Behind the News: Voices from Goas Press | Page 3

wrote an
editorial that was based on my news report. Mr. Parvate, a fast and
fluent writer, only occasionally asked me into his partitioned office to
verify a fact or a figure.
Naturally, my curiosity propelled me to ask Lambert why it was
necessary for him or Parvate to have their editorials okayed by the
ultimate boss. After all, both of them were professionals who knew and
understood the law of libel and defamation. Lambert, flashing his
customary smile by way of indulging me, a novice in the game of
politics, said it was a condition of his contract. Besides, what was the
big deal? An editor could just as well express his own viewpoint as that
of the owner. It wasn't a loss of freedom. We live and let live.
Reporters too
I thought about it and gradually came to the conclusion that reporters
also indulged in self-censorship. Facts may appear to be sacred, but as a
reporter I choose them to slant a 'story' in a particular way. Moreover,
space in a newspaper is always limited, forcing me to write to a certain
word count, in effect compelling me to sacrifice many 'facts'.
The above was true not only in Goa and Bombay where I worked as a
general reporter for The Indian Express (1965-66) but also in Toronto

where I worked as a copy editor on the foreign desk of The Globe and
Mail in 1975-76. The foreign editor would throw at me reams of
teletype copy from Reuters, Associated Press, Agence-France Presse,
and The New York Times News Service on a current story, such as
race riots in Johannesburg, or post-revolution democracy woes in
Portugal or the Patty Hurst kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation
Army in San Francisco, and ask me for a 10-inch column story. This
required that I cut out a lot of 'facts' from the 2000 words of wire copy
and shape a news story in about 500 words.
Going back to Goa, I remember the one-sided coverage that Navhind
Times carried during the month-long campaign for the historic, first
general elections held on December 9, 1963. And I was part of it.
Now Vaikuntrao Dempo, younger brother of Vassantrao, was a
Congress candidate in the Pernem constituency. The Dempo Brothers
had made a substantial cash contribution to the national Congress Party,
in effect buying a ticket for Vaikuntrao in the Goa elections. The local
Goa Pradesh Congress Committee, headed by Purushottam Kakodkar, a
freedom fighter and an apostle of Mahatma Gandhi, was deluged with
names of suitable candidates. It was hard pressed to make a judicious
choice, a key problem being the candidate's vision of the future of Goa.
At this time, after the 30-member Goa Legislative Consultative Council,
headed by Maj.-Gen. Candeth, the mustachioed military governor, was
dissolved and a writ for the first democratic elections was issued, two
new political parties came into being and declared their election
platforms. One was the United Goans, led by Dr. Jack de Sequeira,
which stood for a separate state for Goa. The other was the
Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, with Dayanand Bandodkar at its
helm, which stood for Goa's merger with Maharashtra. The Congress,
waffling in between, promised that Goans would be consulted about its
future in the Indian union.
The elder Dempo let it be known that his paper would support the
Congress in the elections and, therefore, all news coverage must be
oriented towards Congress candidates. And as the chief reporter at the
paper, it fell to my lot to deliver the news with this bias. On the
campaign trail, I traveled the length and breadth of Goa, speaking to
Congress candidates and often manufacturing 'news' that purported to
show that people, by and large, were in favor of Congress candidates.

Lambert and I even drove to Pernem one day to see how Vaikuntrao's
campaign was coming along.
However, my one dependable contact was none other than the
50-year-old Purushottam Kakodkar. His office in Panjim was open to
me at any hour of the day. Knowing that our paper was solidly behind
him, he was generous with his time and forthcoming, giving me full
access to campaign reports sent to head office from the various
constituencies. During the campaign, Lal Bahadur Shastri, the Indian
Home Minister, visited Goa to lend his support to the Congress
candidates. Kakodkar arranged for me an exclusive interview with the
minister. In the interview, Shastri affirmed that a separate status for
Goa was on the cards. A day after my story appeared on the front page,
Kakodkar told me that Shastri was pleased with my report and had
asked him to extend his congratulations to me. I was more than touched
by this solicitude. I was feeling giddy, riding on the carousel of a
mutual admiration society.
My friend