On 3 January, the body of Mukesh Chandrakar, a journalist in the Bastar region of India’s Chhattisgarh state, was found in a septic tank, bearing signs that he had been brutally killed. He had been missing for two days. Investigations into the case indicate that his murder is linked to his reporting for a national news channel about corruption in a road construction project. The main accused in the case is the project contractor, who also happens to be Mukesh’s cousin. 

In 2011, Jyotirmoy Dey,  a crimes and investigations editor for  a newspaper in Mumbai who had written extensively on the city’s underworld, was shot dead  by armed men on a motorcycle. In 2016, Rajdeo Ranjan, a journalist in Siwan district in Bihar, was gunned down by assailants on motorcycles. In 2017, Gauri Lankesh, the editor of a Kannada language newspaper who was a vocal critic of right-wing politics, was shot dead outside her home in Bengaluru. 

Over the years, despite calls by media bodies for better protections, the risks for media workers have not reduced. The risks are greater for journalists like Chandrakar and Ranjan, who work in small towns and districts, who are less visible and have less access to support than their counterparts in big cities.   

In this episode of State of Southasia, Priyanka Dubey, the journalist who reported on Ranjan’s murder in 2016 speaks to Nayantara Narayanan about the precarities of journalism in India’s hinterlands.

Himal’s podcasts bring you the best conversations on Southasia. Become a paying Patron for just USD 5/ month to support our work: bit.ly/support-himal

Further reading from Himal’s archives:

State of Southasia #05: Laxmi Murthy on journalism in crisis across Southasia

Rana Ayyub on the dangers of doing journalism in India

The political economy of reporting on the War on Terror in the

Afghanistan–Pakistan borderlands

Keeping journalism alive in Kashmir

The crisis in Pakistani journalism

Letter from Myanmar: Journalism under attack

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