India Falls to 157 in World Press Freedom Index — Report Specifically Flags Islamophobia in Media
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May 1, 2026
India dropped to 157th place out of 180 countries in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index, released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on World Press Freedom Day. The country now ranks below Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, all its neighbors, on this metric. India’s ranking has been in consistent decline over the past decade, but the 2026 edition was notable for a specific finding: the report explicitly flagged growing Islamophobia in Indian media narratives as a structural concern. It says that Proponents of Hindutva, the nationalist ideology of the Hindu far right, call for popular revenge against critics branded as “traitors” and “anti-national”. Terrifying coordinated campaigns of hatred and calls for murder are conducted on social media, campaigns especially violent when they target women journalists, whose personal data is divulged. The situation is also very worrisome for journalists covering environmental topics or news in Kashmir, where reporters are often harassed by police and paramilitaries, with some being subjected to so-called “provisional” detention for several years. https://rsf.org/en/country/india
RSF cited three primary drivers of India’s poor showing: rising violence against journalists, highly concentrated media ownership in the hands of politically aligned business groups, and an increasingly overt political alignment in coverage. Independent digital news platforms that have attempted to fill the gap have faced sedition charges, tax raids, and licensing pressures.
The Islamophobia finding is significant for the broader conversation on minority rights. Mainstream broadcast media in India have played a documented role in amplifying anti-Muslim narratives from prime-time debates targeting Muslim practices to coverage of demolitions and arrests that often reproduces the state’s framing uncritically. When this is flagged not by advocacy groups but by an internationally recognized press freedom watchdog, it enters a different register of accountability.
Press freedom is not merely an abstract democratic value; it is a direct determinant of whether their experiences are recorded, contextualized, and heard for Indians, Indian Muslims and internationally.
If the media ecosystem itself is infected with Islamophobia, who is left to document what is being done to India’s Muslim minority, and will anyone believe it when they do?
Source: The Wire — India at 157 in RSF Press Freedom Index
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