What do Indian scribes have in common with journalists in Syria and Somalia?
What does India have in common with Syria - the world's most dangerous place to be a journalist? Or for that matter, with Somalia and Afghanistan?
All of these countries failed to furnish details on investigations into murders of journalists for UNESCO's 2014 bi-annual impunity report.
Though it wasn't mandatory for India to share the information, the fact is that the largest democracy and the world's fastest growing major economy has a terrible record of protecting its journalists.
Reporting on corruption can literally get you murdered in this country, a chilling Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) report released today finds out. And journalists from rural and remote parts are a lot more vulnerable than their counterparts in bigger cities.
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| India has spent eight long years on CPJ's Global Impunity index - the equivalent of the media safety hall of shame. |
Since 1992, CPJ has documented 27 cases of hacks killed for the stories they were pursuing. More than half of these men (and they are all men) covered corruption regularly as a beat. CPJ did not find records of a single conviction in any of these cases. In the one case that had the possibility of a conviction, the accused was let off after an appeal.
Other international organisations have also reported on just how unsafe it is to be a reporter in India. Reporters Without Borders describes India as Asia's "deadliest country" for media personnel - ahead of both Pakistan and Afghanistan. It ranked India as a poor 133rd on a list of 180 countries in its 2016 World Freedom Index.
The International Federation of Journalists says India is the seventh deadliest country for journalists, with nearly a hundred of them killed since 1990.
India still doesn't collect specific information on violence against journalists, but the government stated in Parliament earlier this year that 114 cases of attacks on media persons were registered in 2014. Of all the Indian states, Uttar Pradesh is the deadliest for journalists. Over 70 per cent of all recorded attacks on journalists in 2014 took place there.
Not surprisingly - there hasn't been one conviction. When CPJ probed the killings in Uttar Pradesh, it found: "In almost all cases, investigations remain stalled or police have not brought charges against the suspected attackers."
A toll-free helpline started by the state in January 2016 isn't even on the radar for many journalists. "Most local journalists with whom we spoke and who work in the state's smaller towns had not heard of the service," say the authors of the CPJ report. India has spent eight long years on CPJ's Global Impunity index - the equivalent of the media safety hall of shame.
The index lists countries where killers of journalists go scot-free. Fourteenth on the list, India has its neighbours Pakistan and Bangladesh for company.
Colombia exited the Impunity Index in 2015 - after featuring on it since 2008. The country has a slew of protection measures for journalists under threat which can literally help keep them alive as they work - bulletproof vests, police bodyguards and even the option to relocate if things continue to be dangerous.
Though Colombia's programme is far from perfect, India could do well by learning from its failures and successes. A Global Impunity Index is one international list India doesn't want to be on.
For the world to take its global ambitions seriously, the country needs to demonstrate how serious it is about preserving the human rights of those who risk their lives to keep corruption in check.