[airocker]

For those judging Indian government through these comments should understand that majority of Indians are happy with the government and elections in India are as fair as in the USA :) . The ones who are unhappy with the government and feel disempowered are more motivated to post in a forum where someone would read their grievances.

[thealig]

The "majority" of Indians watch and read from a small set of media outlets, most of them biased pro-government news media which feed only news showing the Indian government and authorities in a positive light while completely leaving out their problems. Basically, news confirming their biases.

Critical journalism is pretty much marginal and niche - these outlets are fewer because there are very little incentives. There are a few like NDTV and Dainik bhaskar, who routinely face sanctions by governmental bodies for not sticking to the governmental narrative.

Unfortunately Indian society specially due to how educational systems are structured do not encourage any questioning of authority and unable to point out criticisms specially in public Easier to stay happier with blind acceptance of information when you barely know whats happening in detail beyond the governments successes.

Even the elections are not without fault, primarily in the working of the Election commission and how free and fair they are (specially in Kashmir) so I doubt your statement about fairness.

[throwaway_1928]

> There are a few like NDTV and Dainik bhaskar, who routinely face sanctions by governmental bodies for not sticking to the governmental narrative.

The founder of NDTV is a communist, his sister in law and her husband are members of the 'politburo' of one of the communist parties in India [1]. NDTV is effectively a mouthpiece of the left-wing Congress and Communist parties of India.

[1] https://www.freepressjournal.in/india/who-is-brinda-karat-al...

[thealig]

Think you're missing the point, its about a healthy environment where having multiple viewpoints (including criticism of the government regardless of ruling political coalition) are expressed through journalism and other media which is simply not present in india.

state and central governments have massive influence over what discourse is encouraged and it usually sways towards what their political agenda and inclinations are while opposing beliefs and ideas are sanctioned or put down though state apparatus (police forces , executive orders etc). free flow of information is suppressed when it doesnt favour certain viewpoints.

in a similar manner, blind deference towards the government is encouraged and criticism is punished, you can trace the track record of Indian government (sedition and anti national laws for examples) with this regard going back decades.

[throwaway_1928]

I agree with what you say about the importance of a free and independent media.

I am merely stating why some media outlets mentioned here might be motivated to question one type of government a lot more than another.

[ImPostingOnHN]

you say that in a manner suggesting that you think holding those political views is both inherently bad, and deserving of arbitrary punishment

[web108]

There is one thing common among Indian left-wingers and right-wingers. Both of them thinks the other wing is a frog-in-the-well.

[airocker]

And humans are wired to think they are better than most others: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20954785/

[thealig]

not really what i was trying to say, read the other reply in the thread. the political affiliations are not quite relevant (to some degree) as far as working and relationship between government and state apparatus and journalistic outlets are concerned.