When Donald Trump lost the Presidential election in 2020 he refused to resign, alleging that the elections were rigged. After he won the second term in 2024 elections and assumed office again, there are fears and apprehensions that he may continue to rule for life like a monarch. Besides, he is acting more like a dictator than a democrat. This is about the United States of America.
No British Prime Minister since 2016 completed his/ her full term.
Compare this with India. Since 1998, India has had only three Prime Ministers: Atal Bihari Vajpayee for six years till 2004, Dr Manmohan Singh for 10 years till 2014 and Narendra Modi since then in his third term now. Frustrated rants by some opposition politicians aside, India holds regular and transparent elections both for the national Parliament as well as the provincial/ state assemblies. The transition of power is smooth and flawless. India has not only proved to be a successful democracy, but also a stable one.
Think of the size of the country. Its population is more than North America and Europe put together. It has immense religious, regional, cultural and lingual diversity. Yet democracy has not only survived, and flourished but has gone from strength to strength.
Yes, some people may have problems with the BJP winning three consecutive General Elections since 2014, but that is the people’s mandate. In fact, in 2024, the BJP barely managed to form the government with support of some allies. Even the Congress-led UPA won two consecutive General Elections in 2004 and 2009.
And yet, 39-year old Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten has the audacity to question India about “press freedom” and the “rights of minorities”. Ahead of PM Modi’s visit to the Netherlands, Jetten told reporters in reply to a question, “it is not only about press freedom, but also about the rights of minorities, who are under severe pressure. That applies in the first place to the Muslim community, but also to many other smaller communities… the concern is to what extent India remains an inclusive society where the same rights apply to everyone.”
Imagine the size of the country whose Prime Minister is pontificating India on freedom of press and minorities; just 18.4 million, less than two crores.
Also read: India slams Dutch PM over press freedom, minority rights remarks
Not that India needs a certificate from anyone, much less a country as miniscule as Netherlands, it is the question of the false and fake narratives being created and paddled about the largest democracy in the world.
Then there was a “small time reporter” in Norway, who questioned India’s freedom of press and compared it with that in her own country. Norway is supposed to be on top of the World Press Freedom Index (WPFI), while India is supposedly ranked at 157, much below many dictatorships around the world.
WPFI is annually published by Paris-based organisation Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF), also known as Reporters Without Borders. The RSF started publishing the “press freedom index” from 2002. In the first PFI, India was ranked at 80. By 2010 India’s rank was pushed down to 122 and in 2012 it went down further to 131. Now, in the latest index India is ranked at 157 among the 180 countries “evaluated” by the RSF.
This is absurd and atrocious. Imagine India being ranked at 131 in 2012, the year India Against Corruption launched a massive campaign against the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. As it later turned out, all allegations were fake and frivolous. The IAC campaign was played up by the media, particularly television channels, and nobody stopped or prevented them from grilling the government so maliciously, ruthlessly and of course, falsely. And still, the RSF put the Indian Press Freedom Index at 131.
There is no systematic or methodical approach to evaluate press freedom based on facts by the RSF. It is just an opinion-based evaluation through an online questionnaire of 83 questions asked to various NGOs supposedly working for freedom of expression and roughly 150 journalists. The sample size, if there is really any, is the same for a country like Norway with 55 lakh population and India with 1.4 billion people. The system of evaluation is not only flawed, but biased against developing countries like India.
Also read: India slams ‘ignorant NGO’ reports on rights, press freedom
The questionnaire is claimed to be based on six parameters, which include pluralism, media independence, media environment and self-censorship, legislative framework, transparency and quality of infrastructure that supports production of news and information. It is not difficult to make out that India stands at the best position on all these parameters.
If the press freedom wa really in danger in India, then there would not be so many journalists whose one-point agenda is to target and defame the government and the Prime Minister on mainstream and social media. It is ironic that the same people who actually abuse the “freedom of expression” in India cry threat to it.
Most ridiculous is the opposition party Congress’ stand, which endorses everything that denigrates India. The party apparently believes that it is an indictment of Prime Minister Modi, without realising or wanting to realise that these organisations held and paddled similar views and opinions about India when the Congress was in power, like in 2012, when India was placed at 131 on press freedom index.
The RSF press freedom index was summed up best by former Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, who described it as “a subjective measure computed through the prism of western liberals.” That is what it actually is.
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