Whither India?: How free is the Indian press and what is the future of India's much-prized democracy?

Abstract

While on an official visit to Britain in September 1983, Mr Justice A. N. Grover, Chairman of the Press Council of India, expressed a wish to visit our office and talk to us about our coverage of his country. We were flattered that Index should figure on Mr Grover's list, together with the BBC, ITV, The Times, the NUJ, and the British Press Council, but somewhat surprised by his criticism, which can be summed up as follows: ‘You did a marvellous job in criticising Mrs Gandhi and supporting her opponents during the Emergency, when censorship was brought in, journalists and editors were arrested and detained, and the freedoms of which India is justly proud ceased to exist. Why, though, do you now continue to write about India? The Emergency ended six and a half years ago and we again have a free press, which does not suffer from any interference by the government and is only subject to the supervision of the Press Council, a completely independent body. India has a democratic system of government, and freedom of the press constitutes one of its pillars.’ Mr Justice Grover's complaint about Index was directed at two items which appeared in the course of the previous year: an article on ‘India's Press’ by Kalpana Sharma, who as Editor of Himmat had earned our admiration during the Emergency; and four mentions of India in our chronicle section, Index/ Index, in particular a reference (in Index 3/1982) to reports of ‘harassment, arbitrary arrests and murders of journalists over the past few months’. If a journalist gets shot or stabbed somewhere in the provinces, that has nothing to do with the government, Mr Justice Grover argued, so why report it as if it were a curb on the freedom of the press? I explained that Index does not limit itself exclusively to criticising governments for their acts of censorship but tries to give a wider picture of the problems and dangers faced by journalists and others in the context of freedom of expression, but when my distinguished visitor left I felt that he was not convinced. Sitting in London, I am painfully aware how very different a country seems to be, depending on one's point of view: depending, that is, on whether one lives in that country or outside it. I therefore welcomed the opportunity — with which an invitation in March this year to attend a conference and give several talks on freedom of expression presented me — to go to India and find out for myself.