This is more so of the first two, than the latter two, of the four chapters that constitute the book. Also Read | Deadline, spotlight, truthThe restrictive sentiment against the free press deepens with the market paradigm being embraced by the big press. Over the period of the First and Second Press Commissions, interspersed by Indira Gandhi’s infamous Emergency gamble, a three-way standoff, of the press versus the state versus the court, emerges. Of course, printing to spread religion had been brought into India even in the 16th century by the Portuguese Jesuits. Press and the British polityThe idea of a press commenting on public governance or affairs was anathema to the English governing class.