https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=TOIGO%2F2018%2F04%2F30&entity=Ar00416&sk=B8815C0E&mode=text Just over a year ago, the Washington Post began running a motto on its front page that is even more relevant for India. In Februrary 2017, ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’ first appeared on the eminent newspaper’s masthead. It was widely understood to be a warning about what could result from President Trump’s sustained assault on the media, and various institutions of the American state. The same idea applies more urgently in India, which dropped two more places in the latest World Press Freedom Index released last week by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RWB). The same country we all celebrate as “the world’s biggest democracy” shamefully ranks 138 out of 180 countries, behind even war-torn Afghanistan and economically devastated Zimbabwe.
The situation in India is best understood in a global context. RWB says “Hostility towards the media from political leaders is no longer limited to authoritarian countries such as Turkey (down two at 157th) and Egypt (161st), where “media-phobia” is now so pronounced that journalists are routinely accused of terrorism and all those who don’t offer loyalty are arbitrarily imprisoned. More and more democratically-elected leaders no longer see the media as part of democracy’s essential underpinning, but as an adversary to which they openly display their aversion.” About India, the watchdog body concludes “hate speech targeting journalists is shared and amplified on social networks, often by troll armies in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pay.” RWB elaborates, “with Hindu nationalists trying to purge all manifestations of ‘anti-national’ thought from the national debate, self-censorship is growing in the mainstream media and journalists are increasingly the targets of online smear campaigns by the most radical nationalists, who vilify them and even threaten physical reprisals.” The outstandingly analytical writer Pankaj Mishra put it very well earlier this week, “Armies of trolls using Twitter, WhatsApp and Facebook have manufactured a whole new reality: one in which Muslims, liberals, secularists, leftists and various other "anti-nationals" are seeking to thwart hard-working Prime Minister Narendra Modi from creating a glorious Hindu nation.” Democracy in India has already suffered severe damage. Several senior editors have been forced out after less than sycophantic coverage of the administration. The most recent case is of Harish Khare of The Tribune, after running a story about flaws in the Aadhar system. According to the Columbia Journalism Review (based in New York) this is recreating the media infrastructure so that everyone from “the owners down to editorial staff often seem to be a willing participant in the project of Hindu nationalism.” This is creeping totalitarianism, exacerbated by the desi propensity to crawl when merely asked to bend (as LK Advani said about the press during Indira Gandhi’s Emergency). Of course this is not the whole story. India’s vastness combined with unique ethnic, cultural, and economic diversity make it naturally difficult for totalitarianism to take hold. Even as the ruling BJP spectacularly rolls out its political agenda across the country, it is still compelled to tweak the message to suit the specific constituency. What works in UP cannot apply in Goa or the North East, and this applies to press freedoms just as much as it does to communalism. These nuances were clearly evident in India’s smallest state, when the Parrikar administration retreated almost overnight from its absurd and exclusionary new accreditation guidelines when the Goa Union of Journalists protested about the attack on “the very root of the freedom of speech.” Thomas Jefferson is often credited with saying, “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” This means freedom to investigate and criticize, and occasionally to bring down those who threaten democracy even if they are popular or entrenched in power. Our system of governance rests on four pillars: Judiciary, Executive, Legislative and Media. Today that foundation is increasingly shaky, as all are being undermined. But if the fourth estate becomes fatally compromised, there is no hope for the other three.
