Deeply rattled, Mathur called Union Home Secretary S.L.Khurana, who had no clue as to what was happening. The same was the response from Srinivasa Varadan, Additional Home Secretary. Mathur’s attempts to contact the Union Home Minister Brahmananda Reddy and Minister of State Om Mehta did not bear fruit. As Chief Commissioner Mathur was head of the Union Territory of Chandigarh and should get orders or instruction from the Government of India and not Chief Minister of Punjab. Mathur would have been in the right if he had ignored the instructions and carried on as usual. At best, he could have called me and passed on the buck since as District Magistrate, I was responsible for law and order and issuance of orders, if any, regarding the sealing of The Tribune or arresting its Editor.

In his panic, Mathur obviously forgot these minor procedures and instead called Bhanot and passed on the instructions of Zail Singh. Bhanot was certainly not willing to carry out the wishes of the Punjab Chief Minister blindly. Nevertheless, he went through the motion of going to The Tribune premises and advised those on duty not to print any news unpalatable to the ‘powers-that-be’. He also posted a small posse of policemen to keep a watch on the press.

Obviously this did not have much impact on The Tribune and the morning paper came out as usual. This infuriated another Chief Minister living in Chandigarh — Chaudhry Bansi Lal of Haryana. In his inimitable style, he threatened that if Chandigarh Administration was not willing to raid The Tribune, seal its premises and arrest its editor, he will get it done through the Haryana Police. For this purpose he would not even hesitate to ‘take over’ The Tribune premises and buildings if need be! Indeed, the heady brew of the ‘Emergency’ had commenced its task of intoxicating!

I as the District Magistrate had been kept in the dark about the happenings during the hours of darkness. I made a mental note that this was not going to happen again lest governance got messed up in the name of ‘emergency’. Information was trickling in about the signature of the President declaring the Emergency without Union Cabinet’s endorsement and the preventive detention of top leaders like Jayaprakash Narayan, Morarji Desai, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and others even before the declaration was signed. Though news censorship had been clamped, The Tribune was displaying in their spot news the arrest of JP and Morarji Desai. As we in the Chandigarh Administration — Chief Commissioner N.P. Mathur, Home Secretary G.V. Gupta, Legal Remembrancer A.P. Chaudhury, Senior Superintendent of Police M.L. Bhanot and self, District Magistrate M.G. Devasahayam — got together for the first ‘Crisis Group’ meeting, we were clueless as to what was happening and what we needed to do.

With rumours spreading like wildfire there was the danger of the law and order situation in the city going out of control. Prompted by the Delhi Durbar, both Chief Ministers were breathing down our neck and could virtually take over the Administration and also seal The Tribune if they decided to gang up. To ward off these eventualities I decided to take charge despite absence of any official communication from the Central Government regarding the imposition of the Emergency or any other instruction. I swiftly obtained a copy of the Emergency notification from Deputy Director, IB, Chandigarh.

Moving fast I imposed prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code throughout the union territory. On my recommendation, S.K. Tuteja, Director, Public Relations, Chandigarh, was appointed as Censor Officer, invoking the provisions of the Defence of India Rules. The Joint Planning Committee was constituted under the Internal Security Scheme for continuous monitoring of events.

By evening, things were getting clearer and some instructions on the Emergency and censorship had come. S.V.Bedi, Senior Correspondent of The Tribune along with Lt. Gen. P.S.Gyani, Trustee, called on Mathur and promised to adhere to the censorship rules. This and the other steps initiated by us helped in warding off the onslaughts from Zail Singh and Bansi Lal, both vying for the privilege of being close to the Delhi Durbar.

Initial defiance to the Emergency came in different shapes: the sense of stupor on the faces of people, the choicest epithets against the Emergency masters and the ‘sound of silence’ by the press. The Tribune was published with bland censored news. Hindi and Urdu newspapers from Jalandhar came out with blank pages with the words ‘Censor ki benth’ (Gift of the Censor) printed in all pages. The Hindustan Times from New Delhi left the entire editorial column blank, reminiscent of struggle during pre-Independence days against alien rule. Veer Pratap, a Hindi daily from Jalandhar, was more poignant. On the June 26, issue, the editorial page was blank with an Urdu couplet rubber-stamped all over. Translated it meant: "I can neither anguish nor petition; it is my fate to choke and die".

An excerpt from India’s Second Freedom: An Untold Saga