28 Apr 2025 | Asia and Pacific, India, News and features, Volume 54.01 Spring 2025
This article first appeared in Volume 54, Issue 1 of our print edition of Index on Censorship, titled The forgotten patients: Lost voices in the global healthcare system, published on 11 April 2025. Read more about the issue here.
When a 31-year-old trainee doctor was found raped and murdered at RG Kar Medical College in the east Indian state of Kolkata last August, outrage swept across the campus. She had fallen asleep in a seminar room after a 36-hour shift and her body was discovered the next day.
Students and other women poured into the streets in their thousands to demand justice, but their voices were quickly stifled. Police detained them, and those who spoke out found themselves under scrutiny.
The incident was not an aberration. For many in the country, this tragedy accentuated an unsettling truth: in India’s universities, victims of sexual assault – and those who support them – are often silenced.
Despite laws designed to protect women from harassment, many students and activists say the country’s universities have systemic flaws that allow sexual violence to persist.
Across India, students, activists and faculty members describe a culture where voices challenging sexual violence are suppressed to protect the institutions’ reputations.
Shabnam Hashmi, a prominent activist based in New Delhi, believes this silencing reflects India’s deep-rooted patriarchy, worsened by institutional apathy and the government’s preference for symbolic gestures over substantive change.
“Until we challenge the structures that protect perpetrators and shame victims, nothing will change,” she said. “Real change begins not only with enforcing laws but with reshaping how we view honour and accountability.”
She added that even if victims spoke out, they – not the perpetrators – were held responsible.
In Indian society, victims of sexual harassment often face intense scrutiny and blame while perpetrators are shielded by deeply entrenched patriarchal norms. Instead of holding the harasser accountable, society frequently shifts its focus to the victim, questioning her behaviour, clothing or character. Social honour is often tied to women’s bodies, leading survivors to prioritise reputation over justice and discouraging them from speaking out.
Institutional silence
Riya (not her real name), a student at a private university in Haryana, knows firsthand the consequences of speaking up. After a classmate pressured her into sharing intimate photos and then blackmailed her, she wanted to report him. But fear stopped her.
“I was scared [the authorities] would see me as the problem,” she told Index. “I didn’t think they would help me. My family would have been humiliated and people would just talk.”
Her fears had a strong basis. Even though the Prevention of Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (PoSH) Act mandates that all institutions should establish internal complaints committees (ICCs) to handle cases of sexual harassment, many universities either do not have these committees or fail to give them meaningful authority.
“PoSH committees usually only make recommendations,” Hashmi said. “They are expected to take action, but the administration often intervenes to protect the institution’s image.”
This leaves victims with limited avenues for recourse, and for many students the price of speaking out is simply too high.
The problem extends beyond insufficient resources and into a broader culture of institutional suppression. At Delhi University, external ICC member Vibha Chaturvedi said that many students didn’t know how to navigate the complaints process – and when they did, they were often discouraged.
“There is an incredible reluctance to go through the formal process,” she said. “Students fear retaliation, ridicule and even academic penalties if they come forward.”
Tanisha (not her real name), a student from a prestigious college in Maharashtra, recalls her ordeal with a professor who sexually harassed her.
“I was terrified to report him,” she said. “I thought no one would believe me, and the college would protect him. I was very scared. I thought they would think it was somehow my fault, because that is the usual response everywhere.”
The concern over protecting the institution’s image is so pervasive that students are often actively discouraged from making complaints in the first place.
“From students to faculty to administration, everyone indirectly suggests against raising formal complaints,” Tanisha said.
Symbolic policies
The government’s approach to women’s safety in recent years has been marked by high-profile initiatives, such as the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao (Save the Girl Child, Educate the Girl Child) campaign, which has now been running for a decade. Its aim is to reduce gender discrimination and to educate people about gender bias. Yet critics argue that these campaigns prioritise optics over action. Nearly 80% of its funds have been spent on media campaigns, with limited impact on ground-level support for women’s safety.
“These policies are just slogans,” said Hashmi. “They are meant to make it look like something’s being done [but have no] follow-through.
“We are seeing more censorship, more silencing of dissent and an overall lack of prioritisation for women’s safety. It’s a culture of complicity, where the perpetrator is shielded and the victim is blamed.”
Hashmi believes the government’s reluctance to seriously address harassment stems from a larger resistance to challenging patriarchy.
“These are just symbolic gestures by a government that is itself intrinsically conservative and anti-women, and doesn’t believe in their freedom or freedom of expression,” she said.
India faces severe challenges in safeguarding women against sexual harassment and violence, and despite more than 30,000 cases of reported rape every year, low conviction rates hinder their safety and justice. Slow judicial processes prevent many survivors from pursuing charges, while delayed trials often result in insufficient evidence and witness withdrawal, making convictions rare.
Legislative measures such as the 2013 Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, which introduced harsher penalties for sexual violence, have not translated into consistent enforcement.
The situation has grown worse under prime minister Narendra Modi’s administration, many activists argue, as political attention on women’s safety has waned.
“We are seeing more censorship, more silencing and an overall dismissal of women’s safety as a priority,” said Hashmi. “It’s a climate of fear and complicity.”
The cost of challenging harassment can be high. For Riya, the student from Haryana, simply sharing her story with friends took courage – and she still feels haunted by the experience.
“I want to tell others to speak up, but I understand why they don’t,” she said. “It is like you are putting yourself on trial. The shame is on us, even when we are the ones hurt.”
Mary E John, co-head of the Saksham Task Force, knows all too well the delicate balance of power that exists within academic institutions. Established by the government in 2013 in response to the brutal 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder of a medical student, the task force aims to enhance safety for women on campuses and promote gender sensitivity.
She emphasised the hesitance many students felt when confronted with the daunting task of lodging complaints against their institutions.
“Students often feel they lack independence when they have to complain against the institution’s power dynamics,” she told Index. This fear of retaliation, she notes, often leads to silence.
The challenges for victims escalate when the alleged harassers hold positions of power, such as professors or administrators. Different power dynamics in academic institutions prevent student survivors from reporting harassment.
“I am terrified my grades would suffer, or people would think I am exaggerating,” Tanisha said.
As university campuses continue to grapple with the pervasive issue of sexual harassment, it is clear that a seismic shift in cultural attitudes and institutional responses is long overdue.
The increasing number of heinous cases of sexual harassment on campuses and subsequent protests may have sparked national conversations, but they have rarely translated into tangible action. The cycle only repeats itself.
11 Dec 2024 | India, News and features
What connects cricket fans, protesters and journalists in India? They have all fallen foul of India’s outdated sedition law.
According to the Indian watchdog, Article 14, between 2010 and 2021, 13,000 people have been charged with sedition. When the conviction rate for concluded cases remains low – approximately 0.1% – and those accused of sedition spend an average of 50 days in prison until a court grants bail, the bite of this law is not necessarily a prison sentence, but the long and unpredictable time spent in pre-trial detention.
The original clause was not of India’s own making. It formed part of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) that was imposed by British colonial rule. However, following independence, successive Indian governments found the code to be a helpful cudgel when trying to restrict free speech. In 2023, the Indian Government, led by Narendra Modi’s BJP party, proposed the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), a reform to the penal code to remove the colonial stain from India’s law books. When the bill was presented to parliament, the Home Minister Amit Shah said this about the existing penal code: “The foundation of these procedures was to protect the British, not the common people of India.”
But the reform was an example of decolonisation in name only.
In terms of sedition, the bill did little to protect the “common people of India”. In fact, it went further than simply transferring the existing sedition provisions – it modernised and expanded them. The new section 152 of the BNS covers online and financial actions that “excites or attempts to excite, secession or armed rebellion or subversive activities, or encourages feelings of separatist activities or endangers sovereignty or unity and integrity of India”.
It is hard to shake the belief that the motivation underpinning the reform was to maintain the government’s ability to shut down independent and protected speech, under the guise of taking back control. The relabelling of the sedition provision came after the Supreme Court, in 2022, heard petitions related to the existing sedition provisions in the IPC. The court stated that “we hope and expect that the State and Central Governments will restrain from registering any FIR [First Information Report], continuing any investigation or taking any coercive measures by invoking Section 124A of IPC while the aforesaid provision of law is under consideration.” However strongly held the hope was, it was not strong enough to curtail the government’s legislative intentions.
Only a week after the BNS bill was put into effect on 1 July 2024, two freelance journalists Zakir Ali Tyagi and Wasim Akram Tyagi had First Information Reports, or FIRs, lodged against them for their reporting on an alleged lynch mob attack in Uttar Pradesh. While not using the sedition clause, this was only a sign of things to come.
The co-founder of Alt News, Mohammed Zubair, is no stranger to pressure and threats related to his journalism, fact-checking and use of social media. Two years ago he was stuck in a seemingly unending cycle of persecution following his online reporting of statements made by a BJP spokesperson. A cavalcade of FIRs were issued against him and whenever he was granted bail in one case, another FIR would be lodged. Ultimately six were lodged against him, ensnaring him in a 24-day cycle of arrest, bail and re-arrest. It took the intervention of the Supreme Court to break the cycle but it didn’t take long for the threats to escalate.
On 29 September 2024, the controversial Hindu priest Yati Narsinghanand held an event at Hindi Bhavan in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, during which he allegedly made “objectionable remarks against Prophet Muhammad”. Zubair used his X account to highlight these remarks, as well as others allegedly made by Narsinghanand in relation to the role of women in politics, and soon found himself the target of a FIR, brought by the priest’s supporters, which was lodged on 6 October.
However it was not until 27 November that it was revealed that the sedition clause of BNS had been invoked against Zubair, alongside a number of other charges. On the same day, Zubair claimed that police officers from Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka visited his family house and the house of his neighbour inquiring after his location, searching their property for him and searching their computers and mobile phones.
The case is expected in court in the coming months after a bench of judges at the Allahabad high court recused themselves during a hearing last week. But this case should put to bed any hopes that the BNS had taken the sting out of India’s brutal, ineffective and out-dated sedition provisions.
When it comes to threats to civil liberties and free expression in India, it is a decidedly crowded field. The BNS is not the only vehicle of jeopardy for anyone speaking out.
For instance, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) is similarly directed at threats of terrorism and anti-state agitation but has been used to stamp out dissent, most notably in the Kashmir and Jammu region. Online speech has similarly been restricted through the extensive use of the Information Technology Act and IT Rules and the widespread use of internet shutdowns, for reasons as diverse as elections, protests and school exams. Many activists, academics and campaigners have rung the alarm bell regarding the recently passed Telecommunications Act as another legislative threat to online speech. These laws lay a narrow path through which people in India can express themselves free from the threats of judicial persecution.
As long as the “world’s largest democracy” holds onto outdated and repressive laws, relabels colonial era laws instead of reforming them, and presents independent reporting as a threat to the state, this title holds little meaning. Like the BNS, it is little more than a name.
7 Nov 2024 | India, News and features, Volume 53.03 Autumn 2024
The four editors of Assam’s English daily, The Drongo Express, meet in person once or twice a month. They sit hunched over their laptops and notebooks – either at parks or in someone’s house in Diphu, where the paper is headquartered – figuring out how to keep their newspaper afloat.
One of them, Helvellyn Timungpi, from the tribal district of Karbi Anglong, told Index: “Last year, our publisher decided to walk away from the newspaper. We who were on the editorial board came together and signed the partnership deed and got a transfer of ownership. We didn’t have any other employment, and we wanted to stop this newspaper from going down the drain.”
Like many newspapers in North East India – which is made up of eight states including Assam – The Drongo Express relies heavily on advertisements placed by government departments. “We haven’t received a single penny since last October,” said Timungpi.
“If we were receiving our bills regularly, we would be OK.”
Home to about 140 notified Scheduled Tribes [indigenous groups], the region remains poorly covered by the mainstream media. Most Delhi-based media houses continue to employ just one reporter in the region. Others send journalists to cover only stories of extreme violence – for instance, the ongoing ethnic conflict in Manipur or the botched security operation in Nagaland that led to several civilian deaths. Local news channels, newspapers and websites have played a significant role in filling this gap.
Karma Paljor, a former news anchor and founder of EastMojo – the first and only independent digital news outlet that primarily covers the North East – said media ownership was a big problem.
“Anyone with a reasonable amount of money, including contractors, lobbyists and politicians can start a media organisation,” he said. “There are very few newspapers here that stand for balanced news.”
The demographic complexity of the region also plays a part.
“On account of the region’s layered contemporary history as well as ethnic and linguistic faultlines, most local publications do tend to be nativist and, in many cases, unabashedly take sides on polarising topics such as immigration,” explained Tora Agarwala, an independent journalist based in Assam.
Media organisations in the region are often faced with a lack of revenue and resources. Kenter Joya, the managing editor of the Arunachal Pradesh-based Eastern Sentinel, said: “The cost of printing papers is 15 rupees, and we are selling it at three rupees. Vendors take 50% of this money … we try to make it up through advertisements from state government, which constitute 65% of advertisements placed, and corporate advertisements.
“Annually, bi-annually, we receive only 50-60% of what we are owed for the advertisements.”
She said she wondered if payment was being withheld as a form of punishment.
Meanwhile, repeated calls for subscriptions, especially by independent outlets such as EastMojo, haven’t yielded many results.
“The people of the North East are not aware of the power of media, hence they aren’t able to fathom why they should support us,” Paljor said.
“I don’t know who to blame,” said an exasperated Timungpi. “No matter how penniless I become, I want to cling to this profession. But it pains me when my three children have nothing to eat.”
28 Aug 2024 | Asia and Pacific, India, News and features
On 1 April, less than a month before India went to the polls, a young YouTuber named Dhruv Rathee released a video calling India’s Hindu nationalist prime minister a dictator. Speaking in a loud, declamatory style, Rathee delivered fact after fact, laying out how Narendra Modi had tried to throttle Indian democracy. The video ended with an appeal to vote against the Prime Minister.
At the time of writing, Rathee’s harangue had garnered an incredible 37 million views on YouTube. This number does not capture the fact that many Indians would have viewed this video as a “forward” on WhatsApp. With an incredible 24.6 million subscribers, Rathee is the person Indians increasingly turn to when they want to consume current affairs. And he’s not the only one. Ravish Kumar, one of India’s most well-known journalists, now broadcasts on YouTube with nearly 12 million subscribers. These one-person YouTube channels frequently garner more views and subscribers than corporate-funded mainstream media channels.
For a decade now, India’s mainstream media has stopped doing the job it’s meant to do – holding the powerful to account. Using a mixture of carrot and stick, Modi has ensured his government has little to fear from traditional broadcasters or newspapers. The result: Indians are now increasingly turning to the internet for news and opinion. This trend is so significant that Modi is making increasingly desperate attempts to control what takes place online.
Throttling the press
As a wave of autocratic strongmen sweeps the world, arguably Modi leads the pack. The power he commands in India and the ideological changes he has made to the country have few parallels either globally or in India’s own history. The tactical keystone of this politics? Control over the country’s media.
In 2014, India’s Congress-led liberal coalition crashed to a defeat, bringing Modi to power. This loss was portended by loud television debates bashing the government over corruption, women’s safety and, most of all, so-called Muslim appeasement. Once he came to power, Modi had digested that hard political lesson and was determined to ensure that it would not happen to him.
This was relatively easy to do given the Indian media’s structure. Owned by large corporations who looked to curry favour with the government, India’s powerful national television channels bent over backwards for Modi. In 2022, NDTV, India’s last news network not seen to be pro-Modi was acquired: a billionaire who is not only seen as Modi’s close ally but one whose remarkable rise has been facilitated by his government. The change of NDTV’s ownership was like flipping a switch: the network simply stopped doing any critical reporting, leading to an exodus of its top journalists.
If not directly controlled through a proprietor, the Modi government can also influence media houses through ad spending. Oddly enough, the main source of advertising income for legacy media houses in India is the government. Previously, the Modi government has withheld ads from media houses seen as being critical of the government.
Carrot to stick
What happens if a media house does not bend to Modi? In that case, Indian law provides massive powers to the federal government to regulate and even ban television networks. In 2022 the Modi government peremptorily shut down a Malayalam-language news channel, MediaOne, citing “national security” as a reason. While the ban was later reversed by the Supreme Court, the action had a chilling effect on news networks, which simply cannot afford to be yanked off air overnight.
Starting in 2020, the Modi government employed even harsher provisions against a small, left-wing website called NewsClick. First, India’s severe money-laundering laws were deployed against the media outlet. Not satisfied, the government then charged it under India’s draconian terror legislation, which provides for long prison terms even before a court pronounces on the guilt of the accused. Newsclick’s founder, Prabir Purkayastha, found himself spending more than seven months in jail before the Supreme Court granted him bail.
Modi has not been shy of using similar tactics against the BBC. In 2023, the government launched income tax raids against the British broadcaster’s offices in Delhi after the network aired a documentary that was critical of Modi’s role as chief minister in the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat.
All this creates a climate where outright violence against journalists is common. Since Modi took power 28 journalists have been killed. Reporters without Borders calls India “one of the world’s most dangerous countries for the media”.
Broadcast Bill
With the traditional media subdued, Modi is now swivelling his guns towards the internet. In 2023, the government released a new Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill looking to regulate television and OTT internet broadcasters. However, in 2024 a new draft significantly expanded the bill’s scope to include internet content creators, apparently driven by the critical role social media had played in the 2024 general election where Modi sustained considerable losses.Copies of this bill were circulated privately by the Modi government and then, just as abruptly, withdrawn.
Even as the exact status of the bill remains unclear – is this truly a withdrawal or a tactical retreat before the final charge? – the provisions in the 2024 draft version are a good pointer as to the scope of Modi’s ambitions when it comes to controlling India’s internet.
The 2024 draft bill, for example, demanded that content creators subject themselves to a draconian regulatory regime designed expressly to stifle free expression. The bill called for content creators to set up “content evaluation committees” which would need to approve the majority of content before it was broadcast (certain programmes such as news and current affairs programmes were exempt), appoint a grievance officer and join a government-approved “self-regulatory organisation” to address grievances as well as ensure compliance with the relevant codes that would be drafted by the government alone. A new Broadcast Advisory Council would have been created by the Indian government which would, in turn, sit above, these self-regulatory organisations.
The entire edifice is a marvel of Orwellian “red tape-ism”, not only bringing content creators under government regulation but making them pay for it themselves. This is significant since adherence to the relevant provisions in the bill would represent a significant, even crippling, cost for small outfits or individual content creators.
How successful has Modi been in his desire to curb free expression in India? While he has achieved a substantial number of his goals, it is credit to India’s democratic traditions that the country’s media has not bent in its entirety. While major media houses are unlikely to play their role as watchdog, independent media and even individual content creators have stepped in to do the job. In fact, the fierce criticism Modi faced when he released the draft of the Broadcast Bill is a fine example of how India’s democratic traditions are trying to push back against curbs to free speech. It is not insignificant that Modi withdrew the draft bill and has gone back to the drawing board on trying to control the internet.
