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UNDER the Modi government, media freedom in India has come under serious threat, with journalists trolled, harassed, and even arrested for doing their jobs. India’s ranking on the World Press Freedom Index has been consistently falling since the Modi government came into power in 2014. According to the 2023 world press freedom report, India slipped to 161 out of 180 countries from 150 just a year ago. More recently, under the pretext of identifying fake news, the Modi government has proposed a fact-checking unit to monitor social media, which many journalists fear will widen the scope of censorship. All these concerns were seriously raised in the meeting of solidarity with Prabir Purakayastha held in Trivandrum in connection with the release of the Malayalam version of his book “Keeping Up the Good Fight: From the Emergency to the Present Day”. The Malayalam title of the book is Porattam Thudaruka and is published by Chintha. Prabir Purkayastha is currently in judicial custody. In October, he was arrested by the Delhi Police in a case registered under UAPA.
M A Baby released the Malayalam version of the book in which R Rajagopal, editor at large, the Telegraph, delivered the keynote address in the meeting presided over by M Swaraj, CPI(M) state secretariat member. Writer Haritha Savithri received the first copy of the book.
Despite the constraints, for the large part, mainstream Indian media exercised its independence and opposed efforts to suppress it in the earlier periods. This was evident in the emergency period when many newspapers put out empty spaces on their editorial pages to show dissent. Investigative reporting, exposing corrupt practices, had led to the resignation of politicians and policy changes. In the current times, however, not only is much of the media willing to toe the government line but it has been weaponised against opposing voices. M A Baby raised concerns in this regard. He drew a parallel between Purkayastha’s arrest during the emergency period and under the BJP-led centre now.
Freedom of expression is very much limited in almost all the Indian states. M A Baby added that Kerala is one of the rare places of exemption. He urged the need for a consistent fight against curbing of freedom of expression.
Reporting on rural health care, poverty, and other issues from around the country that were routinely done earlier, is hardly to be seen now, R Rajagopal mentioned. He sharply criticised the attempt of the police to seize the mobile phones of NewsClick employees. It's an intrusion into the privacy of their lives, he said.
Rajagopal said the most important thing is to keep our optimism. Today things might look bad for media freedom and the basic human rights guaranteed in the constitution, “but don’t be pessimistic about it”. There are rays of hope emerging from many corners. He cited instances in this regard.
At a time when mainstream media is crawling in front of the BJP government, there are attempts of strong resistance arising from many small groups. We have to support and develop that, he said.
Writer Haritha Savithri, her book ZIN released by Penguin recently and who is residing in Spain, elicited instances from European countries where media is under attack from the right-wing governments and extreme rightist groups. Freedom of press in Europe is a myth, she said and cited instances from Poland and Hungary.
M Swaraj warned against the dark times India is going through at present. Prof V N Murali, Chintha Publishers editor K S Ranjith and Premamchandran also spoke in the release function.
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