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Australia's dubious common ground with India

  • 13 November 2008
'Respected columnist', began the email. 'In view of the recent press gag and the subsequent developments of harassment and intimidation, you are requested to avoid anything that can complicate the problem for the newspaper. We will prefer these days some off beat and apolitical subjects till the crisis are over. Hope you co-operate.' Just prior to this email I had, in true Gen Y style, lol’d (internet slang for laughing out loud) at my Indian-journalist-friend after reading that the Government of India had requested that all newspapers on their side of Kashmir 'refrain from the publication of objectionable and seditious material'. Watch your step, I had advised with all the wisdom of my 24 years, lol. Then came the email from the editor of the Kashmir-based English language daily he writes for. This was followed by a visit from local police to the Greater Kashmir printing press during which the inquisitive officers refused to reveal their names, the name of the police station they were from, or the purpose of their evening rendezvous. On 7 November, all copies of the newspaper and its Urdu sister publication, Kashmir Uzma, were seized from vendors in the state capital of Srinagar. Having lived in Australia (this wide, brown, and of course, democratic land of ours) for most of my life, I had not previously been confronted by a press gag. As I hammered out university newspaper articles championing freedom from this, and justice for that, it did not occur to me to consider what I might do if the government suddenly told me to shut up, or else. Press freedom is something I have always taken for granted. I was, therefore, somewhat surprised to learn that Australia ranked only 28th in the 2008 annual Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Press Freedom Index, behind New Zealand (7th), the UK (23rd) and Canada (13th). The report went so far as to describe sentences provided for under Australia’s anti-terror laws as 'simply outrageous'; journalists interviewing a person suspected of terrorism risk up to five years in jail. Recently there has been a lot of fuss made over the emergence of India as a major world power and what this means for Australia. A stronger partnership, increased economic ties, and a more dynamic and active relationship have been promoted on both sides of the Indian Ocean. It is not just cricket and a shared love of uranium that connects
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