CYCLOSTYLE AT MIDNIGHT: TWO YEARS OF UNDERGROUND PRESS OF THE EMERGENCY

The Emergency taught readers to “read between the lines” and proved that when speech is policed, literature multiplies ways to speak.

- RUCHIRA TALAPATRA

WhentheEmergencyclampeddown on speech on the night of June 25, 1975, India’s information economy splitin two.

Above ground, newspapersran with “cleared” headlines, radio scripts passed through vetting desks, anda single government-controlled wire service, Samachar, standardized copy across the country. Below ground, however, a second world of words flickered tolife—typed on stencils, inked on cyclo-style drums, couriered by students, railwaymen, and housewives, and slipped under hostel doors before dawn. These clandestine bulletins—part newswire, part rumor circuit, part civic lifeline—kepta record of arrests, protests, demolitions, and resistance that the official press would not carry.

WHAT THE UNDERGROUND ACTUALLY LOOKED LIKE

The basic unit was the cyclo-styled bulletin—twotoeight pages, single-colorink, rough margins, and a smudge of purple on the courier’s fingers. A small group would meet ina safe flat or back room after dark; one person typed through a waxed stencil, another aligned the Gestetner or Roneo machine, athird sifted notes from couriers or shortwave radio reports. Content was spare and functional: lists of detainees; dates and locations of raids; instructions on how tocontact alawyer; atwo-linesummary ofa protestin Bombay, acourt development in Gujarat, ora sterilization driveina North Indian district. Because namescould endanger soure-es, many bulletins relied on metonymicdetail—the police station, the section number, the bus route—clues that local readers could decode. By early morning, students on bicycles, union volunteers, or neighborhood women on routine errands would drop packets at campuses, clinics, and temples. In cities like Bombay (Mumbai), such pamphlets were produced and moved by discreet circles of writers and poets; in hostels, they appeared like samizdat, slid under doors before sunrise.