This paper traces the sharp decline of press freedom in India under the Modi government (2014–2025), situating it within a broader democratic backslide marked by surveillance, censorship, impunity, and institutional capture. Drawing on global indices such as RSF’s World Press Freedom Index, CPJ’s Impunity Index, and the Atlas of Impunity, it highlights how violence against journalists, draconian laws like the UAPA, ownership consolidation, internet shutdowns, and defamation SLAPPs have reshaped India’s media landscape. Through emblematic cases—from the murders of Gauri Lankesh and Shujaat Bukhari to the arrests of Aasif Sultan, Fahad Shah, and Prabir Purkayastha, as well as the harassment of comedians like Munawar Faruqui—the study shows how dissent is criminalized. The paper also examines digital censorship, such as the blocking of BBC’s Modi documentary, Poonam Agarwal’s YouTube ban, and Ajit Anjum’s harassment, alongside the NewsClick raids and Elon Musk’s lawsuit against India’s censorship regime. It argues that the erosion of press freedom mirrors larger systemic crises of impunity, corporate-state nexus, and authoritarian populism, threatening not only media independence but India’s democratic ethos itself.
Category Archives: Journal
CONVERGENCE TO PRAXIS
This journal tries to demolish the administrative boundaries of academic disciplinary technology by amalgamating all the so-called “subjects” by condemning the objectification, subjectification and subjection.
It strives to reach the vanishing point of theory and praxis. Thus, instead of so-called “inter-disciplinary studies”, it emphasizes on the convergence of earthian knowledges and praxiologies. The journal attempts to achieve this end by means of dialogue without manipulation in the context of a participatory, local-resource based, low-energy efficient, small-scale, self-reliant, partyless, moneyless, decentralized democracy. As this journal is against the academiocratic elitism and patron-client relationship, it maintains the Copyleft Writers’ Movement and follows the Creative Commons License.
Shut Down Arms Factories to Stop Wars: Dismantling the Global War Profiteering Machine
The global arms industry—worth nearly $95 billion annually—is both a driver of human suffering and a silent engine of ecological collapse. Wars claim over 2,000 lives daily, displace millions, and shatter societies, while leaving behind poisoned aquifers, fragmented habitats, and toxic soils contaminated by unexploded ordnance and chemical residues. Arms manufacturers like Lockheed Martin and RTX thrive on this devastation, rewarded by soaring stock prices whenever conflict erupts, while shadowy brokers such as Viktor Bout and Aboubakar Hima profit from prolonging wars that ravage both communities and ecosystems. India exemplifies this global dilemma, channeling vast sums into defense while underfunding water, health, education, and environmental resilience. The campaign “Shut Down Arms Factories to Stop Wars” demands dismantling this war economy by halting weapons production, regulating brokers with ecological due diligence, mandating transparency of emissions and toxic legacies, and reallocating resources toward human well-being and planetary stewardship. Peace cannot be defined as the mere absence of war—it must mean fertile soils, clean water, healthy bodies, and thriving ecosystems within Earth’s limits. Yet even the green transition carries risks: critical mineral extraction for renewables, if pursued without justice, threatens to replicate the violence and exploitation of fossil fuel regimes. A just future requires confronting militarism, curbing extractivism, and investing in life over destruction. Only by linking disarmament with ecological restoration can humanity secure genuine peace within planetary boundaries.
Endangered Gender: Half The Sky Under The BJP’s Patriarchal Misogyny
India’s gender inequality persists as a contradiction between constitutional promises and patriarchal realities, evidenced by its 2025 Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI) rank of 131 out of 148 countries (score: 0.644). This article examines three core issues—educational disparities, women’s malnutrition, and female foeticide—challenging overstated claims of literacy parity (98% women vs. 99% men). Drawing on Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2023–24, it reveals a 12.6-point literacy gap (87.2% men vs. 74.6% women), malnutrition’s dual burden (18.7% underweight, 24% overweight per NFHS-5), and ~307,000 annual foeticides (2013–2017) skewing sex ratios (108.9). These intersect with low economic participation (28.3%) and caste divides, worsened by data opacity (jugupsā). Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach frames these as entitlement failures, while feminist intersectionality highlights caste and regional disparities. Comparisons with Bangladesh, Sweden, and Pakistan underscore policy gaps. The dystopian film Matrubhoomi (2003) illustrates gender imbalance’s consequences. Recommendations emphasize targeted literacy drives, nutrition fortification, foeticide enforcement, and transparent data to foster equity.
Fortifying India: Reading Between the Lines of the 2025 Defence Budget
In the shadow of escalating geopolitical tensions, India’s defense strategy for the fiscal year 2025-26, with a staggering Rs 681,210 crore budget (13.45% of the Union Budget), perpetuates a militaristic paradigm that prioritizes arms over human and ecological well-being. This allocation, blending indigenous manufacturing (e.g., Tejas, BrahMos) with heavy reliance on imports (e.g., Rafale, S-400), is marred by historical corruption scandals (Bofors, Coffin, Rafale) and shrouded covert operations via entities like the Special Frontier Force (SFF) and Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). Meanwhile, external debt servicing at USD 682.2 billion (19.2% of GDP) drains fiscal resources, exacerbating economic distress marked by bankruptcies, rising poverty, and wealth concentration among crony elites. Findings reveal that this defense-centric approach ignores profound ecological devastation, agrarian crises, and hunger epidemics, diverting public taxes to fuel a predatory military-industrial complex. War-mongering, akin to manufactured religious pogroms by the current political executive, fosters a false nationalistic fervor, sustaining a debt-ridden global techno-economic system that benefits tycoons while neglecting climate resilience, public health, and equitable flourishing.
Of Size and Suffering: Challenging the Illusion of “Progress”
India’s emergence as the world’s fourth-largest economy masks deep ethical and structural crises. This article critiques the country’s development model, which prioritizes GDP growth while perpetuating informal labour, systemic inequality, environmental degradation, and authoritarian neoliberal governance. It highlights the disjunction between economic scale and human well-being, exposing how neoliberal globalization erodes local economies, social cohesion, and democratic participation. Persistent gender and social inequities, ecological injustices, and increasing external debt trap India in a cycle of “pre-debtor” capitalism, undermining sovereignty and welfare. Drawing on critical political economy, postcolonial theory, and alternative frameworks such as degrowth and localization, the article calls for transcending growth-centric paradigms to pursue justice, sustainability, and pluralistic development rooted in dignity and ecological balance.
The “Charitable” Sovereign: PM CARES, Philanthrocapitalism, and the Erosion of Democratic Accountability
The Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations (PM CARES) Fund, established in March 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, was designed as a citizen-driven mechanism for emergency relief. However, its formation and functioning reveal profound contradictions between its stated ideals and actual governance. This article critically examines PM CARES as an emblem of philanthrocapitalism, executive populism, and corporate-state entanglement. Drawing on theoretical frameworks such as Foucault’s governmentality, Agamben’s state of exception, Fraser’s critique of progressive neoliberalism, and Chatterjee’s political society, the analysis illustrates how PM CARES reconfigures welfare into a spectacle of personalized legitimacy, evading democratic accountability. The case of Mr. Ajay Piramal’s reported donations—alongside alleged regulatory favors and the questionable DHFL acquisition—demonstrates how philanthropy can become a strategic substitute for justice and a vehicle for crony capitalism. Ultimately, PM CARES signifies a broader ideological reconfiguration in India’s political economy: the transformation of crisis governance into a post-democratic regime characterized by moralized coercion, symbolic aid, and technocratic opacity.
Gandhi-Washed “Vaisnava” Capitalism: The Piramal Paradox Or Hypocrisy?
The article critiques Ajay Piramal’s business practices, particularly his acquisition of Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Limited (DHFL), alleging the possible dramaturgy of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Dharma to mask crony capitalism. It highlights allegations of financial misconduct, insider trading, environmental violations, and political shielding by the BJP, drawing parallels with broader systemic issues like the Adani-Hindenburg dispute. The piece contrasts Piramal’s actions with Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of trusteeship (with critical reservations) and austerity, arguing that his corporate social responsibility (CSR) and philanthropy are superficial, serving as “Gandhi-washing” to obscure profit-driven motives. It frames Piramal’s practices as emblematic of India’s crony-capitalist regime, questioning the integrity of regulatory bodies like SEBI and advocating for vigilance against corporate-political collusion, while noting that these claims remain under judicial scrutiny and are far from being conclusive/definitive. However, the same doesn’t stop one from analyzing the neoliberal face of capitalism in the contemporary India.
Demanding a Truth Commission from Indian Institutions Embedded in Untruth
In post-2014 India, the state’s strategic deployment of disinformation, judicial opacity, and media spectacle has rendered truth both criminalized and performative. This paper interrogates the paradox of demanding a Truth and Accountability Commission from institutions deeply embedded in untruth. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s critique of confession, Derrida’s concept of archive fever, Freud’s metaphor of the mystic pad, Arendt’s theorization of lying in politics, and Guattari’s notion of pseudology, we propose the “mystique pad” as an insurgent counter-archive. Anchored in the empirical landscape of electoral manipulation, SLAPP suits, RTI evasions, and media censorship in India (2014–2025), the paper posits that civil society’s imperative is no longer merely revelation—but memorialization. Truth, in this schema, is not the opposite of falsehood but its residue.
Sindoor, Strikes, and Silences: Unmasking the Theatre of War and Falsehood
The investigative report probes the April 22, 2025, Pahalgam attack and India’s May 7, 2025, Operation Sindoor, questioning lax security, the attackers’ 300-km escape, rapid photo leaks, ignored intelligence, and the attack’s convenient timing amid domestic crises. Echoing the 2018 Pulwama attack, they highlight recurring lapses and politicized narratives that stoke toxic nationalism to deflect governance failures like unemployment, poverty and inflation. Operation Sindoor, a military tri-service strike allegedly killing 80–100 terrorists in Pakistan/PAK, is criticized for its Hindu-centric name, “Sindoor,” which risks alienating India’s diverse population and signaling a Hindutva shift, challenging secular constitutional values secularism. Economic losses reached $3 billion, with unverified jet loss claims clouding transparency issues. The PM’s “24×7 on duty” claim, contradicted by his Pulwama absence, raises accountability concerns. An independent probe is demanded to uncover truth and curb crisis manipulation.
Crimson Civility: An Epistle on Sindoor, Civil Codes, and the Sanctity of Scars
This letter—framed in reverent satire and historical dismay—is addressed to the Hon’ble President of India, Supreme Custodian of Sanskar and Semiotics. It interrogates the symbolic glorification of sindoor as a sacred index of Hindu marital tradition, tracing its semiotic genealogy not to divine scripture alone, but to prehistoric violence and patriarchal subjugation, as hauntingly narrated in Parasuram’s Siddhinather Pralap. The letter juxtaposes this origin with contemporary attempts at cultural homogenization under the banner of Hindu Rashtra and the proposed Uniform Civil Code. By weaving in regional, textual, and ritual variations in sindoor’s usage across India and the diaspora, the writers raise a paradox: How can a nation legislate uniformity on a symbol so unevenly practiced and so deeply soaked—historically and metaphorically—in blood, ritual, and patriarchy? Through a blend of scholarly citations, epical references, and biting irony, this letter serves as both a cultural critique and an epistemic protest against symbolic violence dressed as civilizational virtue.
Once in a Blue Moon Academia 