Uttarakhand: Journalist found dead, press freedom increasingly at risk in India
The body of Rajeev Pratap, a 36-year-old investigative reporter, was recovered from a river after he received death threats over his investigations into corruption. This comes as the Modi government is strengthening censorship with new laws that prevent the dissemination of news deemed "defamatory" against industrial conglomerates. For almost a year, a government platform has been active demanding that social media remove content objectionable to the government, which X is fighting in the courts.
New Delhi (AsiaNews) – Press freedom is increasingly restricted in India, and the crackdown on journalists is becoming increasingly violent, as evinced by the tragic discovery of the body of journalist Rajeev Pratap. The 36-year-old, who ran Uttarakhand Live, a YouTube news channel, was fished out of a river on Sunday.
Pratap was known for his regular investigations into corruption. His car was found near the Bhagirathi River on 19 September, the last day he spoke to his wife. His body was discovered in a downstream area, at the Joshiyara hydroelectric barrage.
Pratap's wife, Muskan, said her husband was anxious after posting stories about a hospital and a school on his YouTube channel. He had received several death threats telling him to remove a video about alcohol consumption inside a particularly dilapidated hospital in Uttarakhand. His wife believes Pratap's death was not accidental.
Other investigative reporters in India have suffered the same fate. Earlier this year, freelance journalist Mukesh Chandrakar, 28, known for his reporting on the Maoist insurgency in Chhattisgarh and corruption in road projects in the Bastar region, was found dead in a septic tank.
India, which ranks 151st out of 181 countries on the press freedom index, finds itself with an increasingly hostile media environment, partly due to a new set of legal restrictions that prevent the dissemination of "defamatory" information about business conglomerates run by people close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, most notably Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani.
Over the past 10 years, both have increased their acquisitions of media outlets, especially TV stations, a situation confirmed by the latest report on press freedom in South Asia.
“The media, considered a major stakeholder in the world’s largest democracy, has been shackled and subjected to a systemic strategy to cripple it,” reads the introduction to the report. “Over the past twelve years, the print and electronic media have been tamed by interventions by the government and corporate owners,” it goes on to say.
Case in point: on 6 September, a Delhi court issued an injunction against nine well-known journalists in India, prohibiting them from publishing content deemed "unverified and defamatory" against industrial giant Adani Enterprises.
The order prompted the immediate removal of nearly 140 YouTube videos and over 80 Instagram posts, a measure swiftly implemented by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB).
According to legal experts, the ruling's critical aspect lies in the "ex parte" nature of the injunction, which was issued in the defendants’ absence and without them having the opportunity to defend themselves.
This order risks effectively normalising preventive censorship, and has been extended to individuals not specifically named in the case, potentially affecting anyone, noted some of the journalists targeted by the measure.
For its part, the Indian government has been forcing for some time major social media platforms to comply with orders to remove online content that it dislikes, threatening to cut off their access to the Indian market, the world's largest.
Furthermore, New Delhi uses Sahyog, a government platform launched in October 2024, to send notices to tech companies asking them to suppress posts that harm the government's image. Such requests can be made by any Union and state government agency, even by district officials and the police.
A legal battle is currently underway over this issue between X (formerly Twitter) and the Indian government. Elon Musk, the platform's owner and self-described defender of free speech, has equated the system with de facto censorship, while the government maintains that the new system is aimed at curbing illegal content.
Despite expressing concern about the restriction of freedom of expression in India during the conflict between India and Pakistan that broke out in early May, X blocked, without legal orders or explanation, the accounts of independent journalists who had criticised the government’s actions, as well as the accounts of several Pakistani reporters.
After the Karnataka High Court ruled that the appeal against Sahyong's ban was “baseless”, Musk announced that he would file another appeal.
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