Security of Journalists in India

As we discussed above the cases of Indian journalists where they were dead in some cases the Assailants shoots them in front of their houses and some other was died when they cut their throat but in every cases it was clear that why they were killed although in gauri lankesh’s case the judgement is still pending but in other four cases they were died because of their profession, when a journalists did a story against someone, the opposition party murdered him/her it means they were doing something wrong and when the journalists tried to unleash them then they killed them. As I said in my introduction that today the general public is more influenced by the right-wing groups or sometimes from the left-wing groups and when a journalist say something on this or write something on that, the people starts criticizing him/her and at last he/she has to give his/her life. For this the people starts to think that if somebody is saying something or writing on something then they should check facts and figures before criticizing any journalist.

As it is said that journalism is the golden career and in India it is called as fourth pillar of democracy then, why no. of dead journalists is increasing every year. Why we are not that much tolerate. Sometimes political parties also use the journalists for their work and after the completion of their work they let them to kill them, sometimes when the elections are coming or its visible that whole media is behind them then they give some financial support to the dead journalists family, they also only supports them with whom they know that they might can get votes in future. Like same happened in the case of gauri lankesh when she was dead the cm of Tripura of communist party came in the protest and demands for the immediate action because gauri lankesh had some kind of left-wing ideology, it is said. But the chief minister not visited even to the home of shantanu bhaumik when he was killed in the state of Tripura, so, somewhere there’s a visible difference that politicians supports a death of their use. Although in the Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand the chief minister give a financial support to journalists family after the death.

But the main thing is that why the government is not making any law for the security of journalists. Even the news channels and press trusts are not doing well for the security of the journalists, we go for the protest after the death of a journalists but we are not doing anything special for them when they were alive and doing their jobs. The Indian Federation of Working Journalists also appeals to the then union minister of Information and Broadcasting Ministry Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, that they should announce a ‘risk insurance scheme’ of at least 1 cr. So that the family of journalist have not face any problem in the future, but the ministry didn’t announce anything like that.

And it’s not only the problem of India that we losing 12-13 journalists in year and the number is increasing day by day. As we data from UNESCO and other no-profit organisations, our country India is the 3rd most unsafe country in the world, so, it means, there are two more countries where the situations are worse than ours for journalists and news makers. And this year even our neighbouring country Pakistan also lost their seven journalists that means yes it is not only the problem of our country, it is an universal problem which every journalist has to face, in every country.

We are living in an age of social media where we put any information our personal social media handles, so that our friends and followers can see and use that particular information. But on these social media sites our female journalists who wrote on their social walls about anything they are not safe, like recently a reporter from the tribune Chandigarh, Rachna Khaira did a story on aadhar card in which she said that how can anyone access to anyone’s aadhar’s personal information only after doing a payment of rupees 500, and when this story came in lime light then Rachna Khaira got rape threats and death threats on her social media sites, people started trolling her for her story, now are these people those who are giving rape threats and death threats to Rachna, and until now no one got arrested in this case.

It is clear from my case study and research which I did on security of journalists in India, that not only India is unsafe for journalists, it is the problem of every country, in some countries where there is a monopoly there the press freedom is almost zero, like North Korea, and where there is democracy and people have their own opinion then they are not ready to accept this fact that yes, sometimes they can also be wrong, and that’s how attacks on journalists are increasing day-by-day.