In this year’s National Press Day which was observed a few days ago, a distinct aura of despondency was very much readable on the faces of the members the fourth estate. The feeling is cent percent genuine and emanates directly from the heart. Powerlessness and insecurity is  overwhelming and the only wish perhaps is that the injustice which is now a non-stop phenomenon across the country comes to an end immediately. The profession has never been easy with hazards the constant companions, but not of the degree experienced at the present moment. There was a time when attacks on journalists were few and far between and a single case captured national attention with ripples persisting months and even years after the incident and the issue becoming a parliamentary discussion. It’s far from so nowadays and with wrongdoings becoming routine affairs, there is a strange apathy in paying due importance to the cases, both by the common people in general and the administration in particular, through whom the chain for delivering justice actually starts.

Journalism was never a bed of roses and it is only those who get triggered by the idealism of doing something for the society through narration of ‘facts as they are’ choose it. The issue of safety of journalists in the country has been debated and there is a general consensus that it suffers from the tendency of being compromised, irrespective of regimes. But a new feature that has been added in very recent years is the impunity from crimes being committed against journalists and it has  become the unwritten law that chances of getting justice is 10 % and escaping scot-free 90 %. The justice mitigation mechanism has been gripped with such inactiveness that it’s natural for the perpetrators to get emboldened. A recent UNESCO Director General’s report has mentioned that there were 39 killings of journalists in India since 2006, of which 22 alone have taken place since 2014. No wonder, this has bestowed India the status of the sixth most dangerous country in the world for journalists. The report which comes every two year has used strong words: Impunity to the perpetrators of crime against journalists is a violation of human rights, and India has an international obligation in this regard. It is to be seen how much effect it is going to have on the stakeholders in the country who are constitutionally mandated to ensure justice to journalists.

If the practice or rather a rule now of turning a blind eye to these crimes continues, it would weaken further one of the foundational pillars of the largest democracy in the world and the effects will spare none.