As India turns 74, seldom has an Independence Day dawned amidst so much anxiety. A new virus imperils the lives of Indians and a hopelessly inadequate public health system offers little cause for confidence. There are fears that the economy could slow to its lowest rate of growth since 1947. Most troubling, though, is the enfeeblement of the institutions mandated to protect our democracy.

We in the media have felt the shocks of the crumbling edifice first hand. Between March 25 and May 31, at least 55 journalists in India “faced arrest, registration of FIRs, summons or show causes notices, physical assaults, alleged destruction of properties and threats for reportage on Covid-19 or exercising freedom of opinion and expression during the national lockdown”, a report by a rights research group notes. That number has since risen.

For Scroll.in, this has meant an FIR against our executive editor, Supriya Sharma, for a report about hunger in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency of Varanasi amidst the lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

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The attacks on the press are only one indication of the assaults on the liberties of Indians everywhere. This has been experienced most brutally by the residents of Kashmir, who continue to face a variety of horrific indignities just over a year after the very arrangements that had determined the territory’s accession to the Indian Union were altered unilaterally. Elsewhere, people who have campaigned against the religiously biased Citizenship Amendment Act have been taken into custody on flimsy grounds, while advocates for the rights of the marginalised have jailed for a far-fetched conspiracy.

Earlier this month, the prime minister took a leading role in a religious event designed to mock the secular values in the Constitution he has sworn to uphold.

All the while, the courts have proved uncharacteristically lethargic in considering petitions seeking to remedy the situation. As Princeton historian Gyan Prakash noted this week: “As someone who wrote a history of the Emergency, I can say that what’s happening in India now is much worse.”

Amidst the trepidation about India’s immediate future, Independence Day offers us the opportunity to reflect on the hard-fought gains of the past. It is an occasion to recall the determined struggles of thousands of brave women and men who earned us our freedoms – and to acknowledge that these liberties could be lost if we fail to protect them with the same ferocity.

On Independence Day, we at Scroll.in reiterate our resolve to play the watchdog role that the media has been accorded in our democracy. The assistance of engaged, supportive readers is vital for this task. We appeal to you to contribute to our Ground Reporting Fund to help us keep bring you the news that matters.

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As July begins, India continues to find itself in the middle of several crises all at once: 

• The coronavirus pandemic continues to rage, with more than 500,000 confirmed cases in India after adding 100,000 in just a week. 

• There may no longer be hundreds of thousands of people on the road walking home, but India’s migrant crisis has not gone anywhere as hunger and poverty threaten millions. 

• The economy is still teetering as industries struggle to reopen even as cases continue to rise. 

• And, on top of all that, June brought the first fatalities on the disputed India-China border in more than four decades, with 20 Indian soldiers and an undisclosed number of Chinese troops dead after a violent clash. 

Your support has helped our small team of reporters and editors find a way to cover each of these stories, allowing us to throw light on subjects that may not even find mention on India’s mainstream news outlets. 

In June, we brought you a whole week of dispatches in Supriya Sharma’s Varanasi Lockdown series, in which Scroll.in’s executive editor reported on the impact of the Covid-19 shutdown on one of India’s oldest cities and poorest regions.  

Sharma’s reporting on hunger in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency in fact led to an FIR by police. This was Scroll.in’s statement on the case: 

"Scroll.in stands by the article, which has been reported from the Prime Minister’s constituency. This FIR is an attempt to intimidate and silence independent journalism, reporting on conditions of vulnerable groups during the Covid-19 lockdown.”

There was also the Lockdown Hard Times series, featuring individual portraits of ordinary Indians from all across the economic spectrum – from sculptors in Tamil Nadu to momo vendors in Guwahati to the owner of a single-screen cinema in Mumbai. 

We continued to bring you coverage of the Coronavirus Crisis, with Arunabh Saikia writing about how Mizoram’s ethic of community service ensures no one goes hungry despite being in Lockdown 7.0 and Vijayta Lalwani recounting the nightmarish tale of patients and their families trying to find hospital beds in Delhi. 

On migrants, Ipsita Chakravarty wrote about the physical toll that walking home over hundreds of kilometres takes on your feet and Aarefa Johari reported on how Mumbai is now realising the importance of the workers who have all gone home.

Sruthisagar Yamunan has ensured that we do not lose sight of how the police is investigating the February Delhi violence with chargesheets claiming that Muslim protesters provoked the riots and the authorities using the draconian UAPA to keep people behind bars. 

Meanwhile, the Political Fix – our newsletter on Indian politics and policy which you can subscribe to here – broke down the violence on the disputed India-China border and whether India is moving towards a more protectionist economy. 

All of this has been made possible by your support for Scroll.in, for which we are truly grateful.

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Regards,
The Scroll.in team