A broken white banner, a leaflet and a dusty brown carton lie on the floor, amid other old things. The photos doing the rounds of the internet since the alleged blocking of the website of The Kashmir Walla (a Kashmiri news outlet), stand testament to the feelings of its reporters.
The rooms look desolate despite all the objects lying around, the walls appear bare despite all the old yellow news clippings papered on to them. It looks as if someone or something important has left the room. It has, and its name is press freedom.
“An independent press is vital for the robust functioning of a democratic republic,” the Supreme Court had said in April this year, as it set aside a telecast ban imposed by the Union Government on Malayalam news channel MediaOne.
Less than five months later, a statement circulated by The Kashmir Walla staff read:
“For the past 18 months, however, we’ve lived a horrifying nightmare...On Saturday, August 19, 2023, we woke up to another deadly blow of finding access to our website and social media accounts blocked.
When we contacted our server provider on Saturday morning to ask why thekashmirwalla.com was inaccessible, they informed us that our website has been blocked in India by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology under the IT Act, 2000.”