Murder of an honest journalist, who is responsible for this situation in the country?
Prabha Gupta January 5,2025
In 1986, a Colombian journalist named Guillermo Cano Isaza was shot dead outside his office. Isaza was the editor of a newspaper called ‘El Espectador’. Isaza was murdered in Bogota, the largest, busiest and most economical city of Colombia. Hired assassins were used to kill him. The whole of Colombia knew that Isaza was constantly engaged in ‘exposing’ the drug cartels of Colombia through his newspaper. His death was the price of his indomitable courage. The drug mafia was uncomfortable with the reports/news published in El Espectador and one day killed this courageous journalist. When the pain of the mafia did not go away even after the murder of Guillermo Cano, 3 years later the office of El Espectador newspaper was blown up with a bomb. When a statue was installed in memory of Isaza in 1987, it was also broken. His statue was rebuilt, but all these incidents showed how much damage Guillermo Cano Isaza had caused to the drug mafia through his newspaper El Espectador. It also showed that an honest journalist and a tough newspaper, or tough reporting channels can prove to be more dangerous than any weapon, especially for those whose life progresses only through corruption or for whom corruption is also considered a virtuous behavior.
In 1997, UNESCO established the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize in honor of Guillermo Cano. In the ‘Democracy Index’ released by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), Colombia has been termed as a ‘flawed democracy’.
Today, the world’s largest democracy, India, has also been given the same rank i.e. ‘flawed democracy’ in this index. Like Guillermo Cano’s country, India is also one of those countries where journalists are constantly under threat of death. Like Cano, who knows how many journalists are murdered every year. The recent incident is related to Chhattisgarh journalist Mukesh Chandrakar. Mukesh had not come home since the night of January 1 and his body was found on January 3. A report is being mentioned behind Mukesh’s murder. This report was published by NDTV’s Nilesh Tripathi with the help of Mukesh. As soon as this report was published, which exposed the poor road construction, an investigation was started on the project. One of the 4 contractors involved in this project is Suresh Chandrakar. Mukesh’s body was found in the septic tank of the property of this contractor Suresh. Mukesh’s name came into the news for the first time in 2021 when a CRPF jawan was kidnapped by Naxalites in a Naxalite encounter in Bijapur. Mukesh and his colleagues had freed the CRPF jawan from the captivity of Naxalites after many attempts by continuously contacting the kidnappers. Today the same journalist has been murdered.
Murder of Gauri Lankesh
Mukesh is not the first journalist to be murdered. In recent years, there have been many such journalists who remained a thorn in the eyes of various governments and mafias, who were ultimately murdered. In 2017, Kannada journalist Gauri Lankesh was murdered when she was opening the door of her house. Coming from the Lingayat community, Gauri Lankesh used to publish a weekly paper named ‘Gauri Lankesh Patrika’ in which Hindutva ideology was openly criticized. Her paper also strongly criticized Narendra Modi and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Congress leaders were also criticized in it, but its basis was not communal. Lankesh used to openly say that “Modi bhakts and Hindutva brigade want to put me in jail”. Ultimately one day she was murdered. After his murder, Javed Akhtar tweeted, “Dabholkar, Pansare, Kalburgi and now Gauri Lankesh. If the same kind of people are being killed, then what kind of people are being killed?”
The question is, who was the one who had a problem with Lankesh?
I think those who were being harmed by Lankesh’s truth or whose interests were being affected must have killed him. This is what happens every time in the case of journalists. In 2020, Unnao journalist Shubham Mani Tripathi was also killed due to similar ‘interests’ being affected. Shubham was a journalist in a daily Hindi newspaper named ‘Kampu Mail’. He used to do excellent reporting for this newspaper. At the time of his murder, he was reporting on local land disputes. When Shubham was going home on his motorcycle, two attackers shot him dead. Shocked by this news, UNESCO Chief Audrey Azoulay said in her statement to the UN, “I condemn the murder of Shubham Mani Tripathi.” She urged the Indian government to take immediate action against those responsible for the murder. In 2019, about 60 journalists were murdered all over the world.
Countless such stories of tragedy are also widespread in India. In 2021, Buddhinath Jha of Bihar was burnt to death because he was reporting against fake clinics. In 2021 itself, Andhra Pradesh journalist Chenna Kesavalu was killed by a policeman because the journalist had discovered the ‘nexus’ between the policeman and a local gutka manufacturer. His truth was revealed to the world.
According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), more than half of the 28 journalists killed since Narendra Modi came to power in 2014 were killed while exposing corruption in agriculture, illegal mining, land disputes, refineries and the sand mafia.
The first victim was Jagendra Singh, a freelancer. He died of severe burns during a police raid in 2015. He was allegedly burnt to death at the behest of a then Uttar Pradesh minister. In 2016, Jan Sandesh Times reporter Karun Mishra was killed in Uttar Pradesh and Hindustan reporter Ranjan Rajdev was killed in Bihar. Both were killed as a result of their work on illegal mining activities. Also in Madhya Pradesh, reporter Sandeep Sharma, who covered the sand mafia for News World, a local TV channel, was deliberately crushed to death by a dumper-truck in March 2018.
I have seen that the killers do involve ‘ruthlessness’ in the murder of journalists. It is horrific violence when 4-5 people reach a journalist to kill him, and fire a lot of bullets. They are shot multiple times in the head and sometimes burnt alive. From the way they are killed it can be assumed that the killers come with the intention of ensuring that the truth does not come out in any way.
The kind of revenge taken against Guillermo Cano and his organization, almost the same level of violence and stubbornness is shown against every journalist in the world. It is certain that the interests of some people are so deeply and deeply affected by journalists that the killers are not happy with just killing them. The killers want to send a cruel ‘message’ so that no other journalist can dare to do such a thing.
The case of Mukesh Chandrakar has once again shown that the condition of journalists in India is very delicate. The threat to their lives is constantly increasing. On the one hand, continuous and repeated internet shutdowns and on the other hand, the use of laws like NSA and UAPA against journalists proves that the state is unable to tolerate journalists and clean means of information. According to the Global Expression Report-2024, India has been falling on the scale of ‘freedom of expression’ for 10 consecutive years since Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister. Since 2014, India has fallen 35 points in this report. Apart from this, a decline has been recorded in 24 out of the 25 parameters taken in the report. In this report released by the international think tank, Article 19, India’s situation has been described as ‘crisis’. In fact, India has been described as being in a worse situation than war-torn Palestine in terms of freedom of expression.
This is not the only organization that is showing India’s negative position, in the recently released ‘Global Press Freedom Index’ by the prestigious organization RSF, India has been ranked 159th. India is still behind countries like Turkey, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, which are ranked 158, 152 and 150.
Contrary to popular and fake news, this organization is not George Soros’s organization and neither does it have any problem with India. This organization has consultative status in the United Nations, UNESCO and the European Council.
Now India has joined the list of countries in the world where journalists are being killed in large numbers. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, between 2015 and 2024, the countries where the most journalists have been killed are Palestine, Mexico, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Philippines, followed by India. India’s condition is worse than any normal democracy in the world. Even in countries like Somalia, Pakistan and South Sudan, the conditions for journalists do not seem as bad as they are in India.
The figures are testifying that the poor condition of journalists and India’s poor position in the press freedom index has arisen only after the coming of the Modi government in 2014. Mukesh Chandrakar is a part and victim of that same plight. No one knows how many more such journalists will have to lose their lives.
The BJP government of Chhattisgarh cannot escape by showing Suresh Chandrakar’s (accused contractor) connection with Congress and accusing Congress. What is the reason that the people of the state are not afraid of the police, administration and the double engine government? Mukesh was not just exposing Suresh Chandrakar. His reporting included reports on the ‘education ambassadors’ of tribals yearning for wages and tribals forced to migrate, as well as poor road construction. This means that Mukesh Chandrakar was not just the target of a contractor belonging to a single party, there could be many such people behind him who are currently working under the state government. This work may have been done by a single person, but the number of people involved in it and the collusion needs to be investigated.
Walter Leland Cronkite was a famous American news presenter. There was a time when people trusted this journalist the most in America. Cronkite used to say that “Freedom of the press is not only important for democracy, it is democracy itself”. This is not an exaggeration but a truth, a reality. Independent journalism is the primary ‘qualification’ for democracy. Without it, only textbook democracies are created, which are often slowly eroded by elected representatives, and democracy remains only in name. Thomas Jefferson even said, “If I had to decide between having a government but no newspapers, or having newspapers but no government, I would without hesitation choose the latter.”
India’s 159th rank out of 180 countries in terms of press freedom is a declaration that democracy in India is only nominal. The death of soldiers of democracy like Mukesh Chandrakar is an opportunity to remember this declaration and, if possible, take action against it.
