This cautionary message has become more pertinent now when the freedom of the media and citizens’ freedom of expression – which is the life breath of democracy – have come under new kinds of threat.

These threats have made democracy-lovers wonder if an undeclared Emergency is now at work in India. Without overt press censorship, the government is trying to muzzle and manipulate the working of the media. Using a combination of the lure of money-power, and the fear of administrative power, it is making many in the Indian media bend. And it’s not just a few who are actually crawling. Along with subtle and not-so-subtle ways of coercing the media, the government is also misusing – and hence weakening – the institutions of democracy. Even the judiciary is feeling the heat.