The Bihar chief minister, Dr. Jagannath Mishra, has declared war on the press in the state, if also not on other newspapers which circulate in his domain. His actions can admit of no other interpretation. It was bad enough that he should have pushed through the state legislature a press bill which makes a mockery of the very concept of freedom of expression guaranteed by the Constitution. It is worse that he should seek to stifle peaceful protest by journalists against this shocking piece of legislation. For all we know, he may not have directed the police to beat up the journalists who organised a silent march in Patna on Saturday. After all, the Bihar police are notorious for their high-handedness, callousness and downright cruelty. The blinding of prisoners in Bhagalpur have few parallels in any civilized society. But unless Dr. Mishra was a party to the unprovoked lathi-charge on the peaceful demonstrators, why would he have found it necessary to invent the story of the journalists having stoned the police “as part of a sinister plot to spark violence and create chaos in Bihar”?
Dr. Mishra has said in a lengthy statement: “I cannot imagine editors throwing stones.” We do not know how wide-ranging is his imagination. But in this particular case, he had no reason to change his view on what is proper conduct for editors and journalists. They did not throw stones at anyone, the police included. The generous explanation would be that the chief minister has been misinformed by his subordinates. But unless he was possessed by an uncontrollable hatred of the press, he would not have rushed with a statement and got it published as a paid advertisement. Clearly he wants to discredit the Patna journalists. Fortunately, he is not likely to succeed. It would be difficult to find in Bihar or elsewhere in the country many people who would be willing to take him at his word. Whether he knows it or not and whether he likes it or not, his credibility is pretty low.
One of Dr. Mishra’s SSPs has done one better. He has denied that the police lathi-charged the protesting journalists at all. How then were some of them seriously injured, one of them so seriously as to be admitted to hospital? Mr. Ramchandra Khan’s explanation is truly breathtaking. The police, he has said, had made a barricade with lathis which the journalists tried to break. This is only a half-truth, the whole truth being that while the main body of journalists asked either to be allowed to proceed to the Raj Bhavan or to be arrested, a small group tried to break the barricade. But the pertinent issue is: how did some of the journalists get head injuries without a lathi-charge? No, Mr. Khan, your glib talk will not convince anyone.
Over the years Bihar has come to acquire such a notoriety that hardly anyone in the rest of the country expects anything good to come out of it. This is unjust. Some individuals have given the state a worse reputation than it deserves. But justified or not, Bihar has acquired a terrible image which the press bill, the lathi-charge on journalists and Dr. Mishra’s denunciatory statement are certainly not calculated to improve. But this is not all. Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, president of the Bharatiya Janata party, is not alone in saying and believing that Dr. Mishra is acting on behalf of Mrs. Gandhi, not just the vague category called the Congress (I) leadership. Many others are beginning to share this view. There is, of course, not the slightest evidence to support this conjecture. Indeed, it is difficult to believe that so shrewd a leader as Mrs. Gandhi would resort to so crude a piece legislation as the Bihar press bill. But in the very act of not stopping the enactment of the bill, the Prime Minister has provided grist to the propaganda mills of her adversaries. It is possible that she had not been informed at all or informed only in a cursory manner of what Dr. Mishra was planning to do. But in that case she could have greatly reduced the damage by having the bill returned quickly to the Bihar government. It passes comprehension that her home minister is getting the bill examined. There is nothing to examine in it. It must be scrapped, and the sooner the better. Mrs. Gandhi should also leave Dr. Mishra in no doubt that she will not allow him to wage a private war on the press and bring her own good faith vis-à-vis the press into question.