 We have gathered here to discuss the Memoids of Prabir Prakast and we have a panel of imminent journalist, writers, advocate. We'll be speaking about the book and the subject. I just want to say one thing about Prabir. Right now, Prabir has been in the news for reasons that you all know. But what's really important about the book and what moved me personally the most is the fact that here's a man who I have personally known as a friend, as a comrade, as a mentor, as a leader for many years. But there's a way in which even if you know the person very well, you don't get a sense of the entirety of their life and their life's work. And that's really what this book does because what it tells you is that here's a person who has been in every way, everything that a good citizen of this country should be. He has been an outstanding citizen of this country and he has been a patriot who has fought for the sovereignty of the country on issues of patents on telecom and so on and so forth, on the nuclear deal and so on. All of this you'll get a sense of when you read the book. He's also one of the very few people who has the distinction of having been imprisoned by two authoritarian regimes 50 years apart. And for somebody like me who's much younger than him, but who's always looked up to Prabir as I said, as a friend, but also as a leader, as a comrade, this really is truly inspiring that here's a man who at this stage in his life is in, they can imprison his body, but they cannot imprison his mind. And they cannot put a lock on people who will speak up in this country. That's what this book is all about, keeping up the good fight. I read the book with great interest. It's a very simply narrated. It's a simple story at the surface, very straightforward, accessible, but actually very nuanced and full of insights and surprises in the stories that it tells. And the most interesting thing, of course, is the connection it draws between the emergency of 1975, 77, and in particular, Prabir's role in it, that he was picked up, mistaken for somebody else. And then although they brought that mistake to light, repeatedly it was said that the matter involved the Prime Minister's house, which was codeword for Sanjay Gandhi and his group at that time. And so they kept him in for one year. And I think the story of Prabir's imprisonment under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act, or MISA, for no conceivable reason is fascinating. Full of humor, he learned many lessons from it and that has to be read. And then connecting it to what has happened to the present, much more serious attack in perhaps darker times, whether it's a command of undeclared emergency and not is not the issue here, but institutions have been captured, institutions have been manipulated, and media freedom is under full scale attack. Of course, there are still spaces where people speak up and Prabir's book brings that out very clearly. But it's a very disturbing period that this year and I would only refer to it as the Hindutva authoritarian regime. We can talk about specifics or some of the highlights of what journalists and media organizations are being through, but that perhaps can be done later. But I think the most important thing here in this book for me anyway, is that Prabir, talking about the 1970s emergency, says that demolish it or takes issue with the conventional wisdom, which is that people at that time supported the emergency. They then went through the two and a half years, and then they voted in Duragandiyal because they didn't like it. And Prabir takes issue with this saying that this is to underestimate or misread the character of the Indian people, their attitudes, their responses. They wait and watched. But 1977, he says, gave them confidence. They are not passive. They are very observant. And in 1977, the conference that they had made them return Indira Gandhi to Pahar in 1980. A very interesting take on what happened. And I think the lesson for today is things may look bad for media freedom and for the rights of people, fundamental rights, basic human rights, rights guaranteed in our constitution. But don't be pessimistic about it. Well, I did not know Prabir very well. I have met him on an occasion. It was a social occasion. And he came across the quiet, polite man who seemed to be firm in whatever he thought and believed it. I was saying that we as a nation tend to value our liberties so cheaply. And possibly one reason that we value our liberties so cheaply is that we have people like Prabir. We have in this generation, we have people like Umar Khalid. We have the Kabir Kala Manch. We have so many people who in Justice Krishna years, picture squads are martyrs of the constitution. And that's the only way I see them. That we have a written constitution. We have institutions that are supposed to administer the constitution. But when those institutions fail, it is these men and women of conscience who fight the good fight who remind us that the constitution is a solemn compact between citizen and citizen, that this is the nation that we will work together and we will live together. It's unfortunate that Prabir has been a victim of defending the constitution twice in his lifetime. But to end with Prabir's own take on why he's not a victim. He says victimhood drops us of participation in the creation of history. It reduces us to mere objects of history. Instead, I would like to assume the vantage point of the people as makers of history. Yes, the government of the day wields powers that seem to overwhelm individuals and organizations. But it is people and their actions that finally determine history. Not as we please and when we please, but in ways that neither the people nor their rulers anticipate. They say, come at the hour, come at the man. Sometimes wittingly, unwittingly, knowingly, unknowingly, people are chosen to represent the temper of their times. I hope that Prabir is out. I hope that we do not put, that this republic does not put too high a burden on him. His incarceration is for no other reason than the malice and desire to suppress. And that through individual, intellectually, politically, physically, in order to suppress the people and the nation at large and for as a means to power and self-clarification. I just want to say at a personal level that I read this book and I'm missing him. I'm missing him because I'm missing the fact I wanted to say it to him. There is so much, Sudangwa said, I have known him for 50 years. We have had intense engagements together. We have had discussions. We have talked about personal things we know. And yet there is so much more in this book that I did not know. I did not know. And it has been written in a way that has meaning for anybody who picks it up. The first emergency. I want to say that first emergency, second emergency. I don't want to say that that is an undeclared, declared, there's nothing different. Whatever it is, that wasn't a after soon after that, there was the people they started against that. It was just 10 months. It was a silence and the people were hiding. Then everybody came together and started organizing against the authoritarian, the government. But now, after so many years also, there is no such effort is not happening. This authoritarian state is not even allowing that kind of a voices to coming together. And they want to say openly that the opposition should be Mukt Bharat. Opposition Mukt Bharat in democracy, no prime minister or any person cannot say that there should not be opposition. Opposition is any importance in the democracy. So the person who is saying there is no opposition is required and we have to opposition Mukt Bharat Banana Kehra Hai Matlab. It is very clear that no democracy is required. It is an open statement that cannot be done in any democracy. We must join hands and say very clearly. In the democracy, there are 435,000 citizens are under trials without anything in this country. What is this democracy we are talking about? It is not talking about the prabiris in there in the jail. We are talking about the citizens how they are all in the jail without any reason. Why I have taken to the jail? I don't know. Some day you will declare is this is the democracy we are all accepting. These are the larger questions we are now bringing. And that is the reason this book release is not just release. It is releasing our regenerating our energy to fight against any authoritarian state. The author of the evening, the citizen of the evening, the engaged citizen of the evening, the fighter of the evening is here with us and yet not with us. So this anomaly is a sad sign of our times. Prabir speaks a great deal in his book about the ways in which people's rights are curtailed, weakened, even taken away in both times past and present. But I want to say that that is not a complete story. This is something Prabir was very eager to point out when he spoke to us. What kept him doing day after day and in the course in the book is to say that the book, as our lives, is not just bad news. It's not just about dark times. The sort of hope, the sort of political commitment, the belief in the good fight and in fighting the good fight that animates the book is very much here with us in this room. And I do want to underline that point because that mix of both the awareness of dark times as well as our belief that it is for us to do something about it is very much here. So I say this because even though it's a memoir and probably the individual person is there, he's always placed in a larger context in a collective, a collective that can grow into a movement and align with other movements and push for change that will mean better lives for many people. I do want to read one line, which is the story of our recent past and one that continues to unfold is not just about repression. The story is incomplete without the resistance we have witnessed, written about and been part of. And I think this is what keeps us going. And let me also say we keep talking about the good fight. As Ashok would say, we writers like to pick on words and say what is the good fight that we are sort of glibly referring to? I think that the good fight, dissent, the political test, all this that we're talking about for many of us here, it is whether there be a writers or readers or journalists, students, teachers, it is simply the freedom, the right to continue doing our jobs. And we are in a time when law fair, intimidation, draconian laws are stopping us from doing our work. There was one moment where he describes the day the emergency, sorry, the day the election results have come out in 77. And it becomes slowly clear in Delhi that Mrs. Gandhi is losing the election by landslide. He says that he was down with fever that day and could not be out. And he describes how outside the offices of the press, outside Indian Express, outside the Times of India, there was celebrations ongoing. That's a scene that seems extremely difficult to reconcile in today's time, especially with another general election on our head. I think 77 marked a very good period, a good point of departure for the media. I think on the whole, the media did not perform the press that has printed newspapers at that time, more or less, that is the whole media, did not perform well during the emergency. Prabir is a little kind about it, but I think I remember very well. And Mr. Advani's famous statement that you crawl when you're asked to bend, I think is absolutely on the mark. But after that was a very good run for the media for a long time. I think between the late 70s and 1970s, or perhaps nearly 20 years, there was independent journalism, there were lots of spaces, there was coverage of people's movements in quite a few sections of the press. And journalism seemed to flower. And I used to say in those days, whenever I was asked about the media, that India is in an enviable position, certainly in the developing world, when it comes to press freedom. But of course, if you said anything like that today, you'll be accused of pervading fake news. I think it is shameful that large sections of the media have been sub-bond. Of course, they have come under attack, if you can understand why some of them are afraid. Journalists have been murdered. We have the data on that from the Committee to Protect Journalists. We have data on how many journalists have been charged under the UAPA. The wire story brought that out. We know that India is in a unique position, the global impunity index, where journalists are murdered in connection with their work. And nothing seems to, no justice is rendered. And we are a founding and permanent member of that Club of Shame that is documented year after year by the Committee, CPJ, the Committee to Protect Journalists. But this is what I agree with Praveer. And of course, the book largely leads out what the latest attack on news click. But I was very encouraged by the solidarity campaign that was spoken about earlier by the President of the Press Club of India and others. I think it's surprising for all of us that so many organizations, Press Clubs, the Editors Guild of India, the other organizations, the Network of Women in Media India, Digipam, of course, also the Committee to Protect Journalists and others, came out in solidarity. And we know that the whole McCarthyite campaign, I think it's not essentially a media story. It's about a completely new socio-political formation, ideological formation, which has injected a lot of poison into the information ecosystem. They all descended on this. And I think this aspect has been missed in some of the analysis. The McCarthyism that descended on news click and Praveer, Praveer in particular, aided and abetted sparked, in fact, a lousy piece of journalism by the New York Times. We have to call them out on this. And the New York Times story, I read it very closely, refers to mixed two casual references to news click, that once it was raided, but they found no evidence that it had some connections with the Chinese. And secondly, that it put out Chinese talking points, whatever that means, as though that were an offense. And it's completely untrue as well. No connection was shown to any funding by a foreign government or any agency other than those which were declared before the authorities, including the Reserve Bank of India. The courts initially gave them decent protection. Then the judge was changed, and the ED went to the court and said it had fresh material. And if you read the FIR, they tried to keep secret, but thanks to resourceful journalists, it came out. It's a look into the muddled and stupid police mind. There are good policemen, good police officers, but this was an extremely muddled piece of writing. You can see what it is. A dystopian, you can imagine a dystopian police state. And unless people like our distinguished friend, Mr. Hegde, score in the courts, I am disappointed that the higher judiciary has taken its own time in looking into this matter seriously, and no relief has been provided. But here is a man who's not bitter, because he's fighting the good fight, and he's optimistic. He has confidence in the people and in the legal system. This is a story that is not in the book, but that's a story that I think tells us in the face today. And I compliment the press club of India and everyone here present in this meeting for expressing solidarity, which has encouraged me. So why is the news click? See, we are doing the small movement life. But in India, there are so many newspapers, so many channels, none of them covered even a single day. There is the only one that news click. They covered more than the 20 times in this one and a half years time. The people's voice way can hear they given the space for the marginalized that is the reason they want to government want to crush. It is not that the including the ruling party also receive the money and everybody to run the show, they need a money. There is nothing. Nobody is violating. If they're violating, you have to prove and you have to show the proof and you can do. You cannot crush the media, just stating something. But the truth is actually they have given the voice for the all the marginalized. I don't want to use the voice layer. The marginalized also has the voice that voice they have given in the echo way in the whole media world. That is the crime that state is doing. But I salute even the news click. They're still giving the same voice even without the profit even today. And the state cannot crush that voices at all in the theater or any day.