New Delhi: India has been ranked 159 – two ranks above last year – in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). It had ranked 161 in 2023.
“With violence against journalists, highly concentrated media ownership, and political alignment, press freedom is in crisis in “the world’s largest democracy”, ruled since 2014 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and embodiment of the Hindu nationalist right,” RSF stated while releasing the data.
India was also mentioned in its report titled ‘Asia – Pacific: Press freedom under yoke of authoritarian governments‘. Here, RSF said that India’s two-rank upgrade was “misleading”, as its scores fell but the change in position was due to worse falls by countries previously above it. India “was pushed up two places despite recently adopting more draconian laws. Its new position is still unworthy of a democracy”, the report noted.
In its country report on India, RSF says that the press freedom situation has deteriorated on various counts since the Narendra Modi government came to power in 2014. “Reliance Industries group’s magnate Mukesh Ambani, a personal friend of the prime minister, owns more than 70 media outlets that are followed by at least 800 million Indians. The NDTV channel’s acquisition at the end of 2022 by Gautam Adani, a tycoon who is also close to Modi, signalled the end of pluralism in the mainstream media. Recent years have also seen the rise of “Godi media” (pun for designating Modi’s “dogs”) – media outlets that mix populism and pro-BJP propaganda. Through pressure and influence, the old Indian model of a pluralist press is being called into question. The prime minister is very critical of journalists, seeing them as “intermediaries” polluting his direct relationship with his supporters. Indian journalists who are very critical of the government are subjected to harassment campaigns by BJP-backed trolls,” it notes.
Across the world, RSF notes, “A growing number of governments and political authorities are not fulfilling their role as guarantors of the best possible environment for journalism and for the public’s right to reliable, independent, and diverse news and information.”
Several of India’s neighbours have ranked slightly better than it – Pakistan is at 152, Sri Lanka at 15, Nepal at 74 and Maldives at 106. On the other side of the rankings, Afghanistan is at 178, Bangladesh at 165 and Myanmar at 171.
