Muzzle the press! India's press freedom ranking leaves a lot to be desired

Freedom of the press is nothing but an extension of fundamental human rights as envisaged in all the valid historic documents we can lay our hands on

May 3 is observed as World Press Freedom Day. The UN General Assembly approved this in 1993 on the heels of a recommendation of the UNESCO General Conference held two years earlier. Every year around this time, the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF), also called Reporters Without Borders, a consultative NGO with the UN, publishes a report on the relative freedom of the press in different countries.

Each country is evaluated using five contextual indicators: political context, legal framework, economic context, socio-cultural context and safety. The 2022 report has just come out and it’s not quite palatable to India, placed as we are in the 150th position among the 180 countries assessed.

The mainstream media in India which should have highlighted this report has either ignored it or given it scant coverage. This is indeed baffling. Why are they reluctant to use this godsend opportunity? Their silence is deafening. There is no response from the government either so far. That is still more confusing. So is this a non-event, something of no consequence? Not at all, to be honest.

Let’s examine the finer aspects of the report to make sense of it. Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Estonia and Finland are placed at 1 to 5 positions respectively. The US is placed at 42 while the UK stands at 24. Countries that ranked lower than India are Russia (155), Pakistan (157), Bangladesh (162), China (175) and Myanmar (176) and the lowest position, which is 180, goes to North Korea.

The RSF report of earlier years showed a similar trend with reference to the countries cited above. In other words, there are some well-entrenched contexts operating which make press freedom mostly operational in some countries while in others, it is circumscribed by various factors. Those who have a lower ranking among the nations signal a certain alarm which needs attention.

It is interesting to note that most countries with a good record are democracies. But surprisingly, the freedom of the press in some democracies is questionable. It is necessary to delve deep into the reasons for such a dismal record because freedom of press should be an integral part of democracy. It surely indicates serious lacunae in the functioning of a democracy.

By definition, a functional democracy presupposes certain fundamental freedoms. That is exactly why they are democracies. Else, they won’t be named as such. Freedom of speech and freedom of press are closely linked. They are much the same. One cannot exist without the other. Countries with lower ranks exhibit certain negative traits. They are harassment and violence against journalists, political partisanship, concentration of media ownership etc.

The report noted that India has more than one lakh newspapers, including 36,000 weeklies and 380 news channels but this "abundance of media outlets conceals tendencies toward the concentration of ownership", which means some kind of monopoly in the hands of a chosen few, indicating governmental control of the media. Various legislations and rules to pressure and intimidate journalists are seen in many of these countries. In a statement, the Press Club of India, and the Indian Women Press Corps said that the attacks on the media across the world have grown in "myriad ways" including in advanced democracies.
Ideally, media freedom is a fundamental right that should apply to all countries, not in the least in countries which claim to be democracies.

Britain has a long tradition of a free, inquisitive press, but unlike the US, Britain has no constitutional guarantee of press freedom. Nevertheless, it has a decent record. Freedom House, a US-based independent watchdog organisation, ranked the United States 30th out of 197 countries in press freedom in 2014. Its report praised the constitutional protections given to American journalists and criticised the authorities for placing undue limits on investigative reporting in the name of national security.

The Indian Constitution, while not mentioning the word ‘press’, provides for ‘the right to freedom of speech and expression’ (Article 19 (1). However, this right is subject to restrictions for reasons of ‘sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State’ etc. It is while applying these restrictions that arbitrariness creeps in, oftentimes. State patronage of the media is one critical element in the Indian context.

Government advertisements are a source of substantial revenue for the media. The government in power can muzzle the media using this source. Whimsical denial of government patronage can result in terrible loss of income for the ones targeted thus. It’s here that there has to be an autonomous ombudsman to see that such discrimination do not happen. Most media succumb to the governments in power for sheer economic compulsions. That would mean a very undemocratic situation where one forgoes one’s freedom of speech, much against one’s will. Is this not the negation of a democratic spirit? Democracy is best tested here — the quintessential individual freedom, manifested through freedom of speech and expression. Sans such freedom, democracy ceases to exist.

Freedom of the press, therefore, is nothing but an extension of fundamental human rights as envisaged in all the valid historic documents we can lay our hands on. The Freedom of Press index is nothing but a horoscope of what is to come. As a country, we need to wake up to this reality. Our democracy needs some sprucing up, and it cannot wait.