When a smartly worded obit exposed death of democracy
“O'Cracy , D.E.M.beloved husband of T. Ruth loving father of L.I. Bertie brother of Faith, Hope and Justicia, expired on June 26.It was a small obit, only 22 words long, which came out among the classified ads in the Times of India on June 28, 1975, three days after the Emergency was declared.
Seemingly innocuous at first glance, the words escape censure from the clerk at the TOI office in Bombay . But when carefully read, they turned out to be a sly expression of dissent against the imposition of the Emergency .
Forty years ago, journalist Ashok Mahadevan, only 26 years old then, used subterfuge and smarts to register his protest against censorship typifying those dark days of democracy in post-independent India.
Mahadevan, who used to work for Reader's Digest then, had come across a brief news item of similar nature in the popular magazine. The filler, originally published in a Sri Lankan newspaper, ran into several paragraphs. Not surprising when you consider that the first half of the 1970s was marred by violent internal strife leading to an Emergency-like situation for several years.
“That item spurred me to action. I copied the whole ad and took it to the TOI office.The clerk's only objection was that it was too long. I condensed it on the spot. I paid less than Rs 20, though it wasn't such an insignificant amount those days,“ recalls Mahadevan, who went on o become the editor of the Indian edition of the Reader's Digest. Having pulled off the act, the young journalist eagerly waited for the next day's edition of the newspaper. Mahadevan was pleased when he saw the ad but he wanted more people to know about it.
“I didn't want to disclose my identity . So I changed my voice and spoke about the ad to Ramesh Chandran, a journalist with the TOI then, on phone. He saw it and immediately understood what it was all about. I guess he spread the word,“ says the Mumbaibased journalist.
Soon, the ad became a talking point among journalists and the janata. Everyone seemed to admire the sheer ingeniousness of the idea. Even Wall Street Journal took note.
“The police tried to find out about the mischief maker. But they got nowhere. In any case, very few people knew that it was me,“ he told TOI on phone.“There was one small problem though. The clerk could have identified me. And I was shortly scheduled to appear for a TV show with my wife. So I shaved off my beard,“ the senior journalist remembers.
Even today Mahadevan's small note of dissent is remembered with fondness. “I know my protest did not make any impact on the protagonists of the Emergency . But I hope it will be a footnote in books on the subject,“ he says.
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Seemingly innocuous at first glance, the words escape censure from the clerk at the TOI office in Bombay . But when carefully read, they turned out to be a sly expression of dissent against the imposition of the Emergency .
Forty years ago, journalist Ashok Mahadevan, only 26 years old then, used subterfuge and smarts to register his protest against censorship typifying those dark days of democracy in post-independent India.
Mahadevan, who used to work for Reader's Digest then, had come across a brief news item of similar nature in the popular magazine. The filler, originally published in a Sri Lankan newspaper, ran into several paragraphs. Not surprising when you consider that the first half of the 1970s was marred by violent internal strife leading to an Emergency-like situation for several years.
“That item spurred me to action. I copied the whole ad and took it to the TOI office.The clerk's only objection was that it was too long. I condensed it on the spot. I paid less than Rs 20, though it wasn't such an insignificant amount those days,“ recalls Mahadevan, who went on o become the editor of the Indian edition of the Reader's Digest. Having pulled off the act, the young journalist eagerly waited for the next day's edition of the newspaper. Mahadevan was pleased when he saw the ad but he wanted more people to know about it.
“I didn't want to disclose my identity . So I changed my voice and spoke about the ad to Ramesh Chandran, a journalist with the TOI then, on phone. He saw it and immediately understood what it was all about. I guess he spread the word,“ says the Mumbaibased journalist.
Soon, the ad became a talking point among journalists and the janata. Everyone seemed to admire the sheer ingeniousness of the idea. Even Wall Street Journal took note.
“The police tried to find out about the mischief maker. But they got nowhere. In any case, very few people knew that it was me,“ he told TOI on phone.“There was one small problem though. The clerk could have identified me. And I was shortly scheduled to appear for a TV show with my wife. So I shaved off my beard,“ the senior journalist remembers.
Even today Mahadevan's small note of dissent is remembered with fondness. “I know my protest did not make any impact on the protagonists of the Emergency . But I hope it will be a footnote in books on the subject,“ he says.
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New Delhi:
TIMES NEWS NETWORK June 26, 2015
http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/index.aspx?eid=31814&dt=20150626#
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