The year 2014, which marked the start of separate data collection (by the National Crime Records Bureau) for attacks on the media, saw an increasing number of attacks on free speech in the country.
A report published by the media analysis website, www.thehoot.org’s Free Speech Hub says there was a marked increase in direct physical attacks on the media and citizens, and in the number of defamation suits.
“Free speech violations in 2014 included the death of two journalists for their investigative stories on malpractices in local businesses, ” an increase in defamation cases and legal notices to curb reportage on a range of issues, increasing attacks on the media and civil society activists, violence by vigilante groups and a spike in hate speech cases during election campaigns,” the report said.
The report throws light on the “chilling effect” of defamation cases and legal notices. The number of defamation cases and legal notices increased from two in 2012 to seven in 2013 and 20 in 2014. “From politicians to business houses, lawyers, former judges and media houses, defamation notices were sent against book publishers, advertisers, other media houses and journalists,” the report said.
In May 2014, Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal was arrested in a defamation case filed by Union Minister Nitin Gadkari. Mr. Kejriwal refused to furnish a bail bond and was remanded in judicial custody. The former Supreme Court judge and National Green Tribunal Chairperson, Justice Swatanter Kumar, accused of sexual harassment by a law intern, filed a defamation case against two English television channels and a leading English newspaper. He also “managed to get a gag order on media reportage of the case.”
Cricketer M.S. Dhoni filed a Rs. 100-crore defamation case against media houses over allegations of his involvement in match-fixing. “Among the other cases, Infosys sent notices of Rs. 2,000 crore each to three publications owned by Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd and The Indian Express Ltd. The other multi-crore defamation notices included those sent by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd and the Anil Ambani-led Reliance Natural Resources Ltd to journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, author of Gas Wars: Crony Capitalism and the Ambanis ,” the report said.
State clampdownDuring the year, the state also clamped down on freedom of expression. There were 13 arrests, including that of nine students in Kerala for a crossword clue in a college magazine allegedly unfavourable to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A journalist from Assam was imprisoned for his alleged links with insurgency groups, and three others were put behind bars for Facebook posts.
The number of deaths of journalists in the line of duty came down from eight in 2013 to two last year. But they “underline[d] extreme vulnerability of journalists working in small towns, particularly unearthing crimes.” Tarun Acharya, 29, a stringer with Kanak TV in Odisha, was killed in May last year after doing an investigative story on child employment in a nearby cashew processing plant. M.N.V. Shankar, 52, was killed at Chilakaluripet in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh in May 2014, a few days after his newspaper published his report on a local kerosene mafia.
