Bend, crawl, or fight? The role and record of the press in a democratic India

ABSTRACT

This paper provides an overview of the Indian media, delving into the making and maintenance of the laws, practices, freedoms, and regulations that govern it. Focusing specifically on the Emergency and its aftermath, it demonstrates how the Indian media is often made to accommodate political agendas and commercial interests. The author argues that present-day Indian media is worse off than it was during the Emergency, providing an overview of the various reasons because of which it is facing a crisis of credibility.

KEYWORDS:

• India
• emergency
• free speech
• Jawaharlal Nehru
• Indira Gandhi
• Bharatiya Janata Party
• democracy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Additional District Magistrate, Jabalpur vs S S Shukla and Others (1976) https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1735815/.

2. https://www.v-dem.net/static/website/files/dr/dr_2021.pdf.

3. PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES: Part II: Proceedings Other Than Questions And Answers. Official Report, Lok Sabha, P 9082. (1951).

4. ‘Hindustan Times Editor’s exit preceded by meeting between Modi, newspaper owner’ (The Wire, 25 September 2017) https://thewire.in/media/hindustan-times-bobby-ghosh-narendra-modi-shobhana-bhartia The government was reportedly unhappy with Ghosh because he had launched a project called the ‘hate tracker,’ which monitored instances of vigilante lynchings across India, in which minorities were killed by pro-government mobs. Such killings had risen since the BJP came to power. The HT management denied such insinuations.

5. Binod Rao v Minocher Rustam Masani (10 February 1976) https://indiankanoon.org/doc/831263.

6. Chunibhai Vaidya v H.J. D’Penha (22 March 1976) https://www.casemine.com/judgment/in/56e66a86607dba6b534365e2.

7. Some 20 people were killed when the police demolished what they called ‘illegal structures’ at Turkman Gate in Delhi. See the fact-finding report https://www.worldcat.org/title/slum-clearance-demolitions-etc-and-firing-in-turkman-gate-during-the-emergency-june-25-1975-march-21-1977-report-of-fact-finding-committee/oclc/6144260

8. Arun SHOURIE ‘“Indira Gandhi” as Commerce’ (Indian Express 31 August 1981).

9. Khushwant SINGH ‘The Anandpur Sahib Resolution and Other Akali Demands’ (Oxford Scholarship Online, DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195673098.003.0020).

10. Mohammed Ahmed Khan vs Shah Bano Begum (Supreme Court of India, 23 April 1985).