Is India's Press Suddenly Under Siege?

Display of Indian newspapers

Rupa Subramanya

If you believe some prominent Indian journalists and the putative American newspaper of record, the New York Times, press freedom is under attack in India like it’s never been.

Take a recent unsigned editorial in the International New York Times, ominously entitled “India’s Press Under Siege”. (For a good fisking, see here. )

Recounting press censorship under Indira Gandhi’s Emergency, the editorial then fast forwards to recent times, and argues that “press censorship seems to be back with a vengeance in India” — not, it is argued, because of direct government censorship, but, indirectly, through the pressure brought to bear by powerful private interests (such as media owners) and politicians.

A few months ago, veteran journalist and former CNN-IBN news editor Sagarika Ghose tweeted the following: 

Ghose is a prominent voice of the mainstream left and what she says gets taken seriously by many, whether it makes much sense or not. She tweeted this sometime before her departure, which already appeared imminent. 

Since then, others have joined the chorus, including senior editors who were shown the door amidst churning in their respective media houses.

If you believe these folks, weak press freedom in India is something new and worrisome, and coincides in some way with the political rise of Narendra Modi, culminating in the BJP coming to power in May. 

Does the evidence bear this out? 

You decide for yourself.

Chart 1-Freedom House Index of Press Freedom for India (1993-2013)

Chart 2- Reporters without Borders Press Freedom Index for India (2002-2014)

Chart 1 plots Freedom House’s ranking of press freedom in India from 1993-2013, while Chart 2 shows the ranking by Reporters without Borders from 2002-2014. (For Chart 2, note that as there’s no ranking for 2011, that has been interpolated by me by averaging 2010 and 2012.) 

In both cases, a larger number represents a worse ranking, i.e., less press freedom. 

Freedom House’s ranking shows no clear trend. India started out at 38/100 which puts it in the “partly free” category and as of 2013, is at 39/100, so just marginally worse, with ups and downs in between.

Whether you see it as a glass half full or half empty, either way it doesn’t bear out the claim that things have gotten worse just in the past year.

By contrast, Reporters without Borders’ ranking paints a bleaker picture, showing a steadily worsening trend.

Two turning points stand out in Chart 2: 2003 and 2009. 

Between 2002 and 2003, you can see the sharp worsening in India’s ranking, reflecting temporary curbs on press freedom at the time of the outbreak of communal violence in Gujarat and an upsurge in ongoing communal tensions in Kashmir. 

After that up until 2008, India’s ranking bounces around with no clear trend. 

But it’s striking that from 2009 to 2014, India’s ranking has been steadily worsening. Note of course this latter period coincides with the UPA’s second term in power. Indeed, by 2014, India's rank stood at 140/180 countries -- with countries like Libya, Palestine, and Chad doing better than us!

Any honest assessment, therefore, of why the state of media freedom has been steadily worsening in India, at least if you believe Reporters without Borders, must look at what happened in particular during the UPA’s second term. 

And we must also ask, where were those prominent voices now raising the alarm while press freedom has been steadily worsening or at any rate not improving in the last decade?

Well, it would appear that some of them were at least indirectly worsening press freedom rather than working to improve it!

Cue the “Radia tapes” controversy of 2010.

The tapes appear to suggest an unhealthy and cosy nexus between some senior journalists and senior politicians, which, if true, would call into question the editorial independence of those journalists and, by extension, the media houses they work for.

It’s noteworthy after the initial expose by Open and Outlook magazines, there was relatively little uptake in the Indian media, with only a few newspapers choosing to write about it and relatively muted coverage if any by the television news channels. 

Indeed, Wall Street Journal India, for whom I was writing at the time, was one of the few media organisations to devote extensive coverage to the Radia tapes.

Quite to the contrary, several prominent journalists, including Rajdeep Sardesai, former senior editor at CNN-IBN, pooh-poohed the idea that the journalistic improprieties the Radia tapes appeared to unearth — in particular, the suggestion of a quid pro quo for political access —  were anything to worry about. 

If the Radia tapes appear to suggest some tacit collusion between individuals in the media and in the government, the UPA’s second term witnessed a much more frontal attack on media freedom by the government itself.

As reported here, the government blocked, i.e., censored, access to 250 webpages, certain stories on news portals including prominent ones like firstpost.com and blocked the twitter handles of several prominent voices on the right, including senior journalist Kanchan Gupta.

Here’s how Reporters without Borders sums up the Indian situation in their 2011-2012 report. 

“In May, they [the authorities] unveiled the ‘Information Technology Rules 2011,’ which have dangerous implications for online freedom of expression. Foreign reporters saw their visa requests turned down or were pressured to provide positive coverage.”

And how did senior journalists react to this serious infringement on internet and press freedom? 

Not very much as it turns out. 

In fact, it’s suggested here and elsewhere that many either tacitly or openly supported the censorship and even asked for more regulations!

Ghose, whom as we saw was railing recently against “an evil which is stamping out all free speech” when it appeared that her job was on the line, had this to say on the internet censorship controversy two years ago.  

This what Sardesai had to say: 

And here’s Vinod Mehta, editor of Outlook magazine with a similar view. 

Even the most recent Reporters without Borders report (2014, reporting on 2013) notes that internet censorship continues to worsen in India. 

Which brings us back to the present day. 

The concerns raised by those journalists who’ve just woken up to the less than ideal state of press freedom in India relate not to direct censorship as under the UPA but the possible self-censorship and narrowing of the diversity of opinions that might occur if there’s excessive media concentration. 

While such concerns may be legitimate, a couple of points need to be made. 

First, there’s a qualitative difference — at the very least, ethically — between government censorship and alleged self-censorship. The fact is that the UPA indulged in the former — with the evident support of some senior journalists — while the NDA hasn’t gone down this road (at least as yet). 

Second, whether it’s India, the US, UK, Canada, or most other places with a vibrant media scene, economies of scale and the possibility of vertical integration among various digital, cable, and mobile platforms means that the economics of the industry points towards increasing concentration in the mainstream media. 

You might not like the forces of economics, but please don’t call them censorship!

As against this tendency toward concentration, the negligible cost of someone connecting to the internet — with the proliferation of blogging and social media this has generated — means it’s highly implausible that the “message” will get monopolised but a few big media houses. 

Third, when a news organisation is taken over by new owners, or even otherwise, it’s very normal to see churning among the top ranks of senior journalists and editors. 

In India, a prominent departure of a senior journalist sparks cries of media self-censorship and political interference. Contrast this with Jill Abramson’s surprise departure from the New York Times. 

While speculation and controversy has swirled around the reasons, no one has suggested that the owners of the Times are somehow clamping down on Ms. Abramson’s right to speak freely, or that media freedom has been damaged in the US as a result. 

Of course, when the Times editorialises about India, different standards seem to apply.

As for the howls of protest from senior Indian journalists, when a journalist about to get the sack, who’s been quiescent on media freedom up until now, suddenly raises the alarm, it’s hard not to be cynical.

What exactly were those folks doing when India kept getting lousy scores from Freedom House and Reporters without Borders? Why the sudden interest in media freedom?

India has a lot of work to do to improve the state of press freedom, starting with getting rid of colonial era laws which stifle free speech. 

But it’s disingenuous at best and downright dishonest at worst to suggest that these problems suddenly materialised. 

That’s a falsehood, and a usefully self-serving one, by those who keep chanting it.

Rupa Subramanya is co-author of Indianomix: Making Sense of Modern India, Random House India (2012) . She's on Twitter @rupasubramanya .