Murky Waters

India’s media universe is vast, perhaps the biggest in the world: more than 17,000 newspapers, 100,000 magazines, 178 television news channels, and countless websites in dozens of languages. Thousands of Facebook pages call themselves news publishers, and YouTube is filled with local bulletins on everything from real estate trends to police raids. But Narendra Modi ministers have leaned on business leaders to cut off support to independent media, slowly strangling their operations. His government has pressured media owners to fire journalists who have criticized the prime minister and told them to stop running features like hate-crime trackers that have embarrassed Modi’s party. Narendra Modi is backed by an army of online allies who discredit and harass independent journalists; female journalists, in particular, have been besieged with abuse and rape threats. The police say Hindu nationalists were behind the 2017 murder of Gauri Lankesh, a female newspaper editor hailed as one of India’s most crusading journalists.

Like other populist leaders, Narendra Modi and his ministers bristle at any public criticism, whether from business executives, foreign leaders, or even schoolchildren. For the most part, Indian news outlets have knuckled under, concluding that since much of the public supports the prime minister, they should, too. Even skeptical journalists censor themselves, afraid to be branded anti-national by a government that equates patriotism with support for Mr. Modi. His government has also imposed the strictest restrictions on foreign journalists in decades, suddenly and without explanation.

Visas have been tightened, and foreign journalists have been banned from hotbeds of unrest such as northeast India and Jammu and Kashmir, a Muslim-majority area that was stripped of its statehood in August and put under a severe lockdown. In the past few months, the government has sought new ways to get a grip on the country's scrappy digital media. It has announced new restrictions on foreign investment in digital media, including approval on a case-by-case basis, and is also proposing to introduce a compulsory registration process for news and current affairs websites.

A new tactic, which affects not just media freedom but the freedom of speech and communication of ordinary citizens, is the imposition of bans on the use of the internet and social media. In Jammu and Kashmir, a "temporary" ban on social media has gone beyond more than 200 days. Broadband internet remains banned and limited data internet access was permitted after a two-month hiatus but only for low-speed access to "whitelisted" sites.

The latest assault on freedom of speech is the government's decision to charge Kashmiris who access the internet via VPNs under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Given the growing interface between social media and news media, this clampdown can only have a further chilling effect on press freedom. While the media in India has always had to contend with unfriendly politicians in the past, they could, with the exception of the 1975-1977 Emergency, at least count on the support of the country's judges if the going got tough. What makes the current phase so dangerous is both the Modi government's level of intolerance and the reluctance of the courts to defend free speech and press freedom.

India is continuing its transformation into one of the world’s most dangerous places to be a journalist. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not quite manage to pass legislation completely banning independent coverage at the outset of the pandemic, the journalistic climate has been steadily deteriorating regardless.