A few days ago, he was arrested under the provisions of the National Security Act for a Facebook post abusing Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and their party, and for questioning the relevance of the Rani of Jhansi to Manipur. This came just days after he was set free by a court from charges including sedition for the same crime—but it’s not the first time Imphal-based journalist Wangkhem Kishorchandra has found himself in trouble for a social media rant. In August, Wangkhem had been arrested for inciting hatred between communities after expanding BJP as “Buddhu Joker Party”. It’s not clear which community might have felt offended by this. Is Buddhu Jokers an Indian community?

The misuse of draconian provisions of law—including the charge of sedition and the National Security Act—for something as relatively minor as a Facebook post abusing a couple of politicians is something one associates more with regimes such as China and Saudi Arabia than with India, the country that calls itself the world’s largest democracy. If abusing politicians on social media is a threat to national security, then a few lakh supporters of different parties, including the BJP, would need to be arrested every day. The bulk of online abuse is in any case spewed by so-called Right-wing handles on Twitter. Honourable leaders such as Subramanian Swamy routinely call rival politicians Buddhu, Joker and worse. None of them ever ends up in jail for sedition—and that is how it should be in a democracy that promises freedom of speech and expression.

A hint of what might happen if all parties and their respective leaders become equally sensitive is available from the case of analyst and BJP supporter Abhijit Iyer-Mitra. Iyer-Mitra is still in jail in Orissa, even after tendering an apology for a post joking about one of the state’s venerable temples. Imagine now that Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal, Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh, Amarinder Singh in Punjab, Pinarayi Vijayan in Kerala, and other chief ministers around the country become equally touchy about jokes and abuses. Indian democratic politics will find itself in some trouble because social media teams and spokespersons of various parties—and plenty of routinely vituperative television anchors all over India—will end up in jail.

State polices are allowed to make arrests from anywhere in the country, so a BJP supporter in, say, Gujarat, who says something nasty about Mamata on Twitter could be picked up from his or her house for inciting hatred between communities, or sedition, or whatever tickles the fancy of the Bengal police. This is obviously not a desirable state of affairs.

There has been a perilous decline in the freedom of speech and expression in India in recent years. Supporters of political parties, particularly the BJP, have built up a concerted attack against journalism, with daily abuse of journalists as “presstitutes” and of all media as “paid media”. The only media that is not called “paid media” is the media that always says what they like to hear and makes no pretence to impartiality, and no attempt at arriving at an objective assessment of facts. These are the media firms that are rewarded with lavish government advertisements and given interviews and access to top ministers, including the prime minister. In other words, the only media that is not called “paid media” is the actual paid media.

There is a long tradition in Indian journalism of media owners bending to whichever parties are in power at state and centre. What is new now is that nothing short of crawling is considered good enough, and the sashtanga pranam crawl is demanded of all and sundry. Even a Facebook post abusing Modiji by a relatively unknown journalist for a local cable TV news channel in Imphal must be punished with arrest for sedition. Can’t it just be ignored?

This kind of totalitarian intolerance is unusual for Indian democracy. It was seen only during the Emergency. The present situation has been called an undeclared Emergency by some. It increasingly appears that the appellation is not altogether hyperbolic.

With powerful political parties on the one hand and big corporates on the other, both attacking the media through arrests and lawsuits, the space for journalism is disappearing. Mainstream Indian newspapers, with some exceptions like The Indian Express, never really had a culture of investigative journalism. Now the number of holy cows seems to have increased, and spaces for reporting scams and scandals have obviously decreased.

At this rate, the only journalists and media houses left with the spine to say anything other than PR platitudes in the “national media” will soon be restricted to mouthpieces of the BJP and Congress, because no one else will have the backing and financial muscle—or the stomach—to take on the powers that be. The BJP media will fight against the Congress media, and there will be no other kind of media. The effort all around seems to be to turn media completely into PR, so that no journalism whatsoever is left alive. At that point, it might become clear to many who abuse journalists that they have made a mistake because their own freedoms will start to vanish too. It will then be too late.

Abhijit Iyer-Mitra had rooted for the arrest of historian Audrey Truschke, author of a book about Aurangzeb. She lives and works in the US. Abhijit doesn’t. She’s fine, while he’s in bad shape in hospital after a month in jail, arrested under the same laws that he wanted used against her.

Many people today may be happy with the arrest of those abusing Modiji under NSA and sedition charges. Their happiness doesn’t account for karma. The same laws may someday be turned against them, too.