As India turns 74, seldom has an Independence Day dawned amidst so much anxiety. A new virus imperils the lives of Indians and a hopelessly...
As India turns 74, seldom has an Independence Day dawned amidst so much anxiety. A new virus imperils the lives of Indians and a hopelessly inadequate public health system offers little cause for confidence. There are fears that the economy could slow to its lowest rate of growth since 1947. Most troubling, though, is the enfeeblement of the institutions mandated to protect our democracy.
We in the media have felt the shocks of the crumbling edifice first hand. Between March 25 and May 31, at least 55 journalists in India “faced arrest, registration of FIRs, summons or show causes notices, physical assaults, alleged destruction of properties and threats for reportage on Covid-19 or exercising freedom of opinion and expression during the national lockdown”, a report by a rights research group notes. That number has since risen.
For Scroll.in, this has meant an FIR against our executive editor, Supriya Sharma, for a report about hunger in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency of Varanasi amidst the lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
The attacks on the press are only one indication of the assaults on the liberties of Indians everywhere. This has been experienced most brutally by the residents of Kashmir, who continue to face a variety of horrific indignities just over a year after the...
