N. Ram’s voice cuts through India’s media haze

N. Ram, the grizzled director of The Hindu group, sat across from Stephen Sackur on BBC’s HARDtalk, and his words felt like a spotlight on a dimming stage. “Independent journalists face intimidation,” he said, his tone steady, unpacking a media landscape where pressure’s a daily guest. I can see him—decades in the game, from Bofors scoops to Pegasus pleas—calling out the squeeze on voices that dare to bite. Corporate ownership, he argued, isn’t just a business shift; it’s a chokehold on press freedom, turning newsrooms into echo chambers for the powerful.

He didn’t flinch on surveillance either. “Illegal Pegasus spyware hit journalists, activists, politicians,” Ram told Sackur, a nod to his own Supreme Court fight for a probe. It’s personal—500 journalists dead chasing Covid truth, he said, while X posts mourn India’s slide to 159 on the World Press Freedom Index. Intimidation’s shadow looms—Rana Ayyub’s hounding, NDTV’s Adani takeover—yet Ram sees defiance in digital corners. “The government exaggerates fake news to control,” he jabbed, a veteran’s barb at Modi’s IT rules cloaked as oversight.

This isn’t abstract—it’s India’s pulse. Ram’s critique stings because it’s lived: Emergency’s autocracy under Indira Gandhi, now a new flavor with agencies like the ED on dissent’s tail. “Elected leaders can turn authoritarian,” he warned, a history lesson for today. I picture a Chennai tea-seller, ears perked to a crackling radio, wondering if his daily paper’s still his own. Ram’s not preaching—he’s peeling back layers, daring us to spot the truth amid the noise. The media’s soul hangs in the balance, and he’s not letting it slip quietly.