In 1989, set against the backdrop of rapid developments in post-Mao China, students gathered at Tiananmen Square to express their anxieties about economic reforms, press freedom, freedom of speech and restrictions on political participation.

As the protests gained momentum and galvanised support across the country, Deng Xiaoping, the then leader, along with other members of the Communist Party of China (CPC), termed the protests as counter-revolutionary and resolved to use force. The party declared martial law and mobilised troops to suppress the protests by firing at the demonstrators. Civil unrest and mass arrests ensued.

The relationship between the party and the people went past mending, considering how individual freedoms were curbed and public voices were oppressed – all with an aim to regain control that Deng had temporarily lost.

The conduct of the ruling government drew widespread condemnation from Europe and America. Asian countries, however, chose to remain silent. And, ironically, acting in view of protests where one of the demands was press freedom, the Indian government responded by ordering the State media to cover the protests as little as possible.

The move helped then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to show that India would not reveal China’s domestic troubles – doing so would undermine efforts at building diplomatic ties with the region. And the state of censorship in India has only moved downhill since then.

In light of the government’s recent attempts at regulating the free press, dismal records pointing at shrinking liberties and our long-drawn history with press freedom, April 15, 2018 – which marked the 29th anniversary of the start of the protests at Tiananmen Square – is a good day to reflect on the ideals of press freedom and freedom of speech and how such ideals fare in India.

Article 19 of the Constitution of India, 1949, states that all citizens have the right to freedom of speech and expression. In continuation, the Article also states that nothing mentioned therein will hold in cases where the State, in the interest of sovereignty, integrity, security, public order and the like, wishes to impose reasonable restrictions on the exercise of the rights specified.

Also worth noting are Sections 499 to 502 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) which define, illustrate and set out punishments for defamation, and Section 66A of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000, which sets out punishments for offensive messages sent via computer resources or communication devices.

While Section 66A of the IT Act, 2000, was struck down as “unconstitutional” by the Supreme Court for being “open ended, undefined, and vague”, it continues to be used even today to the detriment of the ideals of free speech.

Going by all of the aforementioned laws, it’s clear that governmental interventions to citizens’ rights of free speech and freedom of expression are defensible when the aim is (or can be justified to be) to serve nation-level interests. And such governmental interventions have occurred quite frequently.

According to the 2017 World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RWB), India ranks poorly at 136 out of 180 countries. The report further establishes the ranking with details of journalists who were killed and RWB could confirm the same – the caveat, in turn, paints a gloomier picture because ground realities are always worse.

Unsurprisingly, China is ranked at 176 on the same index, surpassing only Syria, Turkmenistan, Eritrea and North Korea – maybe China too could glean an essential understanding of the fundamental rights of citizens by looking into its recent past.

According to an impunity index compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent non-profit organisation committed to protect press freedom worldwide, “In countries such as the Philippines, Mexico, Brazil, Russia, and India – the countries that bill themselves as democracies but have repeatedly appeared on the index – government officials and criminal groups go unpunished for murdering journalists in high numbers.”

The same report also highlights how the Indian government chose not to respond on being enquired by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) about the status of investigations into cases of murdered journalists.

Here at home, The Hoot, a non-profit media watchdog, compiled a report titled ‘The India Freedom Report’, assessing media freedom and freedom of expression from January 2016 to April 2017. The report states that, during the period under consideration, there were 46 attacks on journalists, the perpetrators of which have been detailed into categories such as police, politicians and party workers, Hindu right-wing organisations, sand mining mafia, Dera Sacha Sauda members, unidentified assailants, etc.

The report also mentions threats to the media and creative communities, which number 20 in total, citing examples such as:

• Posters appearing in Bijapur in Chhattisgarh in June threatening the forest minister, local officials and those who reported on encounters “incorrectly”;
• Journalists from NDTV India, Firstpost, The Quint, The News Minute, and the Covai Post in Coimbatore faced threats, including those of rape, on social media;
• In February, UP minister Radhey Shyam Singh allegedly threatened to set a local journalist on fire for not supporting him during the ongoing Assembly elections in the state;

Addressing concerns about free speech over the internet, the report states that there were 77 instances of internet shutdown and highlighted that “there were only three months in that year when Jammu and Kashmir did not experience an internet shutdown somewhere in the state.”

The statements recorded in the aftermath of the shutdowns were “caste conflict”, “to prevent any rumours”, “precautionary measures”, “after the death of the journalist Shantanu Bhowmick”, etc.

While it must be acknowledged that such blows to free speech and freedom of expression aren’t a new phenomenon in India, it also remains true that ideologies are clashing more vehemently and more openly considering the nature of the central government.

As Arun Shourie, an economist, journalist and a politician, notes while talking about overt pressures on the free press – “this will intensify in the coming months, firstly, because of the nature of the regime… its genes are totalitarian. Second, the gap between their claims in advertisements and speeches and what people are feeling on the ground and in their lives, whether you are a farmer or a person who is losing his job, is so wide already… so they will then take to not only managing but also suppressing voices of dissent.”

It would do well for India, which claims and is often bestowed with the honour of being the world’s largest democracy, to re-assess how it can overcome failures at granting fundamental rights.