Media in an emergency situation A sentence used by L. K. Advani on the supine attitude of the Indian media during the Emergency will be quoted in history books for times to come because it summed up the gutlessness of our tribe of pen-pushers. He said ?She (Indira Gandhi) only asked you to bend, you decided to crawl.? Or words to that effect. He was right then; he would be right if he repeated the remark for mediamen of today. But let it not be forgotten that there were a few journals which closed down in protest and many journalists were clapped into jail by the Emergency regime. Others, who protested mildly and pleaded for lifting of the Emergency and release of political prisoners, were spared in order to create the impression that the government had not stamped out all criticism. The Illustrated Weekly of India, of which I was then editor, fell in this category of mild protesters (I supported the Emergency but opposed censorship of the press). Advani acknowledged this in his book published soon after the Emergency was lifted. I have little doubt that if the Emergency was imposed again media reaction would be much the same as in the mid-Seventies. A handful would put down their pens in protest, a handful would be gaoled, the vast majority will bend backwards to toe the government line, that is, crawl when only asked to bend. I will give an instance to prove my point. A few weeks ago I was asked to preside over the launch of a book on corruption in Indian life. I was given only a couple of hours? notice as the person who had agreed to do so had let the publishers down. I was down with fever and had not read the book. However, when I was told that L. K. Advani and V. P. Singh would be speaking, I agreed to go. I knew it would be my only chance to tell Advani on his face what I thought of him. I thought very well of Advani as a clean, upright and able man. That is why I agreed to propose his name for elections to the Lok Sabha from New Delhi. I have every reason to believe that my doing so swung a substantial portion of the Sikh vote in Advani?s favour. He won. My disenchantment began when Advani started his rath yatra from Somnath to Ayodhya. I criticised his move then; I repeated my criticism at the book launch: ?You sowed the dragon seeds of communal hatred which led to a destruction of the Babri Masjid,? I said. ?You are a clever coiner of words. You made the Babri Masjid into a dhaancha and a disputed structure; your parivar parrot these expressions to this day. You denigrated critics like me as pseudosecularists. Your brainless followers continue to use the same expression for people like me.? I reassured Advani that I still held him in high regard as a man of honour and integrity. ?Two things I will never believe against you, namely, that you feather your nest or are unfaithful to your wife.? The remark amused Advani as well as the assemblage. So did the next one: ?You are a puritan. You do not drink, you do not smoke, you do not womanize.? And after a pause, ?Such men are dangerous.? Needless to say my hosts were acutely embarrassed by my speech. I wanted to get it off my chest. And I did. Advani did not seem to mind and said he would answer me at a more appropriate occasion than the launch of a book. Fair enough. What appalled me was the media reporting. Only one national daily gave my outburst the prominence it merited. All others blotted my name out of their reports. Most blatant was the coverage by Doordarshan. While all the other speakers were shown, the man presiding over the function was not. It was quite a feat of cinematography. Bridge over troubled borders At the time Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee went to Lahore by bus to extend India?s hand of friendship to the people of Pakistan, another Indian flew to Lahore on a somewhat similar mission, namely, to build bridges with our most important but not so friendly neighbour. Vajpayee?s visit received enormous publicity; but the goodwill it has generated is not likely to last very long. Already there are people in both countries sceptical about his motives. On the other hand, the second pilgrim went to collect material on the life of Saadat Hassan Manto who spent most of his creative years in India and migrated to Pakistan, destitute and brokenhearted, and he died in a Lahore lunatic asylum where he was being treated for alcoholism. Most readers of Urdu will agree that Manto was the greatest craftsman of letters in Urdu fiction. He was also bitterly opposed to the partition of India. The second pilgrim was Kishwar Ahluwalia whom most readers must have seen on the television screen as she has been doing a variety of programmes for different channels for the last 10 years. She is uncommonly good looking without being conscious of it. I don?t know another young woman who wears a nose pin with such devastating effect. She reminds me of the lines of a Punjabi folk song: Teyree long nay maarya lishkaara Tey halliyan day hal ruk gave (The gleam of the diamond in your nose- pin caught ploughmen in the fields and brought them to a halt.) It is hard to believe that Ahluwalia, the daughter of a retired police officer, is the mother of two 17 and 16 years old boys. Ahluwalia, educated in Chandigarh, started as a journalist with Gentleman and Femina, as both were published in Bombay where her husband was posted. She also did a stint with the Chandigarh edition of The Indian Express. Then her husband was transferred to Johannesburg. After toing and froing between India and South Africa she decided her boys needed to finish their schooling in one place and their father could do all the toing and froing. Ahluwalia?s looks, talent and hard work made her an instant success on TV. Among her regular programmes were Good Morning Today for DD2, and Delhi Gold Festival for Star Plus. She did a series of documentaries on achievers (Mashoor) for TV-I which included among others Nayantara Sehgal, Naseeruddin Shah, Protima Bedi and T.N. Seshan. Whenever this channel runs short of ideas, it falls back on Ahluwalia?s probing interviews. She has already won innumerable awards: best visualization of script (1988), best scriptwriter (1990), the best play for 1998, the best anchorperson for 1998. But it was her play on Manto, first enacted in Mumbai and a few months ago in Delhi, that induced me to ask her to write his biography for Penguin-Viking. She gave me a synopsis; David Davidar issued her a contract, the contract took her to Lahore where she met Manto?s wife, daughters and friends and collected a hoard of letters and published material. She also visited the asylum and asked the superintendent for records of Manto?s stay there. The superintendent had never heard of Manto. ?We have hundreds of lunatics here. Everyone has a story to tell. Why do you want to know about one who died almost 50 years ago?? The borderline between genius and lunacy is very thin. Manto was not mad, he was only a dipsomaniac. He left India not because of anti-Muslim violence but because a script he had worked very hard on for his closest friend in the film world, Ashok Kumar, was not accepted. His self-esteem wounded, he decided to quit India. Too much of a good rhyme A girl was fascinated seeing her college mates in the big town, as they were busy preparing Valentine cards. She decided to write one of her own. This is what her boyfriend received on February 14: If you be my Valentine I shall be your concubine (Courtesy Ananda Pal, Mumbai) BY ARRANGEMENT WITH THE HINDUSTAN TIMES