‘Not worthy of a democracy’: Behind India’s slide on press freedom
India’s waning press freedoms struck an international chord last month, when dozens of tax officials descended on the BBC’s Mumbai and Delhi offices and spent three days questioning staff, searching documents and emails, and cloning employees’ phones and laptops.
The raid – or “survey” as authorities called it – came weeks after the BBC released a documentary examining Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role in a spate of deadly anti-Muslim riots in 2002, when he was chief minister of Gujarat state. The government immediately invoked emergency laws to block its distribution in India.
The ordeal follows a broader pattern of the Modi administration using the legal system to silence critics, and illustrates the growing challenges Indian journalists face.
