KILL, bash, terrorise and exploit. This is the new law for keeping journalists under control today, be it the print media, the electronic media or the new social media. Of course, from time to time government backed ‘carrot and stick’ approaches follow as breathers in a murky world of money and power for a select few.

The recent murder of Rajeev Ranjan in Sewan and before that Akhilesh Pratap in Jharkhand are just pointers. Killings, murders, attacks and encroachment into press freedom in the year of grace 2015 provide clearer indicators of emerging jungle law. Small wonder, that in various world freedom indexes, India has been placed in the bottom one third, caught in the vortex of a variety of pressures bringing into mind the fortieth year of the hated Emergency and press censorship times with the new addition of brute muscle goon power operating at times. In this murky world the journalist bond increasingly to contracts, vouchers and what not is subdivided into three groups, the razzle- dazzle well-paid group, the assistant surviving group and an army of free-lancers waiting for months for their pittance.

As far as action goes the plight of journalists openly beaten up at the Patiala House Court premises in Delhi by select angry lawyers with known allegiance to the ruling power tell part of the story as even the police helplessly watched instead of protecting them and other litigants, including academics and students of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in the recent past. As far as attacks on the Delhi journalists for two consecutive days on February 15 and 16 is concerned it was a clear case of attacks on the journalists on duty. It is also a fact that they were regular beat journalists and here even women journalists were not spared. What is to be further noted is that almost 90 percent of the National Press and most TV chains covered the event. The Delhi government has now even come out with some evidence of doctored tapes of the episode. Was this not a clear attempt to muzzle reporting and intimidate the press while the police looked on?

There is also the case of the death of a young journalist Pooja Tiwari in which various journalist bodies expressed their shock like the Delhi Union of Journalists and the Delhi Journalists Association, among others.

 The situation in the Chhattisgarh region is also extremely hazardous, especially in the Bastar region. The Editors Guild has a well-documented survey which shows how the journalists are sometimes caught in the crossfire of having to report purely the government version or extreme versions, at times just police versions. The harassment including arrests has become almost a ritual. In fact, it is a fashion to dub not only journalists but academics as terrorists. Some journalists were on protest recently at Jantar Mantar and narrated their woes to the office bearers of the DUJ.

 Short term what is needed is a risk insurance cover for journalists on duty. Long term what is needed is an independent media commission, somewhat in the lines of the first and second press commissions but with lesser government control, to look into the entire media, print to electronic, see the new emerging structure including working conditions and pressures. It will also look into the new players, many of whom have dubious credentials.

Bringing the Working Journalists Act back to life and ensuring that it would include the electronic media and ensuring a modicum of fair wages for both is the need of the hour. Side by side a National Safety Law to protect journalists has to be thought of. This will require more joint struggles on common demands with the All India Newspaper Employees Federation and the wide amalgam of journalists bodies. It would also mean joining on issues at least with the working class unions against neo-liberalism and helping coverage of increasing struggles, not blacking them out. It is indeed a fact that even reports of journalist unions including press statements are by and large increasingly blacked out.

Postscript:  In Delhi alone over three hundred journalists are fighting it out in the courts against unfair labour practices. Similarly, in Delhi over a thousand workers are fighting cases and in the case of the Hindustan Times Group, they are on dharna too. Judgment after judgment goes unreported as it is often in their favour. A key question is could they have been dismissed without the connivance of the state government way back in 2005? Just after them, in the same newspaper, journalists were chucked out arbitrarily to prevent them from getting the Wage Board dues. In the same office, more than three hundred workers are starving, at least twelve have died. The families wait for a judgment. A World Press Freedom Day is over. Is it not a high time to have a “save journalism, save press workers day”?