World Press Freedom Index: India slips to 150th rank, becomes 'one of most dangerous nations for media'

In further bad news for the country's media, India's press freedom ranking has fallen to 150 from 142 last year with the latest World Press Freedom Index saying that press freedom is in "crisis in the world’s largest democracy".

With an average of three or four journalists killed in connection with their work every year, the index placed India as "one of the world’s most dangerous countries" for the media.

The 2022 edition of the World Press Freedom Index, which assesses the state of journalism in 180 countries and territories, showed that the state of media is on a downfall with India ranking 133 in 2016 and not improving its ranking over the years. The index is released every May 3, the World Press Freedom Day.

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The Index prepared by the Reporters Without Borders said 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 BJP and the embodiment of the Hindu nationalist right".

The report noted that India has more than one lakh newspapers, including 36,000 weeklies and 380 TV news channels but this "abundance of media outlets conceals tendencies toward the concentration of ownership.

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The report said 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 report said.

"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 added.

In a statement, the Press Club of India, the Indian Women Press Corps and the Press Association said the attacks on the media across the world have grown in "myriad ways", including in advanced democracies.

"India doesn't fare too well in this regard...Journalists have been incarcerated under draconian laws for flimsy reasons and on some occasions faced threat to their lives as well from self-styled custodians of law in the social media space," it said in the statement.

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