{"id":188465,"date":"2025-11-21T09:44:43","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T04:44:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/?p=188465"},"modified":"2025-11-21T09:53:52","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T04:53:52","slug":"the-collapse-of-independent-media-in-iiojk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/2025\/11\/21\/the-collapse-of-independent-media-in-iiojk.html","title":{"rendered":"The Collapse of Independent Media in IIOJK"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The crisis unfolding in Indian-illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) is not only political or territorial, it is also a war on truth. Over the past decade, the Modi regime has turned the region into a controlled information zone where journalism survives only under fear, coercion and relentless scrutiny. What was once a vibrant press ecosystem has now become a fragile space where young reporters stand on the edge of extinction. This is not accidental. It is strategic. It is part of a broader project of narrative domination, a tactic widely recognised in conflict and occupation studies. If a state can control information flows, it can control perception. And when perception is controlled, so is dissent.<\/p>\n

Young journalists in IIOJK are entering a profession that has been gutted. Newsrooms have collapsed. Independent outlets have shut down. Traditional career paths have disappeared. Graduates step into a job market where the only options left are state-friendly platforms or no platforms at all. University faculty report a dramatic fall in student enrollment. Journalism is no longer seen as a viable career. Only a handful of students, 25 to 30 a year, choose to complete their degrees. This is not merely a labour-market issue. It is a form of structural deterrence. When young people are pushed away from journalism, the state gains narrative supremacy by default.<\/p>\n

Young reporters operate under a climate of deep surveillance. Their social media posts are monitored. Their sources are tracked. Their families are questioned. Basic reporting becomes an act of risk-taking.<\/p>\n

Intimidating Senior Journalists to Terrify Younger Ones<\/p>\n

If young journalists are suffocating, senior journalists are being targeted to send a warning. The recent raid on the Kashmir Times office in Jammu shows how far the state is willing to go. The State Investigation Agency filed an FIR accusing Anuradha Bhasin of \u201canti-India activities\u201d because she reported on human rights violations and political injustices. Her crime was journalism.<\/p>\n

Her advocacy for democratic rights and her criticism of the Modi government\u2019s abrogation of Articles 370 and 35-A made her a target. The raid is not just harassment. It is an attempt to delegitimise her professional identity and rewrite the boundaries of permissible journalism. When a journalist of her stature is attacked, younger journalists receive the message instantly: if she is not safe, no one is.<\/p>\n

The sealing of the Kashmir Times office in 2020 without due process was one of many attempts to erase institutions that preserve public memory. Authoritarian regimes often dismantle archival centres, media outlets and civil society hubs because these are repositories of inconvenient truths. By shutting down newspapers, India is not only silencing present criticism. It is erasing historical evidence. This is a classic tool of information warfare.<\/p>\n

India\u2019s expanding surveillance apparatus mirrors trends seen in other hard-security states. But in IIOJK, the scale is extraordinary. Journalists face combative questioning at checkpoints. Their devices are seized. Some are summoned for repeated interrogation. Others have their passports confiscated. Many are booked under draconian laws like UAPA, which weaponises counterterror frameworks against civilian dissent. This environment creates self-censorship, the most dangerous form of censorship in authoritarian settings. When the fear of reprisal becomes routine, truth becomes selective.<\/p>\n

Women journalists face a double burden. Along with institutional repression, they encounter digital violence and AI-enabled harassment. Justice Surya Kant himself acknowledged the rise in online attacks targeting women journalists. These attacks aim to isolate, shame and silence them.<\/p>\n

In conflict zones, gendered harassment is used as a psychological tool. It aims to push women out of public spaces and professional discourse. Yet, despite this, women reporters continue documenting local injustices, often leading community-level reforms and holding local authorities accountable. Their perseverance demonstrates that even under repression, journalism can be an act of resistance.<\/p>\n

The Regulatory Onslaught: Press Freedom by Exception<\/p>\n

India\u2019s new Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Rules add another layer of pressure. Media bodies in New Delhi, including the Editors Guild of India, warn that the rules compromise journalistic work by placing reporters under heavy consent and data-processing obligations. The government claims journalists are exempt. The rules say otherwise.<\/p>\n

Without protective legal language, journalists face compliance burdens that can stall investigations. They risk punitive action for simply handling public-interest data. This is a direct hit on India\u2019s already shrinking transparency regime, where the Right to Information Act has been systematically weakened.<\/p>\n

This regulatory tightening reflects a familiar technique in authoritarian governance: legal suffocation. Laws appear neutral, but their design and application target dissenting voices.<\/p>\n

Press freedom in IIOJK is not a local issue. It is a regional stability issue. When information is controlled, democratic accountability collapses. When accountability collapses, human rights violations escalate. And when violations escalate, the risk of conflict intensifies.<\/p>\n

Information blackouts and press crackdowns heighten mistrust between India and Pakistan. They obstruct human rights monitoring. They weaken diplomatic engagement. They undermine India\u2019s global image as a democracy.<\/p>\n

Young journalists in IIOJK need structural support, fellowships, cross-border mentorships, safety mechanisms and international visibility. Global media bodies, human rights organisations and academic institutions must recognise that journalism in Kashmir is not merely under pressure; it is under attack. India\u2019s media repression in IIOJK contributes to democratic backsliding, norm erosion and authoritarian consolidation, trends watched closely by global institutions.<\/p>\n

The world cannot treat this crisis as an internal affair. Press freedom is a global norm, protected under international human rights law. When a state systematically destroys journalism, it is engaging in norm-breaking behaviour that threatens the global information order.<\/p>\n

The future of journalism in IIOJK depends on whether the world decides to look away or speak up.<\/p>\n

\"\"The author is the head of the research and human rights department of Kashmir Institute of International Relations (KIIR). She can be contacted at the following email address: mehr_dua@yahoo.com, X @MHHRsays<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The crisis unfolding in Indian-illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) is not only political or territorial, it is also a war on truth. Over the past decade, the Modi regime has turned the region into a controlled information zone where journalism survives only under fear, coercion and relentless scrutiny. What was once a vibrant press …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":188466,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-188465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/assests\/2025\/11\/Screenshot_14-min-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188465"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":188472,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188465\/revisions\/188472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}