India’s ranking has slipped to 161 out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index 2023, which said that the ‘world’s largest democracy’ is facing a media crisis. “The violence against journalists, the politically partisan media, and the concentration of media ownership all demonstrate that press freedom is in crisis in ‘the world’s largest democracy’, ruled since 2014 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the embodiment of the Hindu nationalist right,” stated the report published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
The country’s ranking has been sliding over the past years, falling from 140 in 2019 to 142 in 2020 and 2021, and further down to 150 in 2022. India’s neighbouring country Pakistan has, on the other hand, bettered its ranking to 150 in 2023, moving up from 157 in 2022.
The RSF’s analysis stated that the phenomenon in India that “dangerously restricts the free flow of information is the acquisition of media outlets by oligarchs who maintain close ties with political leaders.” It observed that all mainstream media are now owned by wealthy businessmen close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The report further stated that “Modi has an army of supporters who track down all online reporting regarded as critical of the government and wage horrific harassment campaigns against the sources.” “Caught between these two forms of extreme pressure, many journalists are, in practice, forced to censor themselves,” it read.
“The takeover of the NDTV channel at the end of 2022 by tycoon Gautam Adani, who is also very close to Narendra Modi, signalled the end of pluralism in the mainstream media,” observed the report, adding that Indian journalists who are critical of the government are subjected to harassment and attacks “by Modi devotees known as bhakts.”
RSF observed that the Union government spends more than Rs 130 billion (5 billion euros) a year on advertisements in print and online media alone. “Recent years have also seen the rise of ‘Godi media’ (a play on Modi's name and lapdogs) – media outlets such as Times Now and Republic TV that mix populism and pro-BJP propaganda. The old Indian model of a pluralist press is, therefore, being seriously challenged by a combination of harassment and influence,” it stated.
The report also said that India is one of the world’s most dangerous countries for the media, with an average of three or four journalists killed in connection with their work every year. “Journalists are exposed to all kinds of physical violence, including police violence, ambushes by political activists, and deadly reprisals by criminal groups or corrupt local officials. Supporters of Hindutva, the ideology that spawned the Hindu far right, wage all-out online attacks on any views that conflict with their thinking. Terrifying coordinated campaigns of hatred and calls for murder are conducted on social media, campaigns that are often even more violent when they target women journalists, whose personal data may be posted online as an additional incitement to violence. The situation is also still very worrisome in Kashmir, where reporters are often harassed by police and paramilitaries, with some being subjected to so-called ‘provisional’ detention for several years,” it stated.
Further below the ranking than India are one-party regimes and dictatorships like North Korea (180th), China (179th), Vietnam (178th), Myanmar (173rd). These countries, RSF stated, “constrict journalism the most, with leaders tightening their totalitarian stranglehold on the public discourse."
The RSF’s 2023 World Press Freedom Index found that “the situation is ‘very serious’ in 31 countries, ‘difficult’ in 42, ‘problematic’ in 55, and ‘good’ or ‘satisfactory’ in 52 countries. In other words, the environment for journalism is ‘bad’ in seven out of ten countries, and satisfactory in only three out of ten.”
World Press Freedom Day is celebrated on May 3 to highlight the fundamental principles of press freedom and present the current state of journalism to the world. The World Press Freedom Index evaluates the environment for journalism in 180 countries and territories and is published on World Press Freedom Day.