When Zail Singh & Bansi Lal vied for Indira’s attention to shut down The Tribune

Even after 50 long years, memories of the night of June 25-26, 1975, is still fresh in my mind. It was on this night that the infamous Emergency was imposed with a proclamation by the then President, saying that “a grave emergency exists whereby the security of India is threatened by internal disturbances”. I was then the District Magistrate of the Union Territory of Chandigarh.

Even before the ink dried on this declaration, Giani Zail Singh, Chief Minister of Punjab, acting on verbal directions from the Emergency masters in Delhi, called NP Mathur, Chief Commissioner of Chandigarh, directing him to severely discipline the press. He specifically demanded that The Tribune, a household name in the region, be sealed and its editor, Madhavan Nair, arrested.

Deeply rattled, Mathur called Union Home Secretary SL Khurana, who had no clue about what was happening. Mathur’s attempts to contact Union Home Minister Brahmananda Reddy and Minister of State Om Mehta proved futile. Since he himself was not convinced, he did not call me, even though, as District Magistrate, I was the competent authority to issue formal orders to shut down The Tribune and arrest its editor.

Instead, Mathur called Senior Superintendent of Police SN Bhanot and passed on Giani Zail Singh’s instructions. However, the SSP refused, stating he would not act without written orders from the District Magistrate. Nevertheless, Bhanot went through the motions of visiting The Tribune premises, advising staff not to print anything unpalatable to the “powers-that-be”. He also posted a small police contingent to keep watch.

Obviously, this did not have much impact on The Tribune and the next morning, the paper came out as usual with banner headlines on the Emergency and the arrest of top Opposition leaders, including Jayaprakash Narayan. This infuriated Chaudhry Bansi Lal, Chief Minister of Haryana. In his inimitable style, he threatened that if the Chandigarh Administration was not willing to shut down The Tribune and arrest its editor, he would get it done through the Haryana Police. For this, he would not even hesitate to “take over” the newspaper’s premises.

It was my duty as District Magistrate to resolve the crisis. With rumours spreading like wildfire, there was a threat of the law-and-order situation going out of control in the city. Prompted by the Delhi Durbar, both Chief Ministers were breathing down our necks and could take over the Administration and seal The Tribune. To prevent this, I decided to act despite the absence of any official communication from the Centre regarding the imposition of the Emergency or related instructions. I swiftly obtained a copy of the Emergency notification from Deputy Director of the IB, Chandigarh.

Moving quickly, I imposed prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC across the Union Territory. SK Tuteja, Director of Public Relations, Chandigarh, was appointed as Censor Officer under the Defence of India Rules. A Joint Planning Committee was also formed under the Internal Security Scheme for continuous monitoring of the situation.

By evening, official instructions on the Emergency and censorship arrived. SV Bedi, senior correspondent of The Tribune along with Lt Gen PS Gyani, trustee, met us and promised to adhere to the censorship rules. This and other steps taken by us helped ward off the onslaught from Giani Zail Singh and Bansi Lal, both vying to prove their loyalty to the Delhi Durbar.

This was how The Tribune escaped the wrath of the “Emergency masters”. This episode reveals not just a newspaper’s integrity but also the moral agency of some administrators during that critical time. In the time of authoritarian overreach, neither side claimed heroism — yet both preserved democracy in their own quiet ways. Fifty years on, The Tribune’s Emergency story is not merely one of survival, but of balance — between courage and caution, duty and dissent. And in that balance lies its enduring legacy.

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