The murder of senior journalist and editor Gauri Lankesh in her home in Bengaluru has brought the focus back on the perilous conditions journalists in India work in.
India was ranked a lowly 136 among 180 countries in the latest world press freedom rankings released in April with the dismal performance blamed on “Modi’s nationalism” and growing “self-censorship” in the mainstream media. India slipped three places as compared to the year before. India was ranked just three places above Pakistan and was one notch below violence-torn Palestine. India’s neighbours Bhutan and Nepal were placed at 84th and 100th rank, respectively.
Read: Reporting under duress: Journalists in India work amid increasing danger
This came after a string of journalist deaths and murders, especially in small-town India, including Hindustan reporter Rajdeo Ranjan in Bihar last year. Two years ago, a similar study by Reporters Without Borders termed India as among the three most dangerous countries for journalists in 2015.
“With Hindu nationalists trying to purge all manifestations of “anti-national” thought from the national debate, self-censorship is growing in the mainstream media,” the report from media watchdog Reporters without Borders said. India was ranked 133 last year.
{{/usCountry}}“With Hindu nationalists trying to purge all manifestations of “anti-national” thought from the national debate, self-censorship is growing in the mainstream media,” the report from media watchdog Reporters without Borders said. India was ranked 133 last year.
{{/usCountry}}The report mentioned that journalists were increasingly targets of online smear campaigns and threats.
Prosecutions are also used to gag journalists who are overly critical of the government, with some prosecutors invoking Section 124a of the penal code, under which “sedition” is punishable by life imprisonment.”
“No journalist has so far been convicted of sedition but the threat encourages self-censorship.”
The watchdog was also critical of a social media and internet gag in Kashmir and said that in the absence of any “protective mechanism, coverage of sensitive regions continued to be “very difficult”.
Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark took the first four positions in the rankings. The United States was at the 43rd position. Large swathes of sub-Saharan Africa, including dictator-ruled Zimbabwe, performed better than India.
China was 176th among 180 countries and was described as the “world’s leading prison for citizen journalists”. North Korea was at the bottom of the index.