful and...</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">52:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [CK] No, I mean you also have a section...there will be a section which will be controlled by the government, there's always a section that is always willing [Kai interjects: controlled by the money or by government or both]. {Long silence} Great... </span>

<span style="color:#262626;">'''Interview ends.  </span><span style="color:#262626;">   '''</span>

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#262626;">'''Keywords/Phrases'''</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">Change in the nature of writing under Shourie [mostly meaning Aroon Purie] and layout of articles conflict between Shourie and other editors Goenka playing them CK joined Sunday Mail in 1984</span>

<span style="color:#262626;">Winds and degree of change in reporting Ashok and Samir Jain HT being commercial </span>

<span style="color:#262626;">Degree of freedom given to reporters comparison with American Press and example of US entry into Iraq ends with awkward silence </span>

<div style="color:#262626;"></div>
|-
|}
<div style="color:#262626;"></div>

.NjY3.MTU

2017-11-03T11:14:06Z

Bhanugs:

<div style="text-align:center;"><u>'''INterview of C. MITRA'''</u></div>

<u>'''interviewEE'''</u>* Name: <span style="background-color:#ffffff;">Chandan Mitra [CM]</span>
* Occupation: Journalist

<u>'''INTERVIEWER'''</u>* Farah Yameen [FY]

<u>'''Medium: Audio recording'''</u>* Format: Wav
* Language: English with smatterings of Hindi expressions
* Location of Interview: ???
* Date of the interview: 02 June 2016 05:36:37

<u>'''Clip name/DURATION: '''</u>* fy_cmitra_raw_020616.wav
* Length : 01:02:09
* Bit rate: 1536 bps
* Size: 682 MB
* Date modified: 02 May 2016

{| style="border-spacing:0;width:15.903cm;"
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| Interview Begins
|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">Key Words/Phrases</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">0:01</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> [FY] : So today is the 2nd of June and I'm interviewing Chandan Mitra for the Archives of the Political. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">0:09</span><span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#262626;"> So we'll begin with your college days and the impositions of Emergency; and what was happening in North Campus at that point of time.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">0:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [CM] : Well North Campus was a very vibrant place and see when we joined the University in 1972, you see, from that time onwards there was a lot of unrest in the country. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">0:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Mrs Gandhi had won a thumping victory in 1971 but somehow her popularity started to decline very soon. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">0:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So 1972-73 we had a lot of unrest in terms of strikes, price rise, agitations against that ... this went on till 1974 when you had a landmark railway strike. And the railway strike...all India railway strike was led by George Fernandes who was a firebrand leader, with a lot of </span><span style="color:#262626;">following in the University. He was a socialist, so he distanced himself from the organised Left as well as the organised Right. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">1:23</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So he had his own kind of politics to pursue but he was a frequent visitor to Delhi University; and we all loved to hear him because he was a firebrand speaker...he used to charge everybody up; and he was one of those strident anti-Mrs Gandhi and anti-Nehru family persons. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">1:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So he was a big draw and I think everybody was feeling that ferment...everybody felt that something big was happening in the country in terms of opposition to the Government. Railway strike happened...we all felt it very much. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> It was, I remember, vacations had started in the University at that time and we had great difficulty getting to our hometowns because half the trains were not running. And that meant primarily no food grain, fuel ...everything was getting blocked...not reaching...so this added to the general unrest in the country. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I think Mrs Gandhi over reacted and that point of time, she went and experimented with the nuclear explosion in Pokhran in 1974 and it was basically everybody felt, so we </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;">...this is received wisdom because we were not really active...what our seniors were talking about in the Campus was that- she did this as a diversionary measure </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">2:53</span><span style="color:#262626;"> because railway strike had galvanised the working class students were in unrest everywhere. Jayaprakash Narayan was...had led the Nav Nirman Movement in Bihar and Bihar there were lot of protest and strikes. In Gujarat there was a considerable amount of unrest both on the campuses as well as, you know, a kind of a caste clashes in various parts. So together '73-'74 was a period of enormous unrest which you could feel particularly in the University Campuses and Delhi University though not as politically volatile as JNU or Calcutta University, we definitively felt lot of it in discussion in the Coffee House, in the cafes was very animated and centred around Mrs Gandhi's </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">3:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> difficulties and Mrs Gandhi was never a popular figure in the University campuses because basically, you know, </span><span style="color:#262626;">there was a streak of rebelliousness. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">4:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And the rebelliousness was there....nothing particularly against Mrs Gandhi but it was an anti-authoritarian kind of sentiment so everybody kind of enjoyed if Mrs Gandhi suffered from set-backs. So that was the kind of mood prior to the Emergency. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">4:18</span><span style="color:#262626;"> This was the build-up really and then suddenly one fine morning the Emergency was clamped.</span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- Background of Chandan Mitra and his time in Delhi University during the Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---North Campus a vibrant place---general unrest in India from 1972---1972-73 lots of strikes, price rise, discontent---1974 Railway strike by George Fernandes.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----On George Fernandes and his nature, political </nowiki></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">inclinations towards socialist---away from Left and Right --- visited Delhi University and spoke---Anti-Gandhi in his predilections.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---idea of something big taking place in the country.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---inconvenience caused by the railway strike.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Nuclear tests in Pokhran in 1974 under Indira Gandhi believed to be a diversionary tactic to take focus away from the railway strike.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Jayaprakash Narayan leading the Nav Nirman Movement in Bihar---protest and strikes, campus unrest, caste clashes---1973-74 period of unrest.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Reverberations especially felt in JNU, Calcutta University.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Coffee Houses as places latest news could be gathered. </span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Mrs Gandhi </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">becoming unpopular but rebelliousness was of anti-authoritarian type.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- a gradual build-up and Emergency suddenly declared. </span>

|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">4:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Of course then....but there was ...would also [a whistle blows- phone- interrupting the interview] --- sorry....(interview continues) So you were talking about (a) one JP Movement and...the JP Movement was big amongst students all over the....I mean at least the north India certain and there is ...was even at that time  a considerable Bihari population among the campus. What were the conversations that were happening about the JP Movement? </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">4:56</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [CM] : To be honest the JP Movement itself, I don't think, it really kind of a...got traction in Delhi University. Yes, you're right...there were a large number of Bihari students and the sympathies were obvious but the University was still dominated by more by local Delhi students, basically Punjabis, by</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:20</span><span style="color:#262626;"> a ??? and the intellectual leadership of Delhi University was always Leftist, and dominated by Bengalis. But the real you know </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">5:32</span><span style="color:#262626;"> the voters and you look at the organised structure that was dominated by ABVP and the Right-wing. So it really was in ...Delhi University was in... it’s difficult to categorise Delhi University. JP Movement...yes...everybody had support and sympathy but the support and sympathy was not really translated into action on the ground because ABVP controlled the unions and the intellectual ferment was largely Leftist and they will be like JP...so it was kind of somewhere in between; and you know, Congress had a fairly strong students' wing. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">6:12</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And they in fact were probably quite active organising so-called anti-fascist protests and so on and dubbing </span><span style="color:#262626;">JP as a fascist but look, you know, there was a lot of ferment as I was telling you...again and again. They were seminars, there were discussions....people were coming and talking to students. George Fernandes I'd mentioned earlier...</span><span style="color:#262626;">he was a fairly regular visitor to the campus and within the campus there were quite a few small gatherings and rallies and group discussions which </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">6:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> how about around the country, the falling economy, the failure of Mrs Gandhi's policies and so on so forth. But I wouldn't say anything ...DU was not really directly part of the Nav Nirman agitation or JP's </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Sampoorna Kranti''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> but heard about this...the wall writings all over...about </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Sampoorna Kranti''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...total revolution...nobody understood what all this meant. But JP was a venerated name. There were others who would take out processions in his name but they were not...nothing major ...I don't think really gripped DU's attention to the extent that it did in Bihar or Gujarat.</span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----More on JP Movement.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---JP Movement did not get as much attention in North Campus due to the origin of the students---DU leadership usually more Leftist and led by Bengalis in addition to the ABVP and the Right-wing inclinations. </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---ABVP controlled the unions and Left dominated the intellectual circles.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--Congress too had a fairly strong hold among students.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Congress dubbed JP as fascist.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---much discussions on the campus about politics and the problems faced by the country.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Very little understanding in North Campus of </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Sampoorna Kranti.''</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">7:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : What about the day when the Allahabad court judgement came out before the Emergency was actually declared? What was happening on the campus at that point of time? How were the political groups divided on that day?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">7:44</span><span style="color:#262626;">[CM] : Look, it so happened I was not in Delhi that day. But I took a train from Delhi....from Calcutta to come to Delhi that day...although it was fairly early but to get my admission in MA, I took the train from Calcutta in the evening ...no sorry...morning because when we reached Patna in the evening...somewhere around 5 O’clock or 6 O’clock in the evening, there were a few other DU students who were on the same train and same bogey...they incidentally all happened to be in Indian Administrative Service...all have just about retired from it by now...but we all in the same coach of this what is used to be known as the Deluxe and now known as Poorva Express. In Patna, we found the station...station completely deserted, which was strange. Actually I didn't know that Emergency had been </span><span style="color:#262626;">imposed. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">8:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> nor did my fellow travellers. Patna was totally deserted...just police walking up and down...all railway, you know, vendors and chaiwallas shut...shutters down, and there was a sense of, you know, </span><span style="color:#262626;">eerie calm. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">9:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So we got down from the platform, primary to get a cup of tea but also to find out what was ...what was happening. And then we asked a few people hanging around...coolies and so on ...so in very hushed tones, they told us, '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''ki aap ko patna nahi''</span><span style="color:#262626;">? That JP has been arrested...all big leaders...BJP leaders...Atal ji, Advani ji...everybody has been arrested. Emergency has been clamped.' And so we were discussing- what is Emergency? Emergency, an external Emergency was in ...had been imposed long back...it was when India had a war with China. We didn't there was something called an internal Emergency. So ...but...we were very very disoriented because we couldn't figure out that why is it</span><span style="color:#262626;"> that nobody is there in station...it's completely dull and very ordered...everybody seemed to be afraid and hushed tone people are saying that all leaders have been arrested. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">10:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So we came back to the train and one of us...somebody had a small radio...transistor tried repeatedly and managed to catch a whiff of BBC to get idea, just to know...the line used to be very bad...it used to crack all the time...the short waves but whatever we could figure out - was yes Emergency had been imposed...Indira Gandhi had said that the country is in the danger from within and fascist forces are conspiring to destabilise her government and democracy so it has been imposed and so all opposition leaders have been put behind bars and censorship has been imposed on the press. We managed to get this much in a very very kind of </span><span style="color:#262626;">staccato manner after we got back into the compartment. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I was still very confused in as to what Emergency meant except opposition leaders had all been arrested. Know from time to time during agitations opposition leaders had been arrested before but the magnitude of this did not quite hit us at that point of time. Anyways, next morning we </span><span style="color:#262626;">were back in Delhi, and I failed to get a three-wheeler to go back...auto to back to College, the hostel. There were just hardly four or five auto-rickshaws standing outside New Delhi station....normally the place would be thronging and you've seen New Delhi station, how busy and bustling the place it is, so disorderly, and chaotic...nothing...absolutely silence...hardly anybody around and just a few autos. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">11:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And then they refused to go but would not ask for extra money either. So after sometime I decided to catch a bus. So eventually with the luggage and everything I somehow managed to get a bus</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and came to the college. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">12:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> When I reached college afternoon...when I first realised the magnitude of the whole thing. Many of my friends had already come back to Delhi....they were...and they all rushed because I was supposed to be the politically active one, so they came to my room and started telling me - you know this has happened...that's happened, so and so got arrested, now the police patrolling all over, and all newspapers have appeared blank. One or two brought them copies of papers...one paper had ...you may have seen that 'Obituary of Democracy'. Then front page blank and you know it was very very disturbing- we'd never seen or imagined something like this. So we were very confused and then in the evening when I went to the Coffee House, which I usually always did, you found complete silence, people talking in hushed tones...very different from the Coffee House that we were used to. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">13:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> It was hustle and bustle and loud arguments and table thumping discussions...everybody talking very quietly and all things Emergency...it is like martial law and anybody can be arrested and nobody would get to know. We saw one or two suspicious looking people and sitting there in the corner who we had not seen before so we in hushed tones said- look that must be a spy- probably they weren't but you know at that point in time we were suspecting everybody. So by the end of the first day that was the day it has actually been imposed, when </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">13:44</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">????</span><span style="color:#262626;"> we </span><span style="color:#262626;">were in a state of I would say disorientation, so after from the Coffee House, I walked to Model Town where a friend of mine used to stay. And there, he told me because he was not a hosteller but he was my classmate and he used to live in a, you know, a normal colony...middle class colony. He told me that - look things are very serious; and says I used to be fond of, you know kind of, letting my steam off. He said, 'look I advise you...you just be quiet for a few days...preferably you stay here, don't go back to the campus. And let's see how things shape.' </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">14:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I did that actually. I got a bit scared by then because true that I was known to be a bit of an activist. I was not affiliated with any political party as such but yes I was an activist of sorts as much as is possible in St Stephen's College, which was a very sanitised kind of place. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">14:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So I took my friend's advice and stayed back...go back to college for to attend classes and then go back to his house. Suddenly, you know, I was a very avid Hindi film fan, so every second-third day we would go and watch a movie either the morning show or the afternoon...noon matinee or whatever. Suddenly that week, fresh release, my friend and I went to see it at the Alpana Cinema which was in Model Town for one close to his house. We found all the black market </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">15:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (phone rings...too much disturbance)??? and many of them were known to me. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">15:49</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Some of the black marketers were actually regulars...they were known to me; and my friend was...we were regulars and we would always buy black. They all disappeared. Generally asked the </span><span style="color:#262626;">''panwallas''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> there- what has happened?- He said, 'aree everybody kind of disappeared because this Emergency...Emergency they can be arrested.' I said, 'what has Emergency got to do with ticket?' He said, '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''aree sahab sab police''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> has caught anybody and everybody. And put them in jail so no...no tickets is in black market.' </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:25</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Didn't ...couldn't see the film. </span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On Allahabad court judgement and reaction to it on the Campus.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---CM not in Delhi when Emergency was declared but on his way back from Calcutta.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---CM’s impressions of his train journey to Delhi while trying to figure out what was happening.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---CM on trying to figure out why Patna station was quiet and </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">heavily patrolled. </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----On hearing about the arrests and declaration of Emergency. </nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- On CM’s own understanding of what an Emergency was.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- On description of ambiance of fear.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Getting access to a transistor in the train and hearing about the declaration of Emergency and reasons why it was being imposed.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---The magnitude of action against the </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">political leaders not yet understood.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On CM’s experience of trying to get to the Hostel.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- On finally grasping the magnitude of Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- On friends coming to visit CM and discussing politics and the going-ons of the Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---CM’s impressions of Coffee House and the sense of gloom blanketing it.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On what Emergency implied.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On suspicion of everyone.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- friend in Model Town warning CM to pip his political opinions down because of the Emergency. </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----CM not affiliated with any political party but local nonetheless.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Narration of strictness and arbitrary arrests of shopkeepers, black-market ticket sellers. </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">16:28</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : What film was it?</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:29</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [CM] : Ah! That I don't remember. It was... I saw anything and everything...totally indiscriminately. If I </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:35</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">???</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">catch my diary [CROSS CHECK the Last three words]</span><span style="color:#262626;">??? but it was something quite vague...nothing...it was a release of a movie but a </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">16:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ....anyway</span><span style="color:#262626;"> we'd gone to see a night show; so we came out of a night show...went to the same </span><span style="color:#262626;">''panwalla''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> to buy cigarettes and have a ;an...it was shut! So he used to always....this shop always used to be open because, you know, pan shops are normally supposed to close at eleven but near a cinema hall particularly, they would wait till the night show got over, which would be between quarter to twelve- to-twelve but till about twelve-thirty you could always get </span><span style="color:#262626;">''chai, ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">cigarettes</span><span style="color:#262626;"> and pan at various identified joints and particularly near cinema halls. And Alpana cinema hall was a big driveway kind of thing and there were shops around the driveway...everything shut! </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">17:31</span><span style="color:#262626;"> It was like curfew. And we asked a few auto- rickshaw-wallas and bole, 'no no no...very clear ...cops came around 11 and shutters down. And they have warned nobody...used to keep shutters up after 11 anyday, they will be arrested immediately.' So this is the way gradually terror strike. And then the stories started multiplying by the word of mouth...very often complete exaggeration...no relation to the truth but this is how the rumour machine started kind of moving. There was this one rumour that somebody, which we heard in the college just in a day or two...that somebody in the bus was told to give up his seat. He was occupying a ladies' seat...a man. So he was told ki, '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''bahi sahab, kursi choro''</span><span style="color:#262626;">.' So he said, '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''jab woh kursi nahi chorti toh mei kyon choru.''</span><span style="color:#262626;">' See....nobody named. He said that, 'when she doesn't leave her kursi....chair, why should I.' And apparently he was arrested and slammed in the thana in Daryaganj and his family was  looking all over for him and finally found him in a terrible state...he'd been beaten black and blue, and dumped on the road by the police for saying something -- was it what he said ...what </span><span style="color:#262626;">he actually did was...was this incident actually happened ... I've no idea; but this story spread like wildfire. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">19:06</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I don't know who were the people who were spreading it. I don't know whether it was the official rumour machinery because, you know, this had a sterling effect. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">19:14</span><span style="color:#262626;"> People actually shut-up. Even these slight jokes about Mrs. Gandhi...reference to her as 'I Gans'...people used to call her 'I-Gans'...no 'I-Gans' was then some people said- this is a very derogatory to call her 'I-Gans', so everybody started Mrs. G...Mrs. G.; no even in abbreviated form...no 'I- Gans'...at least Mrs. G. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">19:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And this story I just told you...this released dread...fear. And then if I were to jump...sometime was nothing much happening...there was really nothing that would happen. But by the, you know, by about...I would say what...it was about say...September-October of '76, resistance was beginning to build-up. I think there was a lot of protest, which was muted but it was happening...number 1. Number 2, the RSS was quite active and they would very systematically spread rumours at the queue outside Mother Dairy's booth. Mother Dairy's booth had just started in those days and people would queue up early morning, there would be some RSS person there who would be spreading rumours particularly about sterilisation. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">20:41</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Although sterilisation primarily affected Muslims in UP villages but even in Delhi, there was a rumour right across that young children were being sterilised in schools...so don't send your child to school. And actually caught on. Therefore, for several weeks, mothers were terrified and wouldn't send their male children to school at all. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">21:09</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Government actually had to come out and issue public statements through the radio and so on and say- this is a rumour and don't believe anything. There's no sterilisation happening in...in schools and so on and so forth. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">21:22</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And then you know you had these busybodies like Ruksana Sultana, who was hyper active...sterilising people in the Jama Masjid area. And every morning in the newspapers...I had discontinued my newspaper </span><span style="color:#262626;">subscription...but still out of old habit go to library every morning just have a look at the newspaper; Ruksana Sultana would stare at you every morning from the front page. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">21:46</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Either Mrs Gandhi or Ruksana Sultana. And how she was kind of, you know, spreading the message of the 20-point programme and so on and so forth at the Jama Masjid in particular. So these were subjects of discussions in hushed tones in colleges and cafes and places but it was a very dull and I would say inactive period in the university, except for some people who were working underground. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">22:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> There were Jan Sangh and RSS people who were more prominent in that period who used work underground. Some of them would come and throw leaflets at the Maurice Nagar Chowk, which is the main nerve centre of the university because it was a crossroads of....you know, crossroad there ..where a lot of people...students would be passing by or at least assemble at point; so leaflets would be thrown...they would be arrested...taken to jail, beaten for two days and then released again...even the police got fed up. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">22:49</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I mean how many people could be arrest for such petty crimes as throwing up a leaflet. And by that time you could sense a build up even among the police and authorities also as such that this has gone too far and you can't go on like this. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">23:10</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So this is what happened and I would say this was a...say from June 1975 to about June-July '76 was the ...we felt the real monstrous power of the Emergency, the draconian powers. After say one year the affects started waning because people started resisting and even the enforcers were no longer, you know, adamant about enforcing the diktat of the Emergency.</span>

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On implications of Emergency… conversations with the </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''panwalla''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">. </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Shops had to be shut on time or else arrested.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---How such measures spread notions of fear---role of rumours, gossip etc. in exaggerating incidents etc.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Example of arbitrary punishments.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---People out of fear stopped making jokes on Mrs Gandhi and the government---More examples.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Beginning of resistance from September-October 1976 to the Emergency. </span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---RSS using Mother Dairy booths to circulate information or rumours.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On sterilisation of Muslims in UP and Delhi---rumours made it appear far worse.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Mothers being afraid to let their sons go to school for the fear of forced sterilisation.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- On Ruksana Sultana and her interactions in Jama Masjid.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On members of Jan Sangh and RSS being active---throwing leaflets at Maurice Nagar Chowk—and being arrested then released.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Even police got tired of arresting people for petty reasons.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---June 1975 to June-July 1976 people felt the brunt of the Emergency but after that its effects started waning.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">23:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : You were talking about sterilisation...big part of the, you know the </span><span style="color:#262626;">sterilisation </span><span style="color:#262626;">and the, you know, the slum clearance campaign was around Jama Masjid and some students, I believe, </span><span style="color:#262626;">were active in going into these settlements posts, like they went to Kishtipur and Inderlok Puri where these people had been moved. Were you aware of this happening and ..?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">24:04</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [CM] : We had got to know when the Turkman Gate incident happened. Turkman Gate incident was a very big one actually and it went on for about three-four days. When the police came and indiscriminately opened fire in the early morning and just bundled people, and threw them into the army trucks and took them off to Mangolpuri, Jahangirpuri and other resettlement colonies. Now news of that trickled to the university after a day or so. In fact I remember coming to see what has happened. After a couple of days some friends who had just got up in a bus came upto this point to see what had actually happened and we found the place completely razed...some places burnt, some ...one or two people sitting and some women crying...but curfew-like scenario; and we were actually stopped near the Ramlila Maidan- saying 'can't go any further.' But we saw that it was obviously there had been a lot of oppression and force...forcible rehabilitation... and this was all part of cleaning up, beautification...Sanjay Gandhi's programme and sterilisation. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">25:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So this had happened and not that anybody could anything. See...but all these things, you know, piled up...one-by-one-by-one. And to create that mood that was just waiting to burst and that burst a few...weeks later. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">25:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : And you said that you were travelling to Delhi like on the day of the Emergency. And a major part of Sanjay Gandhi's 5-point programme was the beautification of this city and...and you know, we remember...at least my generation was not even born in the Emergency.... ---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">25:49</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [CM] : Born... ---- .... remember them through posters and things like that and then there are these underground posters and leaflets that are doing their rounds. Can you describe the Emergency to me visually in terms of what was going out there in terms of pamphlets and posters?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">26:05</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [CM] : You see I think the primary image I would have would be of a man's face with a cross on over his lips, which could mean two things also really - 'you're silenced', you couldn't talk, and also he's been crossed out from the face of </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">26:26</span><span style="color:#262626;"> the earth or his sphere or whatever you mean; and 'there was blood and there was silence...and it was enforced silence'....silence of the graveyard. I think this is what would I would say visually, you know, kind of really a great void...graveyard and a complete silence and people would be enforced to keep shut that I think is the dominant image that I would have in my mind. </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">26:49</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Ah! But also of posters that actually went up in terms of I think, there was a poster that says- </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Kaam azad baatein kam ''</span><span style="color:#262626;">-</span><span style="color:#262626;">'' that''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I think Sanjay Gandhi had put up. Do you remember such posters around the city?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">26:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [CM] : Oh yes! all over the university.</span><span style="color:#3482b1;">27:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : What other kinds of posters were there?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">27:02</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [CM] : 'Each One, Teach One' Then there was </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">27:06</span><span style="color:#262626;">  missy I forget the exact </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">27:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> words, they had some rhymes in it. There was something like, you know, I think 'Hum do Hamare ek'... 'Hum do Hamare do'... Hum do Hamare do', 'Each One Teach One' ; ' Kaam azad baatein kam', Talk Less Work More' and these were the official ones but typical DAVP, Government of India stamp on them. Indira Gandhi's photographs in some places, Sanjay Gandhi's in some others...Sanjay Gandhi had no position or authority but yes it was there in posters and he had his goon squad also....moving around from place to place. And their main job was to try and convert people...students who were the more active types and try to bring them into the .... ---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">28:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Youth Congress. ---- .... Youth Congress. And this happened is a very personal story. If you wish I can tell you.</span>
|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On being aware or not of the slum clearances that took place.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- Knew of the Turkman Gate demolition a couple of days after it happened---narration of CM and his friend’s impressions when they visited the Turkman Gate.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Stopped near Ramlila Maidan and not allowed to go further.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----People were not allowed to report the trauma of the demolition but it was projected as a positive step towards the beautification of Delhi.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On the kind of posters and leaflets that were being circulated on Emergency. </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---CM narrates what his own impression of Emergency was </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">a cross on man’s lips as an indication of enforced silence. </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On slogans of posters like </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Kaam azad baatein kam''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">- by Sanjay Gandhi.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Examples of posters-</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> ‘</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Hum do Hamare do,' ‘Each one Teach one’ etc.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Typical DAVP lines.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Signs of Mrs Gandhi’s and Sanjay Gandhi’s powers---Sanjay’s goon squad moved around.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- Job to bring the students to the side of Congress and into Youth Congress.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">28:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Yes, please.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">28:08</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [CM] : Well,  I had two brushes with the Emergency personally. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">28:15</span><span style="color:#262626;"> In one, the first one, which was less of a problem- One chap in a kurta-pyjama...white kurta-pyjama...typical politician dress...he walked into my room in the hostel in Stephen's at around 10 O’clock at night. You know, those days there was really no security and people would actually walk in and walk out, till 10 the gates were open...after 10 you had to take permission to enter....just before 10 I think. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">28:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> It was exam time so I was studying with a table lamp in the balcony, when this person walked up and introduced himself; and said he was so and so who's some office bearer of the Youth Congress in Delhi University. And he said that, you know, they had heard all about me and heard good things about me- I was a good speaker, I was a good debater and I was somehow was not very happy with the Emergency, so he had come to me and said that he wanted to take me to Sanjay Gandhi and so that I could have a real understanding about what he was trying to do for the country and ...and make me join the Youth Congress. He took out a form from his pocket and kept it there. So I said I need time to think. So he said, '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''waise toh sochne ka kuch hai nahi lekin thik hai''</span><span style="color:#262626;">. You think for a ...a day.' Whipped out a packet of Marlboros offered me a cigarette...I declined politely but he had seen that I had some cigarettes. He said, 'why?' I said, 'nahi, I'll have it later.' </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">29:58</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And those days you see, we could smoke in college hostel and campus...it was open. So ...so, you know, but it was very flashy. There was something very flashy about him. He had a gold cigarette lighter, I still remember. So Marlboro and gold lighter were not a identity of a student of Delhi University. Anyway so he said he'll come back in the following evening and for my decision. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">30:34</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So that night itself I got out of the hostel, picked up, packed some of my bags, went to the same friend in Model Town, took a bus and went there. He said - okay, okay. But he said he knew this guy. My friend knew this guy. My friend was studying in Law Faculty then. He said, 'acha </span><span style="color:#262626;">acha...this fellow. He's a bully, he's a useless chap...don't worry. I'll get him off your back.' </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">31:00</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So anyway next day I stayed back at his house while he settled...obviously talked to some bigger goon and something happened and third day I went with my friend to the Law Faculty Cafe where this guy came along and said, 'I'm sorry I don't...didn't understand...realised you had taken offence...are </span><span style="color:#262626;">''eis mein bura mane ka kya hai? Aap ko nahi join karna hai matki jiye. Kya hai? Koi jabardasti tohri hai!' I said, 'Stardust Award...jabardasti''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> it was.' But...so (</span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">mumbled</span><span style="color:#262626;"> spot) I don't know, anyway. Know the others someone...I got t know some, you know, major Youth Congress bigwigs. He came and said, 'are thik hai....don't worry. You keep studying, you are a studious type. </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Tum is mein phaso mat''</span><span style="color:#262626;">...it's okay...nobody will bother you.' </span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">31:47</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I said, 'Chalo thik hai.' But later was...the second incident was serious. You see, Delhi College, now called the Zakir Husain College, they organised a debating contest to celebrate ten years of Indira Gandhi's rule - Indira Gandhi: The Dynamic Decade, 1966-1976. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">32:16</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So I was among the, you know, part of the debating team in college. And actually I and Ramu Damodaran were usually the pair. Sometime Shashi Tharoor also went but Shashi Tharoor left after his Bacholrs, so during during our MA Ramu Damodaran and I were the two mainstay of the college- the debating team. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">32:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So I went and I was speaking against the motion and I gave a truly, I should say, very very ill-considered speech when I attacked. The Congress left right in centre, and I said, 'what is dynamic? Is dynamic is the way people have been killed? Dynamic is the way people have been dragged out and sterilised...dynamic is some... .' You know narrated various incidents which had been coming out in ribs-and-rags and I mentioned dynamic is the way Turkman Gate happened; and for a long time there was a pin drop silence in the house. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">33:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But when I finished, I said, 'if this is dynamic, I </span><span style="color:#262626;">rather not have a dynamo installed anywhere.' And there was thunderous applause. And later they came to me- cooked your moose boy </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">33:43</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I mean this was too much., you know. So far we had you've been privately talking the same thing but now, this is...this is too much. You'll get in trouble. I came back to college. I got a bit worried by then. I realised that, you know, I had been </span><span style="color:#262626;">impulsive and probably said more...more than I should have. Even Ra mu said that Chandan is going to discuss this with me. I would advice you to </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">34:13</span><span style="color:#262626;">  (NOT CLEAR) against it. Time will come when you can say all this but today was not the day. Anyway, quickly some of my friends, they said, look let's run from here. This is a Congress bastion, so let's run... left the place. When we went to college, one of our teachers used to be a...I mean he claimed, he was a Communist. He was not exactly a hardcore Communist but Left sympathiser like many, you know, history teachers and we all used to look up to him and also seek advice in these situations. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">34:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So dialling with those coins...seen those coin walla phones? </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">34:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Yea, yea, yea--- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">34:59</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="color:#262626;"> So 50 paisa it used to call then...dialled him and I spoke to him and I...and he had already heard. Somebody had gone and told him that your friend and ... this thing...student has cooked his goose..he's done this...this...this...So..so he was a Bengali, he said - what is this? What's wrong with you? What have you done?' And...then he said...still can't forget this. His attempt at quote. He said, 'news by the Russian reva'. (mumbled spot)...I said, 'new by the Russian reva???'..Some of these boys...friends used to do this crossword and all that. So this is...obviously there's a clue here...just try to crack it. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">35:54</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And then somebody...light-bulb! Meet me at Volga at 9 O'clock. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">36:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> News by the Russian reva! News by Russian...Volga 9 O'clock. Took a bus, came to Volga...true enough, he was sitting there...reading. He told me, 'look, this is serious. You run away.' I said, 'where do I run away?' He said, </span><span style="color:#262626;">'run away to Calcutta.' My parents used to live in Calcutta. You just leave for Calcutta. You know, he also had a tendency to exaggerate. He said,'people will be looking out for you everywhere.' You know, so he gave me 500 bucks and he said, 'don't do anything...just take a bus...go to the airport. Buy a ticket, sleep on the ground at the airport and take the first flight out.' I didn't think it was that serious in any case. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">36:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> But he did give me 500 bucks, and said, 'you leave.' Then after he left, I said, 'look, this...this is overdoing it. Okay, I'll leave but I am not going to sleep on the ground at the airport...on the floor.' So then college but yes next morning I got up and went to the airport to the...I think there was a 7 o’clock or 8 o’clock flight...I took the flight... reached Calcutta, and he'd told me, 'don't come back till I give you the all-clear.' And I'd write him a postcard in Bengali. So by then I was getting very fidgety because three weeks had passed. I was missing classes. I didn't know what to do...I mean there was a layer of uncertainty...couldn't tell me parents the details either. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">37:42</span><span style="color:#262626;"> I'd said, 'no! There's some laphara...some of my friends had a fight and I was a witness and so the cops were harassing me, so I left Delhi.' So anyway after two-three weeks, I finally called him. I said, 'ke you haven't...' </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">37:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (Beep....interruption caused by somebody at the door)</span>

|| <div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---CM’s personal account of his brushes with Pro-Gandhi strong-arms.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Incident 1 when a bearer of Youth Congress visits CM in his hostel room to enrol him into Youth Congress—CM runs to his friend’s house in Model Town---resolution of the problem.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---CM getting to know more Youth Congress thugs.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Narration of second incident--- part of debate competition at Zakr Hussain College- CM spoke against the motion of ‘I</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">ndira Gandhi: The Dynamic Decade, 1966-1976</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">’. Got in trouble---advised to leave Delhi and go to Calcutta.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---CM trying to figure out when he could return to Delhi---Called his teacher---arrest of Hira Singh (arrested because a Congress man wanted to secure a job at the Delhi School of Social Work where Hira Singh worked and was expected to appear for an interview.)</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----narration continued.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">38:05</span><span style="color:#262626;">[FY] : You called him at... kuch pata nahi chala.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">38:07</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [CM] : Haan, I called him. He said, 'no...no...no...no, you know,. Then he said- you know what has happened? They have picked up Hira Singh.' --- 'Who's Hira Singh?'  ---Hira Singh was our teacher and a very popular teacher of the Sociology </span><span style="color:#262626;">Department. And we were good friends. This person I'm talking about ...he is dead...I can name him. His name was Suhas Chakarvarty, we used to call him Fat Chucks because he was very fat. So Fat Chuck said..Fat Chuck, Hira Singh and I...I was a kid compared to them but Hira Singh was a teacher...this thing and so Fat Chuck said, 'you know what happened? - They picked up...picked up Hira Singh.' </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">38:45</span><span style="color:#262626;"> ---I said, 'They picked up Hira Singh?' --- 'They picked up Hira Singh. They've taken him to Tihar.' --- I said, 'why?' ---He said, '...because he some...he was a ...I mean even far Left.' He was a T</span><span style="color:#262626;">rotskyite or something and therefore a very harmless man. The more extreme you are actually ...least harmful. So he had this literature and he was a very committed Left-wing but not CPI, CPI (M). He was far Left of CPI, CPI (M)...not a naxalite but he was in his own world, his own theory. And he was, I mean, he couldn't really hurt a fly. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">39:21</span><span style="color:#262626;"> They'd taken him. They picked him and taken him to Tihar. So I...then I called up another friend and said, 'is it true?' --- 'Haan haan, Hira's been taken away. They picked him up.'--- That really sent...I mean spine chilling because Hira Singh was a nice man, a popular teacher, not associated with any party and really somebody who couldn't hurt a fly. He would live alone...live alone. He had...used to drink heartily and last person you'd think who would be get picked up by the police. Later it was learnt that you see some of those ... politics...how politics came in ways with some appointment, interview for promotion was coming up in Delhi School of Social Work...one of the persons was pro-Congress and needed Hira Singh out of the way. So that Hira Singh couldn't appear for the interview. So went and told the police, the intelligence, that this man is dangerous revolutionary and he's plotting to overthrow Mrs Gandhi and you have to do something. Police raided his house...found some literature, which they don't understand anything about...he was picked, landed him in jail. He was jailed for about three or four </span><span style="color:#262626;">weeks. He finally was out on a bail. By that time, the interview had happened and this guy had got the appointment. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">40:50</span><span style="color:#262626;"> This Congress chap. So this is how the Emergency was used by various people for their very very petty and personal interests and all this were actually building up that anger. It was when Hira Singh came out and told his story, I mean we would tell in turn to twenty people -'ki look what has happened...look what the Congress people are doing.' So I don't know, this is what ...what had come around towards the end. I'm talking about </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">41:17</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (Muffled spot) the debate which had ...this was in December...December '76. So it was really growing to a close at that time but we didn't know. The day the Emergency was relaxed, it came as a really...not a </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">41:32</span><span style="color:#262626;">  (born</span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">???</span><span style="color:#262626;"> CHECK) but the opposite of it which was a bloom. I mean it was really amazing. I was driving from university, we were going to see...watch a movie...a friend and I...I used to drive a scooter in those days. So we were passing by this road; and outside </span><span style="color:#262626;">''Indian Express''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> there used to be a lit board where the flash news used to come. There it was only stated- Mrs Gandhi calls for elections on March 18. I still remember the statement- Mrs Gandhi relaxes Emergency- Elections on March 18. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">42:13</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Stopped...immediately stopped...scooter screeched to a halt...found about fifty-sixty people all avidly watching this three line </span><span style="color:#262626;">announcement. There's nothing more...no further information...but they were just stunned...but too scared to jump in joy but quietly hugging each other, and saying-'wah what...what does this mean?' Many people were asking me- 'what does this mean?' I mean, 'are we back to, I mean, has freedom come back?' Toh, we were not sure. See what does relaxed Emergency mean? Anyway went...watched the movie...came...went back...when we reached the university we found that these ABVP chaps had taken out a procession at midnight. Procession with Jan Sangh flags and not </span><span style="color:#262626;">shouting...quiet procession going around the things and saying- look lok tantra ki vijay or something from time to time. But yes nobody was touched that day. Next day newspapers give some more details that this is what's gonna happen- Emergency is lifted- no censorship- but this is relaxed only. Emergency has not been lifted. Now elections will happen and after elections it will be decided if the Emergency will continue or not. So it was dangling. The sword was still dangling but yes there was a feeling that 'no, it...this can't come back.' </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">43:37</span><span style="color:#262626;"> And then the way things built up and then the February 3rd rally at Ramlila...it was a turning point. It was just that....changed. And after that there was no way.</span>
|| <div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---CM told of Hira Singh’s arrest by Suhas Chakarvarty aka Fat Chucks.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----More on Hira Singh.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On the abuse of power by Congress supporters.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Contd. Hira Singh’s story.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---How Hira Singh’s story and other stories spread by word of mouth. </span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On the feeling when relaxation of Emergency was declared.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On people trying to understand what the flash board outside the </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Express’''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> building was flashing- </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Mrs Gandhi relaxes Emergency- Elections on March 18.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----Procession taken out by ABVP chaps in University. </nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---More details on relaxation of the Emergency in the newspapers.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---feeling of slight relief.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Rally at Ramlila Grounds on February 3 signalled the change.</span>

|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#3482b1;">43:51</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : Did you go to the rally?</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">43:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [CM] : Yea, of course.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">43:52</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [FY] : What do you remember of it? I believe Atal Bihari Vajpayee's speech was really stirring.</span>

<span style="color:#3482b1;">43:57</span><span style="color:#262626;"> [CM] : Haan, Atal Bihari Vajpayee...I attended several of his speeches in Jama Masjid in particular with Imam...Imam Bukhari. But this ... this rally...I...Ramlila was really...few rallies which have, I think, have turned the course of history...it was one. It was word-to-word by mouth that there's a rally. Jayaprakash Narayan, Vajpayee and Imam Bukhari and all will be there...Bahuguna and so on. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">44:30</span><span style="color:#262626;"> Now what had happened three days before that we had started listening to the news and radio again. Three days back on the ...this rally was on 3rd February or 6th February...I think it was 6th February. It was a Sunday. Three days before that the news we heard that Jagjivan Ram, ageing Bhauguna and Mrs Satpati (Ref.: Mrs Nandani Satpati, Chief Minister of Odisha from June 1972 to December 1976) had quit...quit the Congress, quit their minister-ship and </span><span style="color:#262626;">found a party called Congress for Democracy. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">45:01</span><span style="color:#262626;"> That was the turning point. Everybody knew that...this has happened...they are the closest confidants of Mrs Gandhi and who had kept quiet all through it. If they quit and then two days later it came out in the papers that they would be joining this rally on 6th February. And you must have read or heard that to try and foil Bobby was telecasted... ---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">45:22</span><span style="color:#262626;">[FY] : Bobby was telecasted at that time---- </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">45:23</span><span style="color:#262626;">.... hardly...I mean Doordarshan those days used to telecast films only 10-15 years old and Bobby was '73...'73 December and this is '76 December, so. Anyways so all...all...every trick in the book was tried. We came...took a bus but we could not proceed beyond Red Fort. It was a massive crowd, the police had blocked. </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">45:48</span><span style="color:#262626;"> So we walked from not Red Fort exactly...the Iron Bridge on Daryaganj. So from that place we walked to the rally. And yea, it was, I mean, I've never seen a place so packed and still money being collected. See Devilal, I remember had said- </span><span style="color:#262626;">''ek note ek vote (trans.: One note One vote)''</span><span style="color:#262626;">- So some volunteers came up  with a </span><span style="color:#262626;">''gamucha''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (Ref.: a tradition coarse cotton towel used in India) and </span><span style="color:#262626;">''chaddar''</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (ref.: sheet) going through the crowd. Everybody...women throwing, you know, anklets and stuff like that. It was </span><span style="color:#3482b1;">46:19</span><span style="color:#262626;"> </span><span style="background-color:#ffff00;color:#262626;">???</span><span style="color:#262626;"> (Word UNCLEAR). I mean...feeling of release. I mean and freedom...very difficult to describe. I ...I can always compare it to the picturisation of the song '</span><span style="color:#262626;">''Kaanto se kheench ke ye aanchal tod ke bandhan baandhee paayal. A</span>aj fir jeene kee tamannaa hain.''' It was really like '''aaj fir jeene kee tamannaa hain''.' <span style="color:#2e74b5;">46:39 </span>That visual image keeps coming to my mind. It was like collective, ''aaj fir jeene kee tamannaa hain''.' Who spoke what I don't remember. It was not really rally but see everybody was clapping so much that you couldn't hear anything. Hurriedly organised and there were not enough mikes, so half the people couldn't hear anything...doesn't matter. It was that ...it was a moment.

|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----More details on the rallies.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---CM attended many such speeches--- Atal Bihari Vajpayee ---Imam Bukhari---news of impending rally spread by word of mouth.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Bhauguna.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Resignation of Jagjivan Ram and Nandani Satpati from Congress and formation of Congress for Democracy</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"></span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> implications of their resignation from the Congress.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Telecast of </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Bobby''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> to divert people’s presence from the rally.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----On what it was like to attend the rally---not organised well—few mikes but people were ecstatic---people collecting funds for the elections. </nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- For CM the mood can best be reflected by a song from film </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Guide--</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> Kaanto se kheench ke ye aanchal tod ke bandhan baandhee paayal. A</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">aj fir jeene kee tamannaa hain.''</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| 47:00 [FY] : What about Indira Gandhi's own rally? Did you attend any of those post-the declaration of election?

47:04 [CM] : Indira Gandhi's....(muffled spot)....We hated her. 47:09 (muffled words and both speak at the same time..) <span style="background-color:#ffff00;">???</span> attending...I was not there. I was...I was ...I was not a journalist. I was not journalist. I wasn't thinking like them. As a journalist of course I would have but no.

47:16 [FY] : So you did not.

47:17 [CM] : No. Nobody wanted to see her face around here.

47:21 [FY] : So okay, so post-the elections and ...oh wait! The election day when the results were coming out. Just describe that to me and then we'll go to when you started your journalism career.

47:32 [CM] : See obviously all for Janta Party and by then Arun Jaitely an other candidate had come out and many of them....some...who was the other thing? Not Arun Jaitley himself, Vijay Bora somebody came and gave me a whole she...sheaf of voter enrolment forms. He said, 'yaar saab ko voter banao.'So I think I got about sixty-seventy people in hostel enrolled as voters because meanwhile RSS had its network. So they had an electoral officer there who would just simply enrol anything with <span style="color:#2e74b5;">48:04</span>  (Muffled words)...as took to him. <span style="color:#2e74b5;">48:06 </span>So they made about 7-8 hundred false voters. And this is I think I'm just underestimating the point. Then Atal Ji had been released sometime ago because of his prostrate and all that. And he used to stay in the quarters of the Ramjas Proctor....no...no...Principal- Dr Kaul. You know Dr Kaul's daughter who's Namita who's now married to Arindham Bhattacharya. I knew her through another common friend- Nitya Ramakrishnan. So Nitya took me one day to their house and Gunu...we used to call him Gunu...Namita...she said, 'yaar kuch karna chahiye.' Koon? I have to participate. So I said, aaj se chalo. We'll do some postering and all that.' So Nitya's father was in the original Janta Party, so she would get some posters; and this was truly disorganised...this is not any organised activity. Make some group in the house and then go out and posters....postered the place. <span style="color:#2e74b5;">49:19</span> On election day...on election day it was decided ki Arun Jaitley and Vijay Bora were two leaders who I were in touch with and Rajat Sharma. In one of our meetings they said, 'dekho ideal should be go and capture a booth...around do baje (2 O'lock) by that time most people would have gone. The second round of voting, don't allow the Congressy to come in and take...take all the booths. We must take all the booths.' So I remember one-by-one we ...all this Maurice Nagar booth, it was starting from Kamla Nagar...four-five of us...there stood, shout there next ...next booth...next booth and so on. And finally at around 4 O'clock I myself voted at the booth that was set-up just...now though it's not there...there was a Bombay Dyeing showroom...near Maurice Nagar...almost diagonally across from the Law Faculty Coffee House. <span style="color:#2e74b5;">50:23 </span>I counted that I had cast forty-five votes myself. Just one more thapa maro (trans.: stamped)...one more thapa...one more thapa...somebody would take fold and put it in, I would...and then you know somebody else would take over. And in Kamla Nagar one of our kind of squads...their idea was...their instruction was ki Congressy ko bhagana hai. So the Congressy was in some strength there. So one of my friend's girlfriend...she was on voting duty there; and so when she found that its really difficult to overpower burly

Congress fellows that had come, so the usual - arre chare diya...chare diya...chare diya...haath lagaya...ye kiya...maro sale ko,'...all this and all the Congressy...they ran.And there was no mobiles so it was only word of mouth literally...the bush telegraph. so when we were here they said, 'ki haan woh Kamlesh ke saath chare chaar hui hai.' So all rushed there, we found no char chaar. She was laughing away. She said this was the only thing I could do to throw these fellows off. There were too many of them. So great!  So like this went the whole day and in the evening I took out my scooter and said, 'let's go and see the rest of the city.' Found buses coming from Haryana particularly were really, you know, charged - 'ki Bhajan Lal ki zamanat karo,' 'Bhajan Lal ki zamanat karo'. <span style="color:#2e74b5;">51:58</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> </span>I mean Bhajan Lal ki zamanat jab means that its gone. So it was very clear that day by the evening when we managed to procure a bottle of rum and consume it...everyone is in a great mood ...that yes ...we've probably won the war.
|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On Indira Gandhi’s rally.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Indira Gandhi much hated by then.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On the ambiance when the election results were declared.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- CM approached by Janta Party to help with the voters’ enrolment---Arun Jaitley—Vijay Bor.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Students’ networks in enrolment and their role in campaigning.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- Casting of votes in the booths was often rigged---Examples.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Continuation of rigging of voting booths example.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On CM’s recollection of going round the city to get a feel of what was happening on election day.</span>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Buses in drones coming from Harayan with the slogan ‘Bhajan Lal ki zamanat karo', which was indicated that Congress was going to lose. </span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">52:15</span> [FY] : Okay, so when you started your journalism career and what was the received wisdom about the Emergency at that point of time?<span style="color:#2e74b5;">52:23</span> [CM] : I started my journalism career kind of accidentally. I was studying for my D.Phil in Oxford and you know I was on a scholarship but I was already married so I had a fairly expensive family to take care of. I had my wife and kid, so somebody told me that I should visit the BBC and put in a application for a...one of the foreign language broadcasters. So I put in an application and then one day I was called for an audition. They approved and I became a what they called an 'outside broadcaster'. <span style="color:#2e74b5;">52:59</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> </span>So I would be called by telephone that, you know, 'can you come and do our this show in the afternoon..this one in the morning...like that'. It was a day-to-day kind of thing. I would come to London in any case because my library was the India Office Library, which was in London. So I had a monthly train ticket pass. It was a student pass so it was cheap. And then this outside commentator thing worked out. And I would started doing about two commen...commentators, which we would get by then standard then pretty good...something like 8pounds a day I would make by on two programmes. <span style="color:#2e74b5;">53:40</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> </span>And then when my D.Phil was about to coming to an end, one of my...our...this thing...heads...department heads Robert Oppenheimer, his name was, he asked me what I wanted to do further. I said, 'what to do? I'll seek an extension here ... maybe teach for sometime in England and ...' So he told me that ,'look you have flare for journalism. I've seen some of the scripts for BBC normally we don't get people who are outsiders who write scripts but I told you one day to write a script and wrote a very fine, so we repeated you several times. You have a flare for writing. You have a flare for journalism. So my advice- don't stay on here. Go back to your country and go for journalism.' <span style="color:#2e74b5;">54:29</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> </span>Well I was filling some <span style="color:#2e74b5;">54:3</span>1 copy<span style="background-color:#ffff00;">??? (NOTE: SOUNDS LIKE</span> 'COPY'   but check) from there in any case. Ashish Ray who was in Telegraph in those days, he had told me...And I knew him through my Telegraph sources in Calcutta. He told me that from time to time you write something. So I would write for ''Telegraph'' and sometimes...sometimes ... yeah I wrote for a few magazines here and there.  And then when Oppenheimer told me this, I thought 'okay...not a bad idea.' So I shot off letters to various places...''Times of India, Statesman'' and so on. ''Statesman'' I held in very high esteem because I am from Calcutta. I've grown up reading the ''Statesman'' and ''Statesman'' was very different ''Statesman'' from what you see today. And ''Statesman'' responded. C. Irani wrote to me saying 'if I happen to be in India, could I come over for an interview?' I came...I was actually...some seminar was going on, I was invited. So I came to Calcutta...went and met him and got a job on a platter. So when I finished, I came back and joined Statesman in Calcutta. That was in 1984. You see still, I mean, Emergency was over for some time. In '77 it lifted and this I'm talking seven years later but it had left an impact on journalism…Emergency. <span style="color:#2e74b5;">55:47</span> You see my basic observation in this was prior to the Emergency and during the Emergency whatever journalism we had in India was very timid.  People were afraid. Journalists were afraid. There was a real fear of state power and nobody would have the courage to actually call a spade a spade. And government was a feared institution. Indira Gandhi was a feared personality. Now after the Emergency suddenly the fear evaporated...fear eva... just evaporated. Indira Gandhi was a clay...fallen clay model. Sanjay Gandhi in any case, you know, was a hated figure and he died within a year anyway. And there was I would in the Chinese <span style="color:#2e74b5;">56:46</span> ???? (<span style="background-color:#ffff00;">WORD AFTER CHINESE UNCLEAR</span>) words- A thousand flowers bloomed.  And a thousand...hundred schools of thought contended. So by the time I came to journalism, you know, it was probably gone a little overboard. The pendulum had swung from one extreme of the Emergency to another extreme where you could write anything and against anybody and ...and get away with it. And the harsher your language the more you were kind of .... ---- <span style="color:#2e74b5;">57:17</span> [FY] :...celebrated? ---- ..... yeah. But I also came into journalism at a time when insurgencies broke out all of a sudden in a big way. And Punjab was burning ...'84. That very year Indira Gandhi was selected. Punjab was in flames. And I wanted to go to Punjab. I told my editor that 'please allow me'. He said but, you know, 'you don't know the language.' I said, 'look I've lived in Delhi long enough, I can manage the language and but I am in any case a student of history, I'm very interested and all.' So when I said, he allowed me. So I covered Punjab extensively from 1984-87...till it ended. <span style="color:#2e74b5;">58:04</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> </span>And those days I was coming and going out of Delhi. Then Girilal Jain in ''Times of India'' noticed my writing because he was very interested in Punjab. And one day he called me in Calcutta and asked me to come over. So I came to Delhi, met him. And he offered me a job immediately again. So it was a bit of a scene to break away from Statesman. They had been very good to me and had given me my first job. <span style="color:#2e74b5;">58:30</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> </span>But then, you know, one has to move on. And I wanted to come back to Delhi anyway. So I came back to Delhi and joined Times of India. Thereafter, there had not been any kind of that challenge that we faced. I would say the generation which was ...had lived through the Emergency, you know, people like Kuldip Nayar, and B. G. Verghese, and so on, they were people who really felt the impact of the Emergency because they were there in editorial positions and had to very often they had to submit and succumb to their owners and to the censors; and while they fumed inside they had to follow orders. We were lucky in that sense that we were born into journalism in a free air. <span style="color:#2e74b5;">59:20</span> As a result of the struggles of our preceding generation, we inherited a journalistic environment which was free and which I think is something that we cherished.
|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On CM’s beginning of his career in journalism.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---CM started in journalism accidently--- did some work at BBC while doing D.Phil at Oxford in order to earn extra money.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Once D.Phil was about to get over, one of his heads suggested that CM return to India </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">and get into journalism because of his flare for writing.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>---- </nowiki>CM joins </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Statesman''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> in Calcutta after his interview with C. Irani.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---Did extensive coverage of insurgency in Punjab---travelled to Punjab to report from ground.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On impact of </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">Emergency on journalism---it pushed the reporters and journalists to report in detail post-Emergency.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- There was not just one strand of opinion in reporting but several styles --- the control over the freedom of press during Emergency pushed journalists to become often uncritical of the BJP.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----CM on his days of reporting on Punjab.</nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On being offered a job at </span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">''Times of India''</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;"> by Girilal Jain.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;"><nowiki>----On the legacy left by Kuldip Nayar, B. G. Verghese and so on when they were forced to be silent during the Emergency. </nowiki></span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">59:31</span> [FY] : Right! Okay, last question. If I were to ask you to compare journalism immediately post-Emergency and journalism now when a lot of people are again talking about how freedom of speech is being curbed in various ways, which are not direct but are indirect...what would...what would you say?<span style="color:#2e74b5;">59:47</span> [CM] : Look, after the Emergency I think there was absolutely freedom was very much there. It opened up overnight and there was really no curb. And now-a-days there's no curb today. I don't sense it at all and don't ...nobody who's an established newspaper or magazine will say this. It is some sections who are I woul...I mean having agitational tendency, which is perfectly legitimate and credible, they may say that they are censoring this...much maligned word 'intolerance' but I don't see it. I don't see it because press seems to be quite open and critical of the government. When actually in fact after the Emergency, the situation was a little strange. There was so much antipathy towards Mrs Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi that journalists became very pro-Janta Party, and uncritical of Morarji Desai and that....whole bunch of, you know, I would say obscure <span style="color:#2e74b5;">60:52</span><span style="color:#2e74b5;">  </span>(W<span style="background-color:#ffff00;">ORD AFTER OBSCURE UNCLEar)</span>who were in power in those days but media...no journalist would criticise, 'Oh! good at least some people, you know, who are not going to throw you into jail. ' So in the process I think there was less discerning journalists then than now. Now toh people are acting as if you like and nobody is going to throw you into jail for writing. There's no Emergency. There may be some people who are...who feel that they should be able to write even more but that's because times have changed and the parameters of freedom have been pushed wider. But otherwise there's no...but in fact I would say that immediately after the Emergency, it was a bit of a biased journalism. Journalism was biased in favour of the Janta Party, and against the Congress Party, which ideally we're talking about objective journalism was really not the case. But see then that always happen...right now see there's a bias against the BJP in mostly in English language newspapers. But thik hai...these things happen but I think that I would still say salute to the... those who fought the Emergency and bequeathed upon us this dawn of freedom. <span style="color:#2e74b5;">62:03</span> [FY] : Right, okay! Thank you. Was there anything else that you want to say about the Emergency?<span style="color:#2e74b5;">62:06</span> [CM] :Not really! I think you've covered the most extensive interview I've given.
|| <span style="color:#2e74b5;">---On curbing freedom of press now (2016-16) by the Government.</span>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<div style="color:#2e74b5;"></div>

<span style="color:#2e74b5;">--- CM doesn’t feel that the Government of India is imposing any kind censorship on the press.</span>
|- style="border:0.5pt solid #00000a;padding-top:0cm;padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0.199cm;padding-right:0.191cm;"
|| Interview Ends.
| style="color:#2e74b5;" |
|-
|}