Essay about Emergency Period Media

Words: 1050
Pages: 5

Emergency period media
In June, 1975, Indira Gandhi's government declared a state of emergency and suspended civil liberties. Immediately after this declaration, the government tightened its controls on the Indian mass media, especially o n the newspapers which had reputations of being free and lively. During the Summer of 1975, as Indira Gandhi became increasingly more threatened by the mounting criticisms of her government, she declared a state of emergency. Immediately she took control of the press, prohibiting their reporting of all domestic and international news. The government expelled several foreign correspondents
(mainly American and British) and withdrew accreditation from more than 40 Indian reporters who normally covered the
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Later on, this type of financial castigation was used on several other rebellious newspapers. The second and perhaps more profound way of manipulating the news flow resulted from the governmental decision to bring about a shot-gun merger of the four privately-owned Indian news agencies; the main purpose behind this merger was to alter the management and control of the Indian news agencies and thus to control much of the content of the leading newspapers. Since these agencies had been acting as the gatekeepers of information, it was essential for Indira
Gandhi and her Information and Broadcasting Minister, Mr. V.C.
Shukla, to control the gatekeepers. T o effect such a merger, the government carried through various successful tactics. First of all, pressure was put on the members ofboards of these agencies. Then the financial squeeze was applied to the agencies themselves by withholding governmental subsidy. Thirdly, the government introduced the threat of cutting-off the teleprinter services, the lifelines of a news agency. For example, the government-owned Post and Telegraph Department ordered to impose a suspension of services to the United News of India if it resisted the merger. The manipulation of these four news agencies was s o effective that hardly a voice was raised to resist the governmental perfidity. Soon after this, Shukla reported t