There is nothing to praise about the state of press freedoms in India, though America’s Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, Donald Lu, a former US ambassador, recently proclaimed otherwise.
Speaking to the Press Trust of India in April, Lu praised Indian journalists for the work they do to support Indian democracy, adding: “I have such respect for the freedom of the press in India. You have India as a democracy in part because you have a free press that really works.”
At the time of his speaking, the BBC was facing ongoing harassment in India – including censorship, office raids by tax department officials and a summons in a defamation case after releasing a documentary critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that was banned almost immediately in the country.
Earlier this year, the government created a “fact-checking unit” dedicated to policing social media platforms and internet providers, giving itself the absolute power to take down any posts about “any business of the central government” deemed to be “false or misleading”. At least 10 Indian journalists are languishing in jail – several of them under false terrorism charges. One journalist, Devendra Khare, was recently shot by masked men after reporting on an assault committed by the brother of a member of Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“Free” is the last word that should be used to describe the press in India. In fact, just weeks after Lu’s comments, the media watchdog group, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), reported that India’s rank on its press freedom index had dropped from 150 in 2022 to 161 in 2023. It was a staggering 11-point plunge, placing India lower on the index than Taliban-controlled Afghanistan – and the blame for that falls squarely on India’s government.
Since coming to power in 2014, Modi and the BJP have undermined all aspects of Indian democracy in their attempt to turn India into a Hindu majoritarian state, where religious minorities – particularly Muslims and Christians – are reduced to second-class citizens. But while the BJP is targeting minority rights through legislation, it’s their authoritarian control over the media that normalises and even glorifies the skyrocketing mob violence and bigotry against Muslims.
Modi’s billionaire friend Mukesh Ambani owns more than 70 media outlets, while another friend, Gautam Adani, recently took over India’s last major independent TV broadcaster, NDTV.
As a result, mainstream Indian media has become a bullhorn for pro-Modi propaganda, conspiracy theories and hate speech. When COVID-19 first broke out, the media was not only directed to whitewash the government’s botched handling of the pandemic, but also fueled anti-Muslim hatred by claiming “Corona jihad” was responsible for the spread of the virus. When young Muslim women – many of them minors – protested Karnataka state’s ban on wearing hijabs in schools last year, the rightwing channel Network 18 ran coverage referring to the protesters as an “al Qaeda gang”.