Ethno-Nationalist Drivers of the Indian Media Truth-Telling Crisis

India’s specific journalism crisis comes amid the rise of ethno-nationalist politics, whereby mainstream journalism has demonstrated increasing amenability towards ideological agenda-setting around issues that suit the majoritarian politics of Hindutva ("Hinduness"). We explore the shift in terms of a crisis of truth-telling and locate this peculiar Indian variety of post-truth politics within the institutional context of media capture. We trace Indian journalism’s explicit connection to truth-telling in colonial resistance and national liberation and then focus on the gradual alignment between the mainstream national press and the BJP government, the democratic pulls and pressures until the significant shift since 2014, wherein extreme vilification of Muslim minorities began to appear in national media narratives. This shift occurred after the political ascendance of Hindutva, and we demonstrate the shift through the coverage of the Babri mosque demolition and subsequent verdict. We also draw an in-depth picture of the changes within journalism, and highlight that besides coercion, there is also hyper-collusion with segments of the press and the regime, whereby the press ceases to function as a macro-institution of public accountability and becomes an arena for not just misinformation but also active subordination of constitutional values.