A Cold War for Press Freedom

The weather in New Delhi was seasonably mild last week, with temperatures mostly in the 70s. If Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had had her way, however, it would have been a lot hotter in the pressroom of the Indian Express (circ. 400,000), the flagship of India's largest newspaper chain. Reason: government officials tried a few weeks ago to rip out the paper's air-conditioning system and auction it off to satisfy a disputed tax bill. Only a last-minute court injunction saved Express workers from a daily steam bath.

With such mundane weapons as air conditioners is the cold war for press freedom being fought in India. Nearly a year and a half after Gandhi suspended civil liberties and imposed rigid press controls, most of the nation's 1,300 domestic dailies seem to have given up the battle. Their pages are now filled with fawning accounts of national events, flattering pictures of Gandhi and her ambitious son Sanjay--and, not coincidentally, lucrative government advertising. But two tough, prominent publishers of English-language dailies--Ramnath Goenka of the 44-year-old Express and C.R. Irani of the 100-year-old Statesman--are fighting on with a stubbornness befitting Gandhi's father, Jawaharlal Nehru.

Foiled Again. Unlike antigovernment publishers in some other countries, Goenka, 73, and Irani, 46, cannot employ their most strategic weapons, their newspapers. The Express and the States man (circ. 198,000) are far less servile than most Indian dailies, but Gandhi's press restrictions forbid the printing of anything openly critical of her regime. As a result, Goenka and Irani have turned to India's still largely independent judiciary for help. So far, they have at least thwarted the government's apparent objective: to gain control of the papers or put them out of business.

A longtime political foe of Gandhi's, Goenka is a wily industrialist who owns 17 other Indian dailies besides the Express; they have a combined circulation of about 1 million. Since he opposed Gandhi's adoption of sweeping emergency powers in 1975, her government has seized his jute mill in Calcutta, deprived the Express group of government advertising and ordered India's nationalized banks to deny him credit.

The Statesman has long been one of India's most respected dailies. It exposed British government cover-ups of the 1942 Bengal famine and was the first to report the border skirmishes that led to the 1962 war with China. With pugnacious Irani as its managing director, the Statesman also criticized Gandhi's emergency measures. In return, the government has confiscated Irani's passport, forced the paper to miss several editions through censorship delays and tried to impound one of the Statesman's presses.

Using the courts, Goenka has sued successfully to have his electricity restored after a mysterious two-day black out, and Irani has obtained a court injunction against a government attempt to pack his board with Gandhi nominees. Outside the courts, both publishers have had to talk suppliers into risking government retaliation by continuing to do business with them. In addition, Irani has had to persuade stockholders to resist selling out to Gandhi supporters. Irani himself has bought up thousands of Statesman shares and distributed them to loyal staff members.

Weakened Ally. Goenka and Irani are pursuing their struggles independent of each other, unwilling to risk charges of conspiracy. They do share a determination to hang on as long as they can. Yet the Prime Minister last month pushed a constitutional amendment through Parliament that will, when it takes effect this week, weaken the publishers' major ally, the judiciary.

Meanwhile, each paper is publishing only eight pages a day (down from a typical 14), and both are losing money. Irani believes his paper can continue publishing for another year or so. Says he: "The Statesman has not been around for a hundred years to sell out now to a Delhi Mafia." Goenka, however, is trying to sell off some of his other business properties to keep the Express group alive, and the papers could fold at any time. "We are carrying on, how long we don't know," says a Goenka associate. "They can't take us over unless they pass a law. They can make a man a woman, they can do anything. But the day they pass a law to take over the newspapers, any cloak of democracy will disappear."

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