Indira's Iron Veil

It was a stunning scene. Every time an opposition member stood up in the Indian Parliament to argue against Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's June 26 state of emergency, almost the entire press corps, including nearly 300 Indian journalists and some of the 75 foreign correspondents, simply stopped writing and put away their notebooks. The reporters were obeying a savage gag rule imposed on them last week by the government in a drastic effort to tighten India's month-old press control in time for the special parliamentary session. In effect, the rule forced newsmen to censor themselves.

By pledging to submit to the rule, the newsmen were signing away their freedom, since the new restrictions made it illegal for reporters to quote opposition speakers, refer by name to any political prisoners, including some 30 jailed opposition members of Parliament, publish anything "likely to denigrate the institutions of the Prime Minister or the President," or even mention that published material had been censored. In sum, the press was left free to publish government handouts.

Hustled Out. Indian journalists faced jail if they did not conform to the guidelines, but foreign correspondents, facing only expulsion, resisted. Three Western reporters, Peter Hazelhurst, 39, Tokyo-based Asian correspondent for the London Times; Peter Gill, 31, the London Daily Telegraph's man in Tehran; and Loren Jenkins, 36, Newsweek's Hong Kong bureau chief, refused to pledge submission and were hustled out of New Delhi at dawn Tuesday on a Beirut-bound Pan Am flight. The New York Times, TIME, the British Broadcasting Corp. and CBS-TV also turned down the pledge. Said Richard Salant, president of CBS News: "If we sign, we are either lying or submitting to their rules for bad journalism." A few reporters from United Press International, Associated Press, Reuters, the Los Angeles Times, ABC and NBC indicated that they were under orders from home to sign, if necessary, in order to stay on. However, most protested to Chief Censor Harry D'Penha. Replied D'Penha with Alice in Wonderland logic: "It's not witch hunting. We are trying to establish a basis of confidence."

Charade's End. The pledge ostensibly ended the subtle charade that foreign reporters had concocted to evade the government's jerry-built censorship. For a month some overseas journalists in New Delhi had escaped the censor's leaden fist by telephoning or telexing their copy direct to their home offices, or by flying out of the country to file from Beirut or Bangkok and then flying back a few days later. The Indian government, while it barred distribution of some foreign publications like TIME and Newsweek, tolerated the practice.

Mrs. Gandhi's crackdown may now reduce foreign reporters to the servile status docilely accepted by the journalists who work for the nation's 830 dailies (combined circulation 9,436,000). Indeed, no major paper has shown defiance, including those owned by powerful businessmen who have in the past opposed Indira Gandhi. Only two newsmen, K.R. Malkani, editor of the right-wing Motherland, and Kuldip Nayar, editor of the Indian Express, have been imprisoned. But little change in news coverage has actually occurred because Indian journalists have traditionally depended on government press releases for most of their information. In the past, dissent has only appeared in editorials or in reports of speeches by opposition leaders.

At week's end the Indian government, apparently disturbed by foreign reaction, issued a confusing modification of the pledge that provoked another flurry of telexed exchanges between the harried foreign correspondents and their home-office editors. The new version required journalists to acknowledge "receipt" of the censorship guidelines and to undertake "full responsibility for reports in regard to these guidelines," but extracted no explicit promise to submit to them. That left the press wondering whether the government had in effect backed down. Journalists from several Western news organizations, including CBS, the New York Times and the Christian Science Monitor, felt that the pledge was now "innocuous" and agreed to sign --though with some misgivings. Interpreting it differently, journalists from Newsweek and the London Times were among those who rejected the document. TIME Correspondent David Aikman refused to sign the pledge and planned to leave India voluntarily. His conclusion: the government considers even the watered-down document to be morally binding on correspondents.

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