India's democracy has always been less than perfect and its media has tended to reflect those blemishes, but today we are at a particularly dangerous moment in the life of both.We are today at an inflexion point from there will be no deliverance of the kind India witnessed in 1977 when Indira Gandhi was booted out of power after she had imposed a two year state of emergency. The undeclared and all pervasive emergency today is not the product of the whims or insecurities of one leader but marks the culmination of 'Project Hindutva' which has been in the works since 1925. What has accelerated the inexorable slide of democracy into imminent oblivion is that a large section of the media has amalgamated itself with the rulers and is doing all it can to amplify the hate, bigotry and otherisation unleashed by the Sanghis. Targeting of the minorities, particularly the Muslims is an integral part of the Hindutva agenda and is being enabled in no small measure by these purported journalists. Another large section of the media is unwilling to use the freedom it still has to counter false narratives, virtual pogroms and atrocities being dished out by the ruling dispensation for fear of reprisals by way of arbitrary arrests or midnight knocks from the ED, CBI, NIA, CBDT and police.
