‘Not worthy of a democracy’: Behind India’s slide on press freedom

India’s waning press freedoms struck an international chord last month, when dozens of tax officials descended on the BBC’s Mumbai and Delhi offices and spent three days questioning staff, searching documents and emails, and cloning employees’ phones and laptops.

The raid – or “survey” as authorities called it – came weeks after the BBC released a documentary examining Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role in a spate of deadly anti-Muslim riots in 2002, when he was chief minister of Gujarat state. The government immediately invoked emergency laws to block its distribution in India. 

The ordeal follows a broader pattern of the Modi administration using the legal system to silence critics, and illustrates the growing challenges Indian journalists face.

It is hard not to trace dwindling freedoms to the 2014 election of Mr. Modi and his Hindu-nationalist brand of populism, according to Daniel Bastard, head of the Asia-Pacific desk at Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Still, there are other factors at play as well, including market consolidation, self-censorship, and weak legal protections for journalists. 

The result is India has fallen to the 150th rank out of 180 countries on RSF’s 2022 World Press Freedom Index and is described as “one of the world’s most dangerous countries for the media” in the accompanying report. 

“Through the BBC case, the world is discovering how the government in India can censor some programs,” says Mr. Bastard. “But for an average Indian journalist, this is nothing new.” 

A government adviser claimed there was “no connection” between the BBC documentary and the tax search, but in a press conference held during the raids, a different spokesperson accused the broadcaster of being anti-national and “unleashing the most venomous attacks against our country.” In the last few years, such statements have become routine. 

In 2021, tax officials raided offices of the Dainik Bhaskar group which publishes one of India’s most widely read Hindi dailies, whose articles had been critical of the government’s handling of COVID-19.

“While authorities have the right to conduct searches, it’s being misused as a tool of harassment today,” says Om Gaur, national editor at Dainik Bhaskar. “That’s not democratic.”

An industry constricting

India does not have a spotless history of free speech. In 1975, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a 21-month emergency during which constitutional rights were suspended, the press was censored, and journalists were jailed. Journalists reporting from small towns and rural areas have long been vulnerable to violent attacks. But experts say the journalism industry has never before faced such serious pressures on so many different fronts.

Despite India’s reputation for a vast and vibrant news industry, most of the major outlets today are owned by large family-controlled conglomerates which also invest in other large industries, and some of which are politically affiliated, an RSF study found. This level of concentration and “cross ownership” means journalists often feel the need to censor themselves and avoid reporting on “forbidden subjects,” Mr. Bastard says.

In December, billionaire and close Modi ally Gautam Adani, acquired New Delhi Television or NDTV, long considered one of the last and most prominent independent voices in mainstream Indian television. A number of high-profile journalists quit soon after. 

“This is the end of a kind of pluralism in mainstream media,” Mr. Bastard says. 

While a number of independent news organizations persist, they are generally small and publish mostly in English, leaving many average Indians consuming news of dubious objectivity appearing on social media or in pro-government media. 

As in many other countries, there’s been a pattern in India whereby fake news peddled on social media often seeps into prime time debate. Days before the BBC raids, for instance, TV news channels circulated a claim that the BBC was funded by China, India’s historic rival.

New and escalating threats

In such an environment, journalists have faced increased online abuse, and fear of persecution. Free Speech Collective, an Indian advocacy group, reports that 154 journalists were “arrested, detained, interrogated or served show cause notices for their professional work” between 2010 and 2020. More than 60 of those cases were recorded in 2020. 

“Those who boldly stand their ground are targeted and tamed,” says Vinod K. Jose, who until recently was the executive editor at The Caravan, a Delhi-based magazine. Many legacy outlets “have chosen to limit critical coverage to their opinion pages, but finding a lead and investigating it are more important for an Indian newsroom when the government is trying to control the narratives,” he argues. 

Meanwhile, several regions have become “information black holes,” Mr. Bastard adds, “and that is not worthy of a democracy.”

Arguably the deepest black hole is Jammu and Kashmir, a contentious region in northern India where journalists have been arrested for their work (including Monitor contributor and Kashmir Walla editor Fahad Shah, who is still in detention) and prevented from flying abroad, while independent media outlets have been throttled by restrictions or shuttered. The Kashmir Times, one of the valley’s oldest publications, has stopped producing all but its English language edition out of Jammu, and even that has been cut from 16 to eight pages, according to executive editor Anuradha Bhasin.

The local authorities there have introduced a draconian media policy which allows the government to determine what is fake news and take legal action. Apparently in preparation for the introduction of such an approach throughout India, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has proposed an amendment to India’s IT rules that require internet service providers and social media companies to take down news reports that government agencies deem false.

“I think their experiment in Kashmir … is being used as a template in the rest of India,” Ms. Bhasin says. “The only thing I am hopeful about is that this kind of authoritarian control is unnatural. It cannot sustain for long.”

Populism and lack of international criticism

Behind the weakening of India’s press lies Mr. Modi’s authoritarian, populist style of leadership, says Javed Iqbal Wani, assistant professor at the School of law, governance, and citizenship at Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University Delhi. 

The Prime Minister prefers to address the masses directly – often on his flagship radio program, Mann ki Baat – rather than through the media: he  has not participated in a single press conference since 2014.

At the same time, his government has sought to remove nuance from public discourse, Mr. Wani says. 

“The government has very clearly outlined this binary, which is that either you’re with us or against us,” he explains. “They have made themselves synonymous with the interests of the nation. However, a nation like India is diverse; interests and identities are diverse.”

Curbs on press freedom have met with little condemnation from other democracies. It was not until Feb. 22 – a week after the days-long BBC raid occurred – that the British government defended the UK broadcaster and spoke out against attacks on the free press. 

Some observers worry that such attacks may cause irreparable damage to India’s media landscape. 

“The question is: can the world’s largest democracy function properly without informed citizens?” wonders Mr. Bastard.