Being a journalist in Modi’s India
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 11 September 2023
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
India has fallen down the ranks of the World Press Freedom Index, sitting at 161 out of 180 countries. Journalists have been harassed, arrested and even killed. Today, what it’s like to be a journalist in India under the Modi government.
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Over the weekend, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with President Biden at the G-20 summit in New Delhi. But there were some people noticeably absent from the leaders’ big meeting: the press.
Growing restrictions on the press in India have become a concerning trend for many people in the country. And last year’s takeover of television news channel NDTV by India’s richest man and close ally of prime minister Modi, became a turning point for perceptions of the country’s press freedom.
Today on “Post Reports,” South Asia correspondent Karishma Mehrotra tells us what it’s like to be a journalist in India under the Modi government, what’s behind this shift in Indian journalism and what the implications are for India's future. We also speak with former TV news anchor Ravish Kumar on his struggles as a journalist in the country.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Over the weekend, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with President Biden at the |
| 0:07.0 | G-20 summit in New Delhi. |
| 0:09.2 | They discussed big topics like infrastructure and Ukraine. |
| 0:13.2 | Ahead of this meeting, posters hung up in New Delhi declared India as the mother of |
| 0:18.5 | democracy. |
| 0:20.2 | But there were some people noticeably absent from this big bilateral meeting on Friday. |
| 0:25.5 | The press. |
| 0:26.3 | Journalists were almost entirely shut out from this important visit. |
| 0:33.0 | No reporter could ask them questions and the only images came from government photographers. |
| 0:39.0 | Restrictions on the press in India have become this concerning trend for many people inside |
| 0:44.6 | the country. |
| 0:46.1 | People like Ravi Shkumar, a popular TV journalist. |
| 0:49.8 | My teacher told me that I should become a journalist because I write in a certain way. |
| 0:56.8 | But I didn't get a straight job in this profession. |
| 1:00.5 | Right out of college, Kumar went to work at a major television station, N-D-T-V. |
| 1:06.7 | I was hired for scripting and then I was hired for translating and then I was given a job |
| 1:15.4 | on the news desk and then I became a reporter, then I became a news anchor, then I became |
| 1:20.4 | managing editor. |
| 1:21.8 | He loved his job. |
| 1:24.1 | But after decades of rising in the ranks, Kumar quit journalism last year. |
| 1:29.4 | He did this after years of experiencing growing hostility toward journalists like him. |
| 1:36.4 | The shift happened with Modi and his right-wing Baratya Janatha Party or BJP rose to power. |
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