Incremental authoritarianism at work in India, says N. Ram

The Hindu

28-05-2025

A number of factors have combined to cast a shadow over India's democracy and its media landscape, N. Ram, former Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu, said on Wednesday (May 28, 2025), listing troubling trends such as communalism as a political mobilisation strategy, the re-jigging and manipulation of State institutions, the rise and enormous spread of the social media in society, and the weaponisation of hate speech, disinformation, misinformation, and toxic propaganda both on social media and in sections of the mainstream media.
Delivering a lecture in memory of M.P. Veerendra Kumar, former Managing Director, Mathrubhumi, Mr. Ram pointed out that the country faces an intensely divisive and polarising communal climate, orchestrated hate campaigns and crimes, and fascistic violence directed at minorities and others. 'India had witnessed and experienced some of this from the 1990s. The situation turned qualitatively worse in 2014, when there was a regime change that proved to be much more than a change of government,' he said.
Modi-Trump: shared authoritarianism
Drawing a comparison between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Donald Trump, Mr. Ram said that while the two leaders may have strikingly different backgrounds and styles, their administrations share an authoritarian disdain for their countries' Constitutions and the values, spirit, and even the letter of these foundational charters.
Quoting scholars Christophe Jaffrelot and Pratinav Anil, Mr. Ram said that independent India's first dictatorship — the Emergency imposed in June 1975 by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi — was a complex phenomenon that was 'neither a parenthesis, nor so much as a turning point, but a concentrate of a style of rule, an élan alive today.' This involved, among other things, 'a dialectical relationship between populism and authoritarianism.'
It is this relationship that has been at play over the past decade, Mr. Ram said, eating into the vitals of Indian democracy. The BJP regime, backed by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its affiliates, has taken the path of incremental authoritarianism, softening up and, wherever possible, suborning constitutional and democratic institutions and undermining India's already stressed secular foundations, he added.
'Independent journalism still alive'
'The present is a period in which independent and fearless journalism is at a premium in India, or so it seems,' Mr. Ram said. 'Several Indian television news channels and mainstream newspapers, daily and periodical, are clearly and conspicuously engaged in propagandising and manufacturing consent for the ideology, policies, and actions of the ruling party and the dominant saffron political formation. However, there is evidence that independent, investigative journalism is alive, active, and productive,' he added.
While investigating, exploring, and experimenting, journalists of the first rank should not be satisfied with bringing to light a mass of material facts that they manage to unearth through diligent work, or that fall into their laps by a stroke of luck. 'Their real pursuit is to invest these hitherto concealed or inaccessible facts with social, moral, and often, historical meaning, and weave them into a coherent and compelling story, so that the journalism contributes significantly to raising social awareness of the issues involved and stands the test of time,' Mr. Ram said.
In his book on newspapers, journalism, and the business of news in the digital age, British journalist and educator George Brock had identified four core tasks as 'the irreducible core… the foundation on which journalism in the 21st century is going to be rebuilt' — verification, bearing witness, sense making, and investigation. 'The only way to protect media freedom is to exercise your right to free speech and independence, come what may,' Mr. Ram said.
Also at the event, the first National Thought Leadership Award, instituted in memory of the late Mathrubhumi Managing Director Veerendra Kumar, was presented to Karnataka-based environmentalist Panduranga Hegde by water conservationist Rajendra Singh.