In Modi’s India, journalists and opponents feel the pressure before the elections

NEW DELHI (AP) — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government are increasingly employing tough strategies to subdue political opponents and critics of his Hindu nationalist party.

The Modi government, which has been in power for a decade and could soon get five more, is reversing India’s decades of commitment to multiparty democracy and secularism.

His Bharatiya Janata Party has brought corruption charges against many members of its main rival, the Congress Party, although few convictions have been achieved. Dozens of politicians from other opposition parties are under investigation or in jail. And just last month, the Modi government froze Congress’s bank accounts for what it described as non-payment of taxes.

Modi’s government says the country’s investigative agencies are independent and its democratic institutions are robust, pointing to high turnout in recent elections, which gave a clear mandate to the BJP.

However, civil rights are under siege. Peaceful protests have been forcefully repressed. The press, once free and diverse, is threatened. Violence against the Muslim minority is on the rise. And the country’s judiciary is increasingly aligned with the executive.

To better understand how Modi is transforming the country and what is at stake in the elections that begin April 19 and last until June 1, AP spoke with a lawyer, a journalist and an opposition politician.

These are their stories:

Mihir Desai has fought for the civil liberties and human rights of India’s most disadvantaged communities, such as the poor and Muslims, for almost four decades.

The 65-year-old lawyer from India’s financial capital, Mumbai, is now working on one of the most high-profile cases of his career—and the country—defending a dozen political activists, journalists and lawyers imprisoned in 2018 on charges of who were planning to overthrow the Modi government. The accusations, he claims, are baseless, simply one of the government’s blatant and all-too-frequent efforts to silence critics.

One of the defendants in the case, a Jesuit priest and veteran civil rights activist, died at age 84 after about nine months in detention. The other defendants remain in prison, held by anti-terrorism laws that rarely result in convictions.

“First the authorities made up a theory that they were planning to kill Modi. Now they accuse them of being terrorist sympathizers,” he said.

Desai believes the goal is to send a message to everyone who thinks of criticizing.

According to digital forensics experts from US-based firm Arsenal Consulting, the Indian government hacked into the computers of some of the accused and planted files that were later used as evidence against them.

For Desai, this shows that the Modi government has “instrumentalized” the country’s previously independent investigative agencies.

He sees threats to democracy everywhere. Last year, the government removed the country’s highest judge as one of three people who appoint commissioners who oversee elections. The other two are Modi and the leader of the opposition in parliament. Now one of Modi’s ministers has a vote in the process, giving the ruling party a 2-1 majority.

“It is a death foretold for free and fair elections,” Desai said.

Waheed-Ur-Rehman Para, 35, was long considered an ally of the Indian government’s interests in Kashmir. He worked with young people in the semi-autonomous, Muslim-majority region and spoke to them about the advantages of accepting India and its democratic institutions versus seeking independence or a merger with Pakistan.

But in early 2018, the Modi government began to view Para with suspicion for alleged connections to anti-India separatists. Since then he has been jailed twice: in 2019 on suspicions that he and other political opponents could stoke protests and in 2020, accused of supporting armed groups, something he denies.

The allegations perplexed Para, whose People’s Democratic Party once ruled Kashmir in alliance with Modi’s party.

But he believes the motivation was clear: “I was arrested to force me to support the government’s 2019 decision,” he said, alluding to a persecution of the resistance in Kashmir after the region’s semi-autonomous status was revoked.

Modi’s government says the change was necessary to further integrate the disputed region into India and foster economic development there.

After his arrest in 2020, Para remained in prison for almost two years, often alone, and was subjected to “abusive interrogations,” according to United Nations experts.

“My crime was that I wanted the integration of Kashmir, but not at gunpoint,” said Para, who is running in the upcoming elections to represent Kashmir’s main city.

Para sees his own situation within the broader context of the Modi government’s efforts to silence perceived rivals, especially those with ties to Muslims, who make up 14% of India’s population.

“It is a huge ethical question (…) that the largest democracy in the world cannot assimilate, nor offer dignity to the smallest group of its population,” he said.

The campaign to turn once secular India into a Hindu republic might help Modi win elections in the short term, Para said, but something much bigger will be lost.

“It jeopardizes the whole idea of ​​diversity in this country,” he said.

Freelance journalist Sidhique Kappan was detained in October 2020 while trying to report on a government crackdown in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, governed by Modi’s party.

For days, authorities had tried to contain protests and scandal over a macabre rape case. Those accused of the crime were four Hindu men from a higher caste, while the victim belonged to the Dalit community, the most humble in the Indian hierarchy.

Kappan, 44, who is Muslim, was arrested and jailed before even arriving at the scene of the crime, accused of planning to incite violence. After two years in prison, his case reached the Indian Supreme Court in 2022. He was soon granted bail, although the case against him remains open.

His case is not unique, and he says it reflects how India is becoming increasingly unsafe for journalists. Under intense pressure from the state, many Indian media have become more complacent and defend the government’s measures.

“Those who have tried to be independent have found themselves under constant attack from the government,” he said.

For example, foreign journalists are prohibited from reporting in Kashmir. The same is true of the northeastern Indian state of Manipur, mired in ethnic violence for almost a year.

Television news is increasingly dominated by networks that defend the government’s Hindu nationalist strategy, such as a new citizenship law that excludes Muslim migrants. Some independent television stations have temporarily closed, and newspapers that publish articles critical of Modi’s agenda find that government advertising, a major source of revenue, is rapidly disappearing.

Last year, the BBC’s offices in India were raided for tax irregularities just days after the network aired a documentary critical of Modi.

Activist group Reporters Without Borders ranks India 161st on its global list of countries’ press freedoms.

Kappan said he has barely been able to cover news since his arrest. The trial keeps him busy and requires him to travel to a courthouse hundreds of miles away every two weeks. The time and money the process requires has made it more difficult for him to support his wife and three children, Jappan said.

“It is affecting their education, their mental health,” he said.

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Associated Press writers Piyush Nagpal and Subramoney Iyer in Kerala, India, contributed to this report.