By Dr. Gyan Pathak
The year 2025 begins with the murder of an independent journalist Mukesh Chandrakar in Bastar, a conflict zone for over three decades in Chhattisgarh in India, that witnessed many attacks and counterattacks between Maoist rebels and security forces. The incident retags India as one of the most dangerous nations for independent journalism in the world, where ultimate price for freedom of expression was paid by the journalist by his life.
The independent journalist Mukesh Chandrakar was reported missing on the new year day 2025, and four days later his dead body was recovered from a septic tank in a compound owned by the contractor, whose corruption was exposed in a report of the journalist, which was kept under carpet by the corrupt officials and the ruling establishment.
The incident shows how perilous independent journalism has become in the country when the ruling establishment and certain people looting the national resources are hand in glove with each other at the cost of the well-being of the common people.
In the World Press Freedom Index (WPFI) 2024, India ranked 159 out of 180 countries in the world, and thus was categorised among the most dangerous country for journalists. Now in the very beginning of the year 2025, the murder of Chhattisgarh journalist has only retagged India as such. The World Press Freedom Index 2024 released by the Reporters Sans Frontiers, also called Reporters Without Borders, has also warned that the two-rank upgrade for India from 161 to 159 was “misleading” in the sense that upgradation of India was not due to any improvement in the working conditions of the journalists in the country but was due to worse performance of two other countries who were previously above India’s rank.
WPFI 2024 has also said that India “was pushed up two places despite recently adopting more draconian laws. Its new position is still unworthy of a democracy” adding “With violence against journalists, highly concentrated media ownership, and political alignment, press freedom is in crisis in the world’s largest democracy.”
In recent years, media professionals have routinely been obstructed from their duties through intimidation by government through raids, police actions, detentions, and even physical assaults. It has emboldened the anti-social elements too, who also resort to intimidation of independent journalists or physically assaulting them. Journalists reporting from the fields have to undergo tremendous pressures from both the governments and the anti-social elements including people indulged in looting the national resources. And when there is complicity of both, life is the ultimate price to be paid for keeping freedom of speech by a journalist, or any other person, as we have seen in the case of now murdered Chhattisgarh journalist.
Reporting from the conflict zones has become riskier than ever before, such as in the Naxal infested regions of the country – Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala. The Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, the region that has been suffering from terrorism for over 35 years; and the North-East India including Manipur has been undergoing ethnic violence.
Though the murder of the Chhattisgarh journalist is condemned by media watchdogs in India, it is not enough to protect the journalists reporting from the remote areas and districts of the country who are by and large neither supported by the organisations they work for, nor get enough support and security from the local administration. Chandrakar’s gruesome murder has therefore triggered a debate and discussions regarding the challenges faced by independent journalists, stringers, freelancers etc.
The issue has become important with the rise of “Godi Media” that align with the people in power and do not report against them keeping their misdeeds under carpet. Godi Media outlets are in very large numbers. Other media outlets, especially independent media outlets are economically and administratively targeted by the ruling establishments, through restricting advertisements and taking actions against them through FIRs, raids, arrests and so on. Job opportunities for independent minded journalists have narrowed in the last decades, and therefore many of them has opened their independent channels. Chandrakar was one of such journalists whose channel had above 1.75 lakh subscribers.
The precarious working conditions was not limited to only Chandrakar, but numerous district level journalists are facing the same problem. They come face to face with politically connected mafias of various kinds. When the ruling establishment is not interested in protecting journalists, chiefly because they share the loot money of the mafia elements, no law enacted could protect them. We have just seen it in Chhattisgarh where the state has enacted the Chhattisgarh Protection of Media Persons Act 2023. India needs to do away with impunity to attacker and killers of journalist, and fix accountability to the law implementing agencies.
Many of the journalists reporting from the remote areas of the county, or even from districts, are not paid, and if paid the amount is usually minimal or sometimes not even dignified. Even though many of them work risking their lives. Their contributions should also be recognised, for which some mechanism should be evolved. They face all the risks of reporting themselves, and number of such journalists are growing with the rise of social media in the country, since mainstream media outlets have very little space for them.
India has been performing very badly in World Press Freedom Index for quite some time. In 2024 WPFI, its rank in journalists’ security indicator was 162, social indicator rank 156, legislative indicator rank 143, economic indicator rank 157, and political indicator rank 159 out of 180 countries. Independent media is undergoing an existential crisis in India, while the entire media is dominated by Godi Media politically aligning to the ruling establishment, especially for over a decade of PM Narendra Modi government, the report said. Legal frameworks being implemented and recreated empowers the government to exercise control over the media. With an average of three or four journalists killed in connection with their work every year, India is one of the world’s most dangerous countries for the media, 2024 WPFI stated. (IPA Service)
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