What Dawn Reid says about media freedom in India

The crackdown is just the latest attack on media and intellectual freedom in the world’s most populous country. In the past 12 months or so, income tax authorities have raided the BBC’s offices in India. The Center for Policy Research, a prominent think tank, has had its permission to raise funds overseas suspended by the Home Office, while the government is amending IT rules to police news on social media through a self-appointed fact-checking unit.

Indians must fight for an independent media, not for journalists or journalism, but because a free press – when it is working well – provides public services to citizens living in democracies. Because it provides. As India enters a critical election year, making the right decisions has become an even heavier responsibility.

We have much to be proud of, including a long history of solid journalism. During his struggle for independence from Britain, Mahatma Gandhi regularly used the media to rally support. Anti-colonial newspapers critical of the Indian colonial period were frequently censored or curtailed by authorities.

There are eerie echoes of history repeating itself 300 years later. India’s media is not perfect, but a chaotic and chaotic democracy needs vigorous reporting to function. New Delhi has consistently positioned itself as a democratic alternative to Beijing and the voice of the Global South. Attacks on the media tarnish that image.

According to reports, the reason why the Delhi Police arrested the NewsClick journalists was to crack down on Chinese funding and interference. In multiple statements posted on its website, the group denies the charges of violating the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act by allegedly posting Chinese propaganda on its website, and states that it has received no funding or instructions from China or Chinese organizations. He also said that he had not received any.

The government has remained officially silent on the issue so far, but at least one minister has said that if it appears someone has done something wrong, search agencies are “free to carry out an investigation.” ” he said.

Press freedom has been attacked before in India, most notably during the 1975 Emergency period under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s Congress government. The current democratic backsliding is equally worrying. In the World Press Freedom Index, India ranks 161st in her ranking, placing it in the bottom 20 of the 180 countries evaluated. Reporters Without Borders says press freedom is “in crisis” in the world’s largest democracy. The arrests have been criticized by the Editors Guild of India, which warns that there is an “overall atmosphere of coercion in the shadow of strict laws”.

With the influence of Indian media under attack, is the realm of fiction the only way to criticize the government? If so, it’s worth pondering the message from Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan’s latest film, Jawaan (Soldier in Hindi). While the film broke box office records, it also spotlighted the failures of past and present government policies, from farmer suicides to the state of health care to military corruption, and urged elected officials to do more. We are appealing and reminding the public to make demands. The power is in their hands.

Consistently ranked as one of the most influential people in the world, Khan is a Muslim Indian actor who, in his own quiet way, sends a message of tolerance through his public appearances and films. It’s here. But it was his monologue towards the end of ‘Jawaan’ that struck a chord with the country’s film enthusiasts and went viral. We ask a lot of questions, he says, staring into the camera, like the mosquito coils we use, the quality of the chapati powder, and whether the detergent we buy is really worth the money. But what do we ask of the people who come to us to vote?

This kind of overt political message is not what you would expect from a Bollywood movie, but Shah Rukh Khan is different – he is important to the emotional life and consciousness of a nation, says the London School of Economics. Mukulika Banerjee, who teaches anthropology at “His message in this film is to shake people out of their complacency,” she told me. “Reminding them that living in a democracy comes with the responsibility of ordinary people means holding the feet of elected officials to the fire, because children are starved of oxygen. Because when someone dies in a hospital, you have to ask what kind of country that is.” Interest rates on luxury cars are lower than interest rates on tractors. ”

Ironically, the film has been hailed by Prime Minister Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party for exposing the previous Congress government’s management rather than reflecting the party’s own policy failures. Criticism of any kind is hardly tolerated in Modi’s India. There is a large army of trolls online waiting to attack and protect the Bharatiya Janata Party and its hugely popular leader.

People should listen to the message of movie stars and start demanding more from their government. It is not just the treatment of journalists that is at stake. The kind of India they want to live in depends on that balance.

More from Bloomberg Opinion:

• Why I’m Losing Hope in India: Andy Mukherjee

• India’s problems are not getting any easier for the West: Pankaj Mishra

• What a Bollywood megastar means to Indian women: Ruth Pollard

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Karishma Vaswani is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asian politics with a particular focus on China. She previously served as the lead presenter on the BBC’s Asia and Across Asia and South Asia, where she worked for the BBC for 20 years.

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