Opinion February 22, 1976, Forty Years Ago: Court On Censorship

A look at the front page of The Indian Express, published on February 22, Forty Years Ago.

“The press is not only an instrument for disseminating information but a powerful medium for moulding public opinion by propaganda. True democracy can only thrive in a free clearing house of competing ideologies and philosophies — political, economic and social — and in this, the press has an important role to play. The day this clearing-house closes down would toll the deathknell of democracy,” says a judgment by Justices D.P. Madon and M.H. Kania of the Bombay High Court. It adds: “It is not the function of the censor acting under the censorship order to make all newspapers and periodicals trim their sails to one wind or to tow along in a single file or to speak in chorus with one voice. It is not for him to exercise his statutory power to force public opinion in a single mould or to turn the press into an instrument for brainwashing the public. Under the censorship order, the censor is appointed the nursemaid of democracy and not its grave-digger. Dissent from opinions and views held by the majority and criticism and disapproval of measures initiated by a party in power make for a healthy political climate, and it is not for the censor to inject into this the lifelessness of forced conformity.

Support For Mao

Shanghai workers sent an emotive letter to Chairman Mao Zedong pledging support in the “life and death struggle” against rightist elements in the Chinese leadership.

Delhi Pollution

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Union Health Minister Karan Singh called for a qualitative change in the pattern of India’s industrialisation to eliminate the hazard of environmental pollution. Singh expressed deep concern at the fast rate of deterioration in Delhi’s environment.

After Indira
Prime Minister of Guyana, Burnham, named his grand daughter after the prime minister of India. She will be called Anante Indira.