Editorial: Media in fetters

The fall in India’s position in the latest World Press Freedom Index reflects the sorry state of affairs. The reports of Hindutva forces, emboldened by the ideological position of the ruling dispensation at the Centre, trying to muzzle the voices of dissenting media are causing alarm. No wonder the country has dropped eight places to […]

The fall in India’s position in the latest World Press Freedom Index reflects the sorry state of affairs. The reports of Hindutva forces, emboldened by the ideological position of the ruling dispensation at the Centre, trying to muzzle the voices of dissenting media are causing alarm. No wonder the country has dropped eight places to 150 — out of 180 countries — on the World Press Freedom Index, compiled by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) for 2022. The index’s report notes that with an average of three or four journalists killed in connection with their work every year, India is one of the world’s most dangerous countries for the media. This is a poor commentary on the state of media freedom in a country that takes pride in being the world’s largest democracy. The World Press Freedom Index highlights the degree of freedom that journalists, news organisations and netizens have in each country, and the government’s efforts to respect such freedom. In the last two decades, India, which was ranked 80th on the index in 2002, has seen its press freedom ranking progressively plummet. The country profile by RSF on India also says that the Indian press used to be seen as fairly progressive but things changed radically in the mid-2010s when Narendra Modi became Prime Minister. It is highly deplorable that Indian journalists are exposed to all kinds of physical violence, including police violence, ambushes by political activists and deadly reprisals by criminal groups or corrupt local officials by supporters of Hindutva. More specifically, journalists are being prosecuted under counterterrorism and sedition laws.

There has been a consistent crackdown on critics in the media, academics, civil society groups and protesters while the NGOs involved in the investigation of human rights abuses continue to face threats and legal harassment. As a mature democracy aspiring to play a larger role on the world stage, India can ill-afford to belittle the concerns over deteriorating media freedom. It has been the habit of successive governments to dub any criticism as an ‘anti-national’ narrative peddled by a ‘foreign hand’. However, in an interconnected, information-driven world, it is counter-productive for the governments to invoke the ‘foreign hand’ theory to suppress criticism. Past experience shows that any attempt by the governments to gag the media in the name of regulation had boomeranged, be it the infamous Press Bill of the Rajiv Gandhi government in 1988 or the Emergency period restrictions. Self-regulation is the way forward to protect the independence of the media and uphold the freedom of expression. Along with job insecurities, journalists are facing increasing attacks on their freedoms. They are being incarcerated under draconian laws for flimsy reasons. Freedom of the press is integral to the functioning of a vibrant democracy and the media must come together to reclaim its role to realise this objective.

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