New Democracy? (Editorial space is empty)
During the Emergency, newspapers left their editorial columns blank in protest. Today, there is no formal censorship, but self-censorship, fear, and stifling of ideas in the name of ‘patriotism’. Asking questions has become treason, and editorials have now become spokesmen for the establishment. At a time when every word has become a risk, a blank editorial is perhaps the most powerful cry — it says, “We are silent now, but not dumb.”
“During the Emergency, newspapers left their editorial columns blank in protest. Today, editorials are being written — but it seems as if the emptiness within has been filled.”
When Indira Gandhi declared an emergency in 1975, protesting meant going to jail, and picking up a pen meant losing paper. Yet ‘Indian Express’, ‘Jansatta’, ‘Pratipaksh’, and many regional newspapers chose the most vocal form of silence against the government by leaving their editorial columns blank.
Today, an emergency has not been declared. There has been no formal suspension of freedom of the press. Yet journalists are in jail. Some were killed, some were sold, some were silenced. There is a whole generation that does not know that in a democracy, newspapers ask questions to the government, not the government.
The new democracy is where the government speaks and the public listens. If the government lies, the media turns it into a slogan. If a farmer dies, a student cries, a woman screams – the camera angle is changed. The new democracy is where “sedition” is no longer the limit of expression; it is the definition of disagreement. Where “nationalism” is no longer a public interest, it has become a disguise for the government’s interest.
Because when everything has been written, but nothing is left worth printing, then the ink dries up. In 1975, fear was outside, in tanks and uniforms. Today, fear is inside, in the name of TRP and funding. In 1975, censor officers were appointed. Today, journalists themselves have internalized censorship. Those who used to write are now accused of ‘slip of the tongue’. Those who think have been suppressed in the noise of the IT cell. Those who show the truth, their screens are ‘blacked out’.
Once it was a request – “Please keep quiet.” Now it is an order of the government – “Keep quiet, otherwise you will be called a traitor.” Speaking is no longer dangerous; it has become illegal. Writing poetry is no longer an emotion; it is called ‘ideology’. Asking questions is no longer a civic duty; it is a crime. “Keep quiet” is no longer played only at railway stations; it has become a warning on every news channel, every newspaper, and every social media post.
During the Emergency, the public raised their voices. They went to jail, protested. But today we are under an undeclared Emergency – and are silent. Perhaps because today’s censorship is not of violence, but of convenience. Perhaps because fear is no longer visible, it is hidden in attractive packages – “Everything is good”, “India is growing”, “Vishwaguru”. We are the generation that has chosen narrative over truth. That has removed news from the newspaper and made it an event. That person has read the Preamble of the Constitution, but has not understood it.
Because words are ineffective now? No. Because there is no one to listen anymore? No. But because sometimes silence itself becomes a scream. The “blank editorial” is necessary again today — because every word is now underlined, every sentence analyzed, and every dissent sued. Sometimes the blank page says what words cannot.
Our reader now just wants entertainment. He is no longer interested in reading editorials. He is not interested in searching for truth, but in ‘relatable’ content. He lives in “trends”, not “facts”. So newspapers now serve the same thing – the same faces, the same worn-out ideas, the same power-friendly language.
If you see the editorial blank, don’t be surprised. Understand, no one can say anything. If you read ‘devotion’ in the editorial, understand, the pen has bowed down due to compulsion or has been sold. If you are still writing, then definitely raise a question within yourself: is my pen working in the interest of the government or the society?
When a Dalit woman in a village is beaten up—and the video goes viral, when a student is jailed for sloganeering, when a poet’s book is banned, or when an editor is fired from his job simply because he published the truth… then maybe someone will speak again:
“The editorial is blank — because democracy is silent right now.” (The views expressed by the author are her personal and not of your digital paper.)
