An Unlikely Champion Of Press Freedom

When freedom of the press is under attack worldwide, look to India’s first newspaper for its defence.

- Andrew Otis

Around the world, freedom of the press is under attack. Already in 2018, three journalists have been murdered in India. Last year, 11 of them were killed. Unsurprisingly, India’s ranking in press freedom has fallen to 138, according to an index compiled by Reporters Without Borders. These are sobering facts, but it is even more worrying when lawmakers greet these acts of violence with silence—when they should secure the lives of people and promote tolerance and acceptance instead.

In India, “hate speech targeting journalists is shared and amplified on social networks, often by troll armies”, according to Reporters Without Borders.

In the US, President Donald Trump has called the press the ‘enemy of the people’, the same phrase Stalin used when he targeted and killed his political adversaries. Trump has repeatedly called real news stories ‘fake news’ and rebuked media platforms that have criticized him. This sentiment echoes around the world—politicians with despotic tendencies have been declaring legitimate media as ‘fake’, undermining trust in democratic institutions and stifling free speech.

Two hundred years ago, in 1780, the press faced similar issues in India when Warren Hastings, the governor general of the British-ruled provinces, tried to shut down India’s first newspaper, Hicky’s Bengal Gazette, because of its fearless reporting.

Not unlike Trump’s tirades, Hastings’ allies called the paper’s founder, James Augustus Hicky, a “stupid ignorant wretch” and a “man among the dregs of the people” who acted with “unparalleled insolence” against his social betters. These phrases were the 18th century equivalent to denigrating the freedom of the press—though perhaps more refined than what we hear today.