Priyanka Saurabh
In 1975, when Indira Gandhi’s Emergency choked India’s voice, newspapers like Indian Express, Jansatta, and Pratipaksh chose a defiant act of silence. Their editorial columns, left starkly blank, screamed louder than words ever could—a protest against censorship, a refusal to kneel before tyranny. Today, no tanks rumble through the streets, no censor officers loom over newsrooms, yet a chilling silence pervades. It’s not the silence of defiance but of surrender—of self-censorship, fear, and a stifling of ideas veiled as “patriotism.” In this new democracy, to question is to betray, and the pen, once a sword for truth, now trembles as a mouthpiece for power. A blank editorial today is no longer just protest; it is a mournful cry: We are silent now, but not deaf, not blind, not voiceless.
The Emergency of 1975 was a visible wound—arrests, blackouts, and banned presses. Journalists faced jail; dissenters were shackled. Yet, in that darkness, the press found courage in emptiness, leaving editorial pages bare as a middle finger to autocracy. Today, the chains are invisible, but heavier. No formal Emergency has been declared, yet journalists languish in cells, some murdered, others bought, many silenced by fear. A generation has grown up believing newspapers worship the government, not challenge it. The new democracy is a stage where the state performs, and the media amplifies its script. Lies become slogans, tragedies become distractions, and dissent is branded “anti-national.” When a farmer’s death is buried under headlines of grandeur, when a student’s cry is drowned in orchestrated noise, when a woman’s scream is edited out of the frame, the camera doesn’t just shift—it betrays.
In 1975, fear wore uniforms and rode tanks. Today, it hides in boardrooms, in shrinking TRPs, in dried-up funding. Censorship is no longer imposed; it’s internalized. Journalists, once truth-tellers, now tiptoe around “slips of tongue.” Thinkers are muffled by the cacophony of IT cells. Truth-tellers find their screens blacked out, their voices erased. The government no longer requests silence—it demands it. “Keep quiet, or be labeled a traitor,” whispers the airwaves. Writing poetry is no longer art; it’s “ideology.” Asking questions is no longer duty; it’s sedition. “Keep quiet” isn’t just a railway platform announcement—it’s a mantra echoing across newsrooms, social media, and dinner tables.
This is the new democracy: where nationalism masks self-interest, where “Vishwaguru” and “India Shining” are sold as truths while a Dalit woman’s cries in a village are reduced to a viral video, forgotten by dawn. A student jailed for a slogan, a poet’s book banned, an editor sacked for daring to print the truth—these are not headlines but footnotes in a narrative that glorifies power over people. The Preamble of our Constitution is recited, but its soul—liberty, justice, equality—is buried under hashtags and trends. We are a generation that has traded truth for relatability, news for events, editorials for propaganda.
Yet, silence can still scream. A blank editorial today is not surrender but a mirror held up to a nation that has stopped listening. Every word is now scrutinized, every sentence dissected, every dissent sued. Readers crave entertainment, not truth; they scroll through trends, not facts. Newspapers, once the conscience of a nation, now churn out recycled faces, tired ideas, and power-friendly platitudes. When editorials sing odes to devotion, know the pen has either bowed or been bought. When they fall silent, know the heart of democracy is holding its breath.
But there are glimmers of defiance. When a Dalit woman’s pain goes viral, only to be ignored; when a student’s protest lands her in a cell; when a poet’s words are deemed too dangerous to print—there are still those who write, who question, who refuse to kneel. To them, I say: let your pen be a beacon. Ask yourself: does it serve society or the state? Does it amplify the voiceless or echo the powerful?
In 1975, the people rose—through protests, through jail cells, through blank pages. Today, we live under an undeclared Emergency, seduced by convenience, lulled by narratives of greatness. But a blank editorial is not defeat. It is a pause, a plea, a promise: We will speak again. Because when democracy whispers, it is the silence of the press that roars the loudest.
(Note: Priyanka Saurabh is a freelance writer, poet and journalist known for her outspoken writing on democracy, social justice and women’s issues in contemporary India. X(twitter) https://twitter.com/pari_saurabh)
